Thematic Initiatives
The Foundation establishes different thematic initiatives in collaboration with the University of Bergen, Haukeland University Hospital and other research institutions. Calls for applications are announced for some of the initiatives, while, for other initiatives, expert communities are invited to submit applications.
Important criteria are high international quality, further development of existing strengths, young promising researchers, team effort, triggering and strengthening research, independent evaluation and a multidisciplinary approach.
Researchers affiliated with Driv – the Centre for Women’s Health at the University of Bergen (UiB) aim to gain deeper insight into diseases that affect women and improve treatment options.
The Trond Mohn Research Foundation, in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bergen (UiB) and Helse Bergen (HB), has invested NOK 50 million in a research initiative on women’s health. The Trond Mohn Research Foundation is contributing up to NOK 24 million.
The Trond Mohn Research Foundation supports Haukeland University Hospital with NOK 25 million to establish a new research centre for psychotic disorders at Sandviken hospital. The centre’s aim is to improve treatment and reduce excess mortality among patients with psychotic disorders. The five-year research center is led by Professor Erik Johnsen and opened on 1 March 2024.
The new centre at UiB will find out how new technology in elderly care can provide a better life for elderly people living at home.
Why do we get sick? Researchers in Bergen want to find out. A collaboration between the University of Bergen and the Trond Mohn Research Foundation will study the causes of non-communicable diseases (for example cancer and cardiovascular diseases) and their prevalence in society.
The best possible treatment for the individual patient requires good examination tools to be able to assess whether the treatment actually works as intended.
We therefore want to investigate whether a new PET tracer together with PET/MR can provide information about the properties of the cancer tumor and how the tumor responds to a given treatment, in order to be able to assess the treatment effect in breast cancer patients.
For AI to gain broad acceptance in society, it is crucial that AI systems are reliable. Current AI systems lack scientific definitions and clear criteria for human values such as justice, responsibility, safety, privacy, and other important ethical aspects. There are also serious weaknesses in the legal frameworks within which AI systems operate, and issues with accuracy and robustness in the systems. To meet these challenges and strengthen high-quality AI research at UiB, Trond Mohn Foundation (TMS) and the University of Bergen (UiB) have developed the research program Trustworthy AI.
Diabetes is one of the most common diseases both in Norway and worldwide. Major advances have been made in diabetes research in recent years, but the current classification of diabetes is not precise enough, and we do not understand all the basic mechanisms of the disease. To support diabetes researcher Professor Pål Njølstad and his team, the Trond Mohn Foundation has joined forces with the University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital to provide NOK 52 million in funding over the next five years.
Understanding the brain is one of the greatest challenges to science, with brain disorders affecting one in three Europeans during their lifetime. The human brain is enormously complex, with more than 100 trillion different connections between neurons at tiny junctions called synapses. Neural circuits are made up of genetically distinct neuronal types, with unique structural and functional properties. Communication at synaptic junctions, rather than being hard-wired and fixed, is highly plastic and modifiable. The project is a collaboration between UiB and NTNU co-funded by the Trond Mohn Foundation.
Regenerative medicine is the common denominator for various treatments where cell therapy is used to repair or replace – i.e. regenerate – tissues or cells that have been damaged by disease or accidents. The Trond Mohn Foundation supports several research projects within the field in the Mohn Research Centre for Regenerative Medicine (MRCRM) at Helse Bergen.
The deep seas hide Earth’s most dynamic geology and contain our largest, and least known, ecosystem. The interaction between the sea, life and the seabed has been a controlling factor for the development of life as we know it. Knowledge of this interaction is fundamental to our understanding of how the planet — and the life on it — functions as an interconnected system. In 2021, UiB established the Centre for Deep Sea Research with support from the Trond Mohn Foundation.
The Trond Mohn Foundation has, together with the University of Bergen, Haukeland University Hospital and Stavanger University Hospital, established the research center CAMRIA (Combatting Anti-Microbial Resistance with Interdisciplinary Approaches).
The priority given by the Trond Mohn Foundation to support research on questions related to the coronavirus outbreak was a direct response to the Research Counsil of Norway’s urgen call for proposals spring 2020. Research was needed to to analyse and find new solutions.
The Bergen Cardiac research program focuses on unsolved and new aspects along the line of medical discoveries and inventions: preclinical discovery of possible new causative factors of atherosclerosis, early identification of sublinical cardiovascular disease and finally improved diagnostics and treatment of stable and acute heart disease.
The mission of Bergen Center for Brain Plasticity is to increase patient’s access to highly effective, concentrated treatment formats, and to use such formats as to elucidate multilevel mechanisms of brain plasticity to gain new insights.
The centre is built on an investment by the Norwegian Government to develop new methods for evaluating health interventions and establishing priorities in global health and the extension and expansion of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded project.
Trond Mohn has given PET-scanners to universities and university hospitals in Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø. The equipment is identical at all sites and it provides a unique opportunity for collaboration and research thar TMS wants to utilize through this research program together with Tromsø Research Foundation.
Antimicrobial resistance is widely recognized as a global challenge to public health by politicians and experts alike, paving the way for policies, strategies and action plans. Trond Mohn foundation has granted a total of 80 MNOK to four collaborative projects targeting antimicrobial resistance.
Project leaders Cecilie Gjerde and Kamal Mustafa will build jawbones from patients’ own stem cells. In a previous project, Gjerde has shown for the first time that this is possible and in this project the number of patients will therefore be increased through a clinical study. The project is a collaboration between UiB and TMS.
Trond Mohn Foundation (TMS) seeks to contribute to new knowledge about climate, drivers for climate change and peoples attitudes about these issues over time. TMS already contribute to finance several climate related projects, f.ex. Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit.
With financial support from Bergen Research Foundation, Helse Bergen health trust and the University of Bergen have jointly established a Medical Imaging and Visualization Centre with effect from 1 January 2017.
In collaboration with Haukeland University Hospital and the University of Bergen, the successful bioinformatics initiative has received new funding.
The University of Bergen has received funding from the Bergen Research Foundation to focus on nutrition research.
The Foundation has contributed to increasing research activity within the fields of criminal justice and police and prosecution law at the Faculty of Law through two projects that have been awarded a total of NOK 31 million by the Foundation.
Helse Bergen health trust, the University of Bergen and the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences all focus on developing expertise that will be applicable in relation to medical particle therapy. In order to further support the infrastructure initiative in particle therapy, the Foundation wishes to help to boost the institutions’ initiatives in this area.
The mathematics initiative is the Foundation’s first national programme. It is a pure mathematics initiative, and is intended to follow up the Research Council of Norway’s evaluation of mathematics in Norway.
In 2014, the Bergen Research Foundation received a donation earmarked for a research project on prostate cancer at the University of Bergen. In 2016, the foundation received another donation earmarked for the same project
In the period from 2005 to 2007, the Bergen Research Foundation supported an initiative intended to promote international cooperation, both at the University of Bergen and enabling university staff to go abroad, and the establishment of international networks, summer schools etc.
Since its establishment, the Foundation has focused on medicine, with emphasis on translational medicine. This initiative has had a wide-ranging reach, from recruitment/competence via infrastructure and project funding to internationalisation.
