Call for funding applications for research on long-term provision of knowledge
Four Swedish research funders hereby announce announced joint funding for a research programme entitled Long-Term Provision of Knowledge: Swedish Research and Higher Education in an International Context. These funders are the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte), the Swedish Research Council Formas, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) and the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR).
The funders have identified a shortage of independent, systematic information about how Swedish society provides itself with knowledge. This shortage concerns basic research, policy-relevant research and comparative studies alike. Research is needed not only on the universities’ higher education and research but also on the research that takes place in the business and public sectors.
This initiative is being implemented in the form of a research programme comprising a number of research projects unified by a coordinator. The aim is to address the issue vigorously and seek to bring about long-term effects in the research field concerned. The programme period is expected to be six years, with a possible extension to ten, and the funding to total some SEK 80 million.
Purposes of the research programme
- To develop research-based information about knowledge provision in society.
- To help bring about in-depth international research on the development, conditions and organisation of research and higher education.
- To develop, in an international and comparative perspective, both basic and socially relevant knowledge about the organisation of research and education.
- To find out how organised research and educational strategies are variously related to innovation and economic growth.
- To develop, on the basis of research results obtained, a platform for discussing the current situation and future development of knowledge provision.
- To contribute knowledge-based documentation for long-term decisions on the development, social benefit and organisation of research and higher education.
Structure of the research programme
The programme will have an initial time frame of six years, with a possible future option of extension of the total programme period to 10 years. Individual projects included in the programme will normally be of shorter duration. The initiative is based on a few key principles. The intention is for it to exert a long-term impact and to strengthen and/or establish research environments. The initiative should thus take forms that help to establish and develop environments with advanced researchers, databases and networks that permit world-class research. Accordingly, the programme will comprise a number of research groups, to be unified by a coordinator appointed by the funders. The coordinator is crucial for the implementation of the programme and, during it, will continuously convene the research groups and also be responsible for ensuring that, after its completion, the programme is summarised and that joint conclusions are identified.
Dissemination of the research results to various stakeholders is crucial, and the funders will allocate special funds for this purpose. The funders intend to link an international reference group comprising researchers and practitioners to the programme. The research groups will be able to supplement the funding with support from other funders as well. The funders would like to see cofunding on the part of the higher education institutions involved, for example in the form of doctoral programmes. The funders welcome participation by non-Swedish researchers.
The initiative is aimed at all subjects, and applications spanning different subjects and areas are welcomed. The research programme will include society’s entire knowledge production, i.e. not only higher education and research at higher education institutions but also research activities in other public agencies, institutes, companies and the like. The funders will ensure that grants awarded are distributed so that the research funded in the programme shows an overall thematic breadth, provided that it also maintains the highest academic quality.
Size of grants
Applications may be for between SEK 5 million and SEK 20 million, including contributions to indirect costs and costs of premises, and relate to projects of varying length and scale. The funders’ contributions to indirect costs and costs of premises are estimated according to both instructions in the official appropriation directions concerning the structure of state research councils’ grants and to RJ’s and the other funders’ guidelines on such costs. A discussion on the amount of funding will be held with each of the grant administrators in question once decisions on award of grants have been made.
Follow-up of the projects for which grants have been awarded will be carried out after a certain period. Thereafter, a go-ahead for any continuation of the projects concerned will be given.
Applying for a grant
Applications may be submitted only through RJ’s web-based application system. The closing date for applications is 18 February 2015.
Instructions
- All participating researchers for whom salary funding is applied for must have obtained PhDs by the application date. The researchers who will be taking part during the first four years of the project must be named in the application. For the subsequent period, funding for unnamed researchers may be applied for.
- Project participants, as well as project leaders, may take part in more than one (1) application.
- To be eligible to apply for this grant, project leaders and participants do not need to have issued final reports on their previous research projects.
- Only groups of researchers, i.e. at least three people, may apply for funding.
- The application may include costs of non-Swedish project participants working in Sweden or abroad, and also of research stays outside Sweden.
- Professors may receive salary within a project.
- Researchers aged 67 and over may receive salary within a project, provided that the researcher is employed by a grant administrator.
- The research groups may supplement their grants with funding awarded by other funders as well.
- Applying for funds within the framework of this initiative does not exclude the option of applying within the funders’ other forms of support.
- The funders will approve a contribution to indirect costs and costs of premises calculated, first, according to the instructions in the Government’s appropriation directions concerning the structure of state research councils’ grants and, second, to RJ’s and the other funders’ guidelines on such costs. A discussion on the amount of funding will be held with each of the grant administrators in question once decisions on award of grants have been made.
Conditions for applications
- Dissemination of the research results to various stakeholders must be described in the application.
- The application must make clear how the applicants intend to ensure the support of and contacts with practitioners, as well as researchers.
- The funders will ensure that grants awarded are distributed so that the research funded in the programme shows an overall thematic breadth.
- The applicants must present clear arguments concerning the intradisciplinary and/or societal relevance and urgency of the research task selected, and must also show how the study is to be implemented.
- The applicants must also clarify why the composition of the research group is adequate, and provide a rationale concerning the academic synergy effects that are expected to result from the group’s composition.
The application must be written in English, since the review panel will be composed of international experts. The title and summary must, however, be written in both English and Swedish.
The project description may consist of up to 30,000 characters including spaces, and must cover:
- The content of the project, the forms it is to take and how it fulfils the requirements of this call.
- The research questions addressed in the project; its purpose, theory and methods; and how it relates to the international research frontline.
- The project plan, with reasons justifying the project period.
- The publication strategy.
- The plan for conveying the research results to various stakeholders.
- The plan for obtaining support from and contacts with practitioners, as well as researchers.
- The function(s) of the researcher(s) in the project, and also the relevant skills and qualifications of the research staff.
- The current employment situation of each member of the research staff
- The resource requirements (salaries and operating costs), specified and justified.
- The cofunding to be provided by the higher education institution concerned.
The budget must specify:
- Salaries, LKP (employer’s social-insurance contribution top-up) and operating costs.
- Working time for non-research staff.
- Indirect costs and costs of premises.
- Names of research staff known at the time of the application. List them as project participants, with their monthly salary, LKP and working time in the project.
- Specify a salary of SEK 0 for any project participant who will not receive a salary within the project.
Costs that are not specified or justified will not be approved.
Assessment criteria and review process
Applications will be assessed according to current academic criteria, i.e. the quality and originality of the research plan, how it relates to the status of international research, the researchers’ qualifications and the feasibility of the plan. In addition, how the application fulfils the conditions of the call will be assessed. Attention will, moreover, be paid to the ways in which applications take into account the relevance of knowledge provision to society. Assessment of applications will take place in a multidisciplinary panel of international assessors. This panel will process the applications and rank them in order of priority, with recommended decisions. Each funder will then decide on the award of grants. No grounds for the decision will be given.
Follow-up and final report
A follow-up of the projects in the programme will be carried out by external experts. A final report on each project in the programme will be issued, in the form of both a financial report and a report on the academic results.
Time schedule for the application call
- 9:00 am on 8 January: application system opens.
- November 2014–February 2015: call for grant applications.
- 4:00 pm on 18 February 2015: deadline for grant applications.
- Announcement of decisions on grants awarded: autum 2015
For descriptions of the various funders’ areas of responsibility, see:
Formas: www.formas.se
Forte: www.forte.se
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: www.rj.se
Swedish Research Council: www.vr.se