COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 10, 2026. The Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded nine grants through its 2026 Challenge Programme, directing research funding toward fungal disease, cardiometabolic disease, soil health, and the physics of non-equilibrium biological systems. This year’s round marks the first time the programme has accepted lead applicants from outside Denmark, drawing in research teams from seven countries.
Nine Grants, Up To €80 Million, Six-Year Timelines
The nine awards total up to €80 million (DKK 600 million) combined. Each grant runs for as long as six years and funds long-term, cross-institutional collaboration rather than short-cycle studies. Individual awards go as high as €10 million (DKK 75 million) per project.
Soil Health & Non-Equilibrium Biology Anchor Two Themes
Four of the nine grants sit within planetary science and technology.
Under the soil health theme, one team plans to measure active microbial and faunal activity in soil and combine that data with biogeochemical process rates, aiming to build a framework that separates healthy soils from degraded ones. A second team is developing what it calls a “soil health hypersurface,” a computational model that links biodiversity science and soil science to predict multiple soil functions at once.
Under the non-equilibrium systems theme, one project examines how electric fields shape the cytoskeleton and cell behavior, working toward a toolkit for measuring cytoplasmic electricity with possible applications in tissue repair and cancer treatment. A second project is mapping how individual cell interactions produce organized tissue structure without centralized control, building what the researchers describe as an atlas of information flow relevant to tissue regeneration and disease.
Lene Oddershede, the Foundation’s Chief Scientific Officer for Planetary Science and Technology, described soil health and non-equilibrium biology as foundational scientific questions, noting that progress in these areas could open new directions in sustainable agriculture and inform future therapeutic approaches. She characterized the 2026 cohort as evidence that the programme’s European expansion is successfully pulling in strong research environments from across the continent.
Five Grants Target Fungal Disease & Cardiometabolic Health
The remaining five grants fund health-focused research.
Three projects concentrate on invasive fungal disease. One targets mycetoma, tracing the mechanisms behind the disease with the goal of producing new diagnostics and drug targets. A second is building what researchers are calling a fungal extracellular vesicle atlas, using multi-omics tools to study how these vesicles interact with human immune cells. A third focuses on the immune response inside the brain during cryptococcal infection, distinguishing which immune activity protects the brain from infection and which contributes to damage.
Two projects address cardiometabolic disease. One uses stem cells to grow the brain cells that regulate hunger and fullness, aiming to build a human-cell-based platform for discovering new oral anti-obesity treatments. The other is building a multi-organ microfluidic model to study how heart disease, fatty liver disease, and diabetes develop together, with the goal of enabling more personalized prevention strategies.
Flemming Konradsen, the Foundation’s Chief Scientific Officer for Health, said stronger diagnostics and treatments depend on a clearer picture of underlying disease biology, and that this year’s health-focused grants bring together specialized expertise across borders to close high-priority research gaps.
Programme Opens To Applicants Across Europe
The 2026 round is the first in which researchers based anywhere in Europe could apply as lead applicant, rather than only as a co-applicant alongside a Danish-based lead. Seven of the nine funded projects are now led by researchers outside Denmark, based in the Netherlands, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland. Every project still includes at least one Danish research partner, a requirement the Foundation has kept in place even as it broadens the applicant pool.
Because the Challenge Programme is built around problems that no single discipline or institution can solve alone, this year’s projects combine expertise spanning clinical research, microbiology, ecology, physics, engineering, and computational modeling.
2026 Challenge Programme Grant Recipients
Theme 1: Harnessing biology for climate-resilient and healthy soils
- Andreas Richter, University of Vienna, Austria – “ActiveSOIL: From Active Microbiomes to Soil Health” – up to DKK 75 million over 6 years
- Anna-Liise Laine, University of Helsinki, Finland – “Harnessing Biodiversity to Navigate Trade-offs and Enhance Soil Health” – up to DKK 75 million over 6 years
Theme 2: Unravelling the pathways of human invasive fungal diseases
- Wendy van de Sande, Erasmus University Medical Center, Netherlands – “UNRAVELMy: Unravelling host-pathogen pathways in mycetoma” – up to DKK 50.7 million over 6 years
- Attila Gacser, University of Szeged, Hungary – “CLEVER: Consortium Linking Extracellular Vesicle Efforts in Research of Invasive Fungal Infections” – up to DKK 49.7 million over 6 years
- Rebecca Drummond, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom – “UMBRA: Unlocking the mechanisms of brain-specific anti-fungal immunity” – up to DKK 49.7 million over 6 years
Theme 3: Modelling of human cardiometabolic diseases
- Matthew Gillum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark – “Knockout human ‘brains in a vat’ to discover novel anti-obesity medications” – up to DKK 75 million over 6 years
- Stephen Malin, Karolinska Institute, Sweden – “HICONIC: Human Integrative Cardiometabolic Organ Networks in Microfluidic iPSC Culture” – up to DKK 75 million over 6 years
Theme 4: Biological systems under non-equilibrium conditions
- Charlotte Aumeier, University of Geneva, Switzerland – “Cytoskeletal networks as active ionic liquids” – up to DKK 75 million over 6 years
- Amin Doostmohammadi, University of Copenhagen, Denmark – “ALIVE: Center for Active Living Matter, Information, Vitality, and Emergence” – up to DKK 74.9 million over 6 years
About The Challenge Programme
The Challenge Programme funds large, interdisciplinary research consortia working on societal and planetary problems too complex for a single institution to address. The Foundation sets new themes each year and runs an open competitive call around them. Each funded consortium includes two to four research groups, and at least one applicant group must sit at a Danish university, hospital, or non-profit research organization; co-applicants can be based anywhere in the world. The Foundation has run the programme since 2014.
About The Novo Nordisk Foundation
Founded in Denmark in 1924, the Novo Nordisk Foundation is an independent enterprise foundation focused on philanthropic goals tied to human health and planetary sustainability. Its work centers on advancing research and innovation in cardiometabolic and infectious disease, alongside supporting a broader green transition in society.