Industrial PhD Student's Project (ID Project)

The project should contribute to high-quality research while promoting mutual transfer of knowledge between Swedish universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) and commercially active enterprises. Knowledge is transferred through project collaboration between a company and a university or HEI (the administrative entity).
 
Collaboration must take place between two different research environments. The company must have sufficient expertise to contribute to, and benefit from, the transfer of knowledge. It must also be able to offer the doctoral student a qualified research environment. The HEI´s knowledge environment must also be enriched by this collaboration. It is important for the HEI to have the rights to use the knowledge and experience from the project for scientific purposes and for basic educational needs. Based on these conditions, the Swedish Research Council welcomes collaboration through new constellations of companies, researchers, and HEIs.
 
The company should have good R&D resources and the expressed ambition to acquire new scientific knowledge and methods to elevate its technological level in the long term. If a company´s R&D activities rely too much on research from HEIs or other external sources of knowledge, an Industrial PhD Student´s Project (ID Project) would not normally increase the mutual exchange of knowledge.
 
The industrial PhD student, who must be employed by the company, works with the project for 4 or 5 years before graduating. The HEI and company jointly formulate the research project.
 
We would like to see researchers that already have Project Research Grants, or are applicants for such grants, participate in an ID Project.
 
We define “company" as a local production unit (or equivalent) with a limited geographic scope, and “concern" as a consolidated group of companies.
 
Grants for ID Projects are not awarded to industrial research institutes or other similar bodies.

Conditions

Applicant and mentor

Required qualifications

Grant period

Costs and grant amount

Administration

Employer and terms of employment

Questions concerning intellectual assets

Application content

• Summary
• Popular science description
• Research programme (Appendix A)
• CV (Appendix B)
• Publication list (Appendix C)
• Knowledge exchange between companies and HEIs (Appendix H)
• Other documentation (Appendix Z)
• Signatures (Appendix S)

Summary

• what will be done
• how the research will be conducted, what scientific methods will be used
• what has been done previously
• what is important about the planned research.

The text should quickly orient the reader to the purpose and implementation of the research. Write in a style that allows people from other research backgrounds to easily comprehend the information.
 
Fill in the summary on the form in the application system.
 

Popular science description

• Describe what will be done and why.
• Emphasise the basic research.
• Explain in what way the new knowledge can be important.

The popular science description, which must be written in Swedish, is an important tool when the Swedish Research Council informs others about the research we finance. If we award funding for your application we have the right to use the description for informational purposes.
 
Fill in the popular science description on the form in the application system.

Research programme (Appendix A)

• Purpose and aims. Present the overall purpose and specific goals of the research project (or equivalent).
• Survey of the field. Summarise your own and others´ research and previous findings in the research field. Provide key references.
• Project description. Summarise the project´s design. Describe theory, methods, timetable, and implementation.
• Significance. Describe the project´s significance to the research field.
• Preliminary results. Describe your own experiments and prestudies in the research field.
• Staff in the project group. List only HEI employees (company staff are listed in Appendix H) by name, doctoral degree (year, discipline/subject area), current position, and funder of salary.

Present the following under a special heading, if relevant to the application:
 

• Equipment. Describe the basic equipment for the project that can be disposed, categorised as equipment etc made available: a) by the company; b) by the HEI or other source.
• International and national collaboration. Describe the collaboration that you and your group have with foreign and Swedish researchers and research groups. Report on international collaboration that you participate in, or are associated with, through your research. Project Research Grants from the Swedish Research Council may be used to co-finance EU projects with corresponding orientations within the Seventh Framework Programme. If such collaboration is planned, account for this in the research programme.
• Ethical considerations. Present the ethical issues that the project (or equivalent) faces, and describe how they will be addressed in your research.
• Other grants. Describe funding awarded to other participating HEI researchers and also grant applications submitted by the supervisor to other funding bodies of importance to the project.

CV/Scientific qualifications (Appendix B)

1. Higher education degree(s) (year, subject area)
2. Doctoral degree (year, discipline/subject area, dissertation title, and supervisor).
3. Postdoctoral work (year and placement).
4. Qualification required for appointment as docent/associate professor (year).
5. Current position, period of appointment, share of time spent in research.
6. Previous positions and periods of appointment (specify type of position).
7. Interruptions in research. Indicate if active research time has been interrupted to the extent that it affected the opportunity to acquire qualifications, e.g. by parental leave, illness, clinical internship/residency, positions of trust in trade union organisations and student organisations, or other similar reasons. Specify the reason(s) and give the time and dates of the interruption.
8. Individuals who have completed their doctoral degree under your supervision (name, year of disputation [i.e. oral public defence of PhD thesis]).

Lastly, provide other information of importance to the application.
 
Items that do not apply to you should be left blank.

Publication list (Appendix C)

1. Peer-reviewed articles
2. Peer-reviewed conference contributions (the results of which are not presented in other publications)
3. Review articles, book chapters, books
4. Patents
5. Open access computer programs that you have developed
6. Popular science articles/presentations
7. Other publications addressing R&D, innovation, and entrepreneurship of significance to business and industry, e.g. more-extensive studies, trade reviews, articles in well-respected professional journals, etc that you have not already reported under points 1 through 6 above.

Note! Include only articles (or equivalent) that have been published or accepted for publication.

After each publication reference, provide citation data with the number of citations per publication. The number of citations (n) must be preceded by the phrase, “Number of citations: n". In the same manner, provide information about the five most-cited publications, regardless of the year published.
 
Citation data must be provided for:

• Peer-reviewed articles
• Peer-reviewed conference contributions
• Review articles, book chapters, books

At the top of the publication list indicate the database you use. Choose amongst the following:

• Web of Science
• Google Scholar
• Scopus (Elsevier)
• SPIRES
• ADS (The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System)

Knowledge exchange between companies and HEIs (Appendix H)

Company description

1. Most recent annual report. If the company has fewer than 20 employees you must include the most recent annual report (Appendix Z). Explicitly state whether or not you have attached the annual report.
2. Knowledge exchange with Swedish universities and HEIs during the past 5 years. Indicate how many of the company employees have, or have had; a) duties as an adjunct professor or adjunct lecturer, b) other teaching or research duties. Indicate how many collaborations the company has been involved in regarding; c) research (ID-/IFA-projects, other collaboration) where the total work input of HEI researchers exceeded one person month, d) technicians, and HEI students who have worked on projects for a Master´s degree (equivalent).
3. Personnel expected to work on the project. Specify the names, year and discipline/subject area of disputation (oral public defence of PhD thesis) of company employees intended to work on the project either part- or full-time. Provide a general estimate (expressed in person years/year) of the total work time that all other employees in the company are expected to contribute to the project.
4. Total R&D resources of the company. The report must include, e.g.: a) total revenue during the fiscal period (including revenues from b and c below), b) total revenue during the fiscal period from sales of goods and services (including licensing revenues, but excluding revenues from c), c) total revenues during the fiscal period in the form of research grants or research funds from EU, VINNOVA, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), the Knowledge Foundation (KK stiftelsen), IRECO, or other similar research funders, d) R&D costs during the fiscal period, e) number of person-years worked in R&D by company employees (except consultants, etc) during the fiscal period, f) number of employees at the end of the fiscal period. Obtain information for items a-f from the most recent annual report, or the supporting documentation. If that is not possible, provide an estimate and identify it as such.

Collaboration between the  company and HEI

Other documentation (Appendix Z)

Signatures (Appendix S)

• the project can be allocated space in the institution
• the total project costs have been discussed with the company, and institution approves the cost estimate for its part as presented in the application
• HEI researchers engaged in the project have reported their side-line occupations and commercial ties, and nothing has emerged that would conflict with good research practice
• necessary permission and approval have been granted to the project, e.g. regarding ethical review.

You must have discussed the above points with the representative of the administrative entity before he/she approves and signs the application. The administrative entity is responsible for assuring that the project complies with the terms and conditions established by Swedish legislation.
 
Send Appendix S by regular mail to the Swedish Research Council.
 
Remember! Appendix S, complete with signatures, must be received by the Swedish Research Council not later than 3 working days after the closing date for applications.
 
You will find the address and closing date for applications in the section, “When and how to apply".

Instructions for applying

• You are responsible for the completeness of the application, i.e. that all application forms and appendixes are filled in properly. The Swedish Research Council does not process incomplete applications. Failure to comply with the instructions will be taken into account in the evaluation.
• We do not accept additional information after the closing date for applications (apart from such information that we expressly request).
• If funding from another funding body is awarded for the same or similar purpose described in this application, notify the Swedish Research Council as soon as possible.
• Attach only the material that we expressly request. Other material, e.g. letters of recommendation or offprints will not be evaluated.
• You may submit only one application for each project and type of grant.
• Indicate from the outset whether the research programme (Appendix A) involves more than one scientific field or subject area. The Swedish Research Council will then decide which evaluation panel should have primary responsibility and whether one or more scientific councils or committees should evaluate your application.
• In the application, list as participants the persons that are most relevant for implementing the proposed project.
• Write the application and appendixes in English since the Swedish Research Council may need to use international reviewers. The obligatory popular science description and your address should be written in Swedish. Write the project title in both Swedish and English.
• Write the appendixes in A4 format, using a 25 mm margin and Times New Roman 12 font. When we print out the applications, we use a resolution of 200-300 dpi and possibly greyscale. Hence, you should adapt your images to that standard. Remember that the pdf files must not be password protected.
• The application form automatically requests the required appendixes.

General terms and conditions for applications

Evaluation and decisions

This is how we evaluate your application
Evaluation panels
Addressing conflicts of interest at the Swedish Research Council

Decisions

Disbursement of awarded funds will begin in January 2011 at the earliest.

When and how to apply

Please note!
Previously we have experienced overload problems in our application system during the final days before the application deadline. Hence, we encourage you to submit your application in good time.

Contacts

Questions about application content

Technical questions

In the subject line, please write the subject area that your question addresses. To acknowledge that we received your question, we will send you confirmation by e-mail.