The Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Postdoctoral Fellowships at MIT give early career researchers with ties to Denmark three funded years: two working with a research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then up to a year back at a Danish university or research institution. Projects must be interdisciplinary and have potential impact on human health or sustainability.
Applications close at 2pm Copenhagen time (1pm UK time) on 29 January 2027, with results announced in June 2027.
What the fellowship offers
Each fellowship is worth up to DKK 3.6 million over three years, around DKK 1.2 million a year. You spend the first two years at MIT, where a host Principal Investigator acts as your main research mentor, and then return to a Danish host institution for the final year to carry your work and connections back into Danish research. The Danish institution employs you and administers the grant for the whole fellowship, including your time in the US. The Foundation’s aim is to build scientific independence, international networks and lasting collaboration between Denmark and MIT.
Is dementia research eligible?
The call is open across the natural and technical sciences, biomedicine and biotechnology, from fundamental studies through to more applied projects. Neuroscience and neurodegeneration research can fit, as long as the project is genuinely interdisciplinary (for example, bringing biology together with engineering, computation or imaging) and your application spells out how the work could benefit human health. The Foundation is explicit that the potential health or sustainability application must be clearly explained.
Who can apply
The key requirement is a connection to Denmark. You need to show an association with the Danish educational system or research environment, such as Danish citizenship, a degree from a Danish university, or several years of research experience at a Danish institution. Without that link, this scheme isn’t open to you.
You must have been awarded your PhD in the natural or technical sciences, biomedicine or biotechnology within five years of the fellowship start date, with periods of leave not counted. Final-year PhD students can apply if their supervisor confirms they are expected to graduate before the fellowship begins.
Before you apply, you need a host PI at MIT who commits to mentoring you during your time there, and a confirmed Danish host institution with its own host PI who will employ you and administer the grant. You can’t have spent more than a year as a postdoc at MIT at the point you apply, though your stay there may already have started. If you are weighing up potential hosts, our postdoc’s guide to choosing the right lab is worth a read.
You can only hold one application at a time across the Foundation’s postdoctoral fellowship schemes, and you must hear the outcome before applying again. Partial co-funding from other sources is allowed, but it has to be declared in the application.
How to apply
Applications are submitted through the Foundation’s NORMA application system. Read the 2027 application guidelines and the call FAQ first, and find the contact details for grant and scientific enquiries on the Novo Nordisk Foundation website. The call runs every year, with the next round expected in September 2027, so if you can’t line up both hosts in time, it is worth planning for then.
For help building your case, see our piece on the characteristics of a great postdoctoral award application, and for an honest view of the move itself, read our blog on the trials and tribulations of doing an academic postdoc abroad.
Visit funding web page
(https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/grant/postdoctoral-fellowships-at-massachusetts-institute-of-technology-2026/)