Grant for postdoctoral positions in Sweden

1. Type of grant

Conditions

• Applicant: Individual researcher
• Grant period: 6-24 months. The grant has to start during the first six months of 2010. The maximum fellowship period of 24 months is reduced by the length of time for which the applicant, since obtaining a doctorate, has held a postdoctoral position, a similar grant or a fellowship, at a higher education institution or faculty or company other than the one where the doctorate, or equivalent, was awarded.
• Amount: Standard grant depending on faculty area.
• Cost categories: Salary costs.
• Other conditions: The host university/institution or equivalent is the employer and determines which form of employment the position will have. A certificate from the intended host institution must be enclosed. The host institution must be a Swedish higher education institution or faculty other than the one where the doctorate or equivalent was awarded. The proposed research project must be essentially different from the applicant´s previous research. Essentially different means a new direction, new ways of thinking and/or new orientation of the research.

2. Who can apply?

Required qualifications

There is no age limit for applicants to the Swedish Research Council. However, the Swedish Research Council has a directive from the Swedish Government to support young researchers in particular.

Employers and employment conditions

The European Charter for Researchers; The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers

Administration

A signature on the application (Appendix S) is required not only from the applicant but also from the authorised representative of the host university/institution (normally the head of the department or establishment where the research is to be conducted).

3. Form of application

General conditions for the application

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Detailed technical instructions are provided with the online form. The online form requests automatically the appendices required for the type of grant selected. Applicants should then enclose the appendices, preferably as pdf files, or convert them into pdf files according to the instructions accompanying the form. It is the responsibility of the applicant that the application, converted to a pdf file by the application system, is complete and that all appendices are enclosed.

• Applications should be submitted electronically.
• Incomplete applications will not be processed.
• Divergences from the instructions will be considered in the assessments.
• Additions to applications after the last application date, excluding additions that are explicitly specified in the instructions, are not approved.
• If funding from another funding agency is granted for the same purpose as is applied for in this application, the project leader should report this to the Swedish Research Council as soon as possible.
• Materials not explicitly requested should not be enclosed and are not included in assessment of the application. An example of such material is a letter of recommendation.
• If a grant has already been approved for a project or equivalent for the years that the application refers to (as stated in the contract/decision issued by the Swedish Research Council for the grant concerned), no new application for this project or equivalent should be submitted.
• Only one application for a single project or equivalent and grant type may be submitted to the Swedish Research Council.
• The applicant must specify the primary scientific field and/or subject area of the proposed project. An applicant who considers that the project involves more than one field or area should state this in the beginning of the research programme. Within the Swedish Research Council, the decision is thereafter taken where primary responsibility for the review should lie and whether one or more other scientific councils or committees should make a supplementary assessment.

The application, appendices included, must be written in English, except for the compulsory popular science description and the applicant´s address, which must be written in Swedish.  The project title should be written in both Swedish and English.

Instructions to input fields in the on-line form 

Applicant

Deducted time, if applicable

Abstract

• What will be done
• How the research will be carried out, scientific methods used
• What has previously been done
• What is important about the research       

The text is intended to provide a quick orientation of the purpose and feasibility of the suggested research and should be written in such a way that someone from another research area than the applicant's may understand the information.

Popular science description

The popular science description is a an important tool for The Swedish Research Council´s work towards informing about the research being supported.

If the application is awarded a grant, the Swedish Research Council reserves the right to use the popular science description for information purposes.

Participation in/association with international collaboration

Project Research Grants from the Swedish Research Council are available for cofunding similarly oriented EU projects within the Sixth and Seventh Framework Program. If such coordination is planned, it should be reported in the research program.

Public access

Information on grants approved will be posted on the Swedish Research Council´s website.

Ethical considerations

General

The documents that are relevant to research ethics are:
1. The Swedish Research Council's statement of ethical principles in research, Forskningsetiska principer inom humanistisk-samhällsvetenskaplig forskning (‘Principles of Research Ethics in the Humanities and Social Sciences', available in Swedish only).
2. The Helsinki Declaration (the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects).
3. The Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.

Researchers should familiarize themselves with these documents and plan their research in such a way as to fulfill the requirements therein. The account of ethical considerations should show that, and clarify how, the requirements are met. (It is thus insufficient simply to write that, for example, the Helsinki Declaration or the Swedish Research Council's guidelines will be complied with.) If, in the applicant's view, there are no ethical problems connected with the project, although its subject-matter falls within a research field where ethical problems may arise, this view should be explained under ‘Ethical considerations'. This is particularly important in research on humans. The aforesaid documents are available in the Codex database (www.codex.vr.se). The Swedish Research Council's statement of ethical principles in research can also be downloaded from the Council's website (www.vr.se). The documents mentioned above should, where applicable, also be taken into consideration in disciplines other than the Humanities, Social Sciences and Medicine. When personal particulars are to be used in a project, the Personal Data Act (1998:204) must be complied with. The applicant's account of ethical considerations must then state that personal data as defined in the Act will be dealt with. Queries regarding the processing of personal data may be addressed to the Swedish Data Inspection Board (tel. +46-8-657 6100).

In the online application form, the applicant must specify the page in the research program that contains the account of ethical considerations. If the Swedish Research Council regards the researcher's ethical considerations as unclear or incomplete, the Council may request that the researcher submit a supplementary statement on this point.

Research involving humans

website

The Swedish Research Council may also, before approving a grant, request that the researcher subject the project to ethical review. Notification of a review board's approval, sent to the Council, is then a condition for disbursement of the grant. The Swedish Research Council may also require ethical review of projects that are not regulated in the Act on Ethical Review of Research involving Humans, or are beyond its scope of application, but may entail other ethical problems. The regional ethical review board then itself rules on whether to carry out a review under the Act or whether to carry out what is known as an ‘advisory' review. As above, notification of the decision or the advisory statement of opinion must be submitted in order for the grant to be disbursed. (Both approval and an advisory statement may contain conditions for implementation of the project.)
Review by a regional ethical review board takes place on application. The application form can be downloaded from www.epn.se. If the project is beyond the scope of application of the Act, the applicants must use the form to request an advisory statement of opinion.

Research including animal experimentation

Commercial interests

Responsibility for ensuring that researchers comply with the requirements, generally accepted in the research community, of objectivity, independence and openness rests primarily on the researchers themselves. Secondary responsibility rests on their employers, i.e. the individual university/institution, concerned.

As stated in the Swedish Research Council's guidelines for reporting commercial ties, the head of department or equivalent who is required to approve a researcher's application for a Swedish Research Council grant must also guarantee that (s)he does not knowingly have any commercial ties that are inconsistent with these requirements. This is done by means of the signature on Appendix S to the grant application.

Gender research and research with a gender perspective

4. Appendices

• A Research program (max. eight pages)
• B Applicant´s CV
• C List of publications
• Q Grant for postdoctoral position in Sweden
• S Signatures

Appendix S, complete with the signature of the applicant and representative of the host university/institution must be submitted to the Swedish Research Council in paper form. The envelope should be clearly marked with M. All other appendicies are electronically enclosed with the application.

The Times New Roman typeface, 12 points, is recommended. Illustrations and text should fit on an A4 page, with a margin of 25 mm. Printout of the application, e.g. by a reviewer, will be made in tones of grey with a resolution of 200 - 300 dpi. Figures should therefore conform to this standard. The appendices constitute the basis for the Swedish Research Council's evaluation of the application, and are filled in along with the online form. The online form requests automatically the appendices required for the type of grant selected. Some grant types also have optional appendices which must be marked with a check on the application form so that they can be attached to the application. On each page of the appendix, at the top, the applicant's name and Swedish personal identity number and the alphabetical code for the appendix should be written. All PDF files must be free of password security protection. Please observe that the reviewers will receive black and white paper copies of the applications, if they so wish. The reviewers also have access to the applications as pdf-documents.

Appendix A — Research program

• Specific aims, an account of the purpose of the proposed research project (or equivalent).
• Survey of the field, a summary of the applicant´s own and others´ research and previous findings in the field, with key references.
• Project description, a summary plan for the project, including theory, method, timetable and implementation.
• Significance, a brief account of the importance of the research programme to the research field concerned.

Under special headings in the project description, where relevant, an account of or comments on the following should also be given:

• Preliminary results, a description of the applicant's own attempts and/or prestudies in the research field.
• Equipment, a brief account of existing basic equipment relevant to the project that is at the disposal of the main applicant or group
• International and national collaboration, a brief account of collaboration with foreign and Swedish researchers/research groups
• Ethical considerations
• Gender research and research with a gender perspective

Appendix B - CV

Specify in the order of the following numbered headings:

1. Doctoral degree (year, discipline/subject area, title of thesis, all supervisors)
2. Postdoctoral work (year and position)
3. Qualification as Associate Professor (year)
4. Current position, period of appointment, time for research in the position
5. Previous positions and periods of appointment (state type of employment)
6. Parental leave, service in the Armed Forces etc, and research time deducted for this purpose. Specify the number of months deducted. It is of special importance to include this information to applicants of postdoctoral fellowships and grants for postdoctoral positions in Sweden.
7. People awarded doctorates for whom the applicant has been the main supervisor (name, year of doctorate)

Any item where the information does not apply to the applicant, such as qualification as associate professor or main supervision of awarded doctorates, are left empty.

Appendix C — List of publications

The researcher´s ten most important publications should be marked with one asterisk (*) and the ten most important publications for the project (or equivalent) with two asterisks (**).

Appendix C (list of publications) from the applicant only.   The applicant must specify which publications are included in the thesis under the new heading "Publications included in thesis"

Appendix Q - Grant for postdoctoral positions in Sweden

Degrees

• State the date of award of the first degree (the ‘first degree' is the degree obtained before postgraduate studies commenced, e.g. a Master's degree).
• State the date of admission to postgraduate studies.
• State the date when the doctoral degree was awarded.

Host university/institution

• State the contact person at the host university/institution in Sweden (first name and surname, telephone number and e-mail address of the contact person, who is normally the same person who write the letter of invitation).
• State the host university/institution's postal address (in the following order: host university/institution, department, address).
• State how the research at the host university/institution differs from the host university/institution where the applicant engaged in postgraduate studies and obtained a doctoral degree.
• State expected impact and benefit of the requested training to the applicant.
• State expected results of the project.
• State reasons for the choice of the host institution (highlight compatibility with research training needs).

Duration of stay at host university/institution

• State the planned start and ending date of the stay at the host university/institution. This period may be 6-24 months long and has to start during the first six months of 2010. The maximum fellowship period of 24 months is reduced by the length of time for which the applicant, since obtaining a doctorate, has held a postdoctoral position, a similar grant or a fellowship, at a higher education institution or faculty or company other than the one where the doctorate, or equivalent, was awarded.

Similar application

• State whether funds from another research funder are applied for or approved for the same purpose. This should also be stated in the online application form.

The applicant must attach the following to Appendix Q in electronic form:

• Examination diploma for the doctoral degree or a certificate that the degree has been awarded.
• Certificate from the host university/institution in Sweden: the certificate from the host university/institution should specify that the applicant is welcome to conduct the planned research there.

This certificate should also contain:

• Presentation of the host institution/host research group
• Current activities of the group, highlighting research quality and expertise in the project field
• List of most relevant recent publications and patents by members of the group in the project field
• Arrangements to host the applicant (ability to provide specified training, resources to be made available, specialised equipment, etc)
• A statement about the planned research
• Interest for the group to host the applicant.

Appendix S — Signatures

The appendix should be printed out and signed both by the applicant and by the head (or equivalent) of the department or establishment where the research will be conducted. The signature confirms that the department can accommodate the proposed research, position or equipment, that the costing in the application is approved for the department´s part, and that any proposed experimentation on human or animal subjects has been reported, and that the applicant has reported any secondary occupations and commercial ties s(he) may have, and nothing inconsistent with good research practice has thereby emerged. The applicant must have discussed these conditions with the representative of the host university/institution before the latter approves and signs the application.

Appendix S is sent by regular mail to the Swedish Research Council.

Note! Appendix S, complete with signatures, must be received by the Swedish Research Council not later than three working days after the last application date.

5. Evaluation and decision

Criteria and priorities 

Evaluation criteria

Review Organisation, Medicine

Applications for junior research positions will be evaluated by a separate panel.

In the application form, applicants must propose the review panel or, in priority order, review panels that they wish to deal with their application. A list of options is included in the form. For a list of the various review panels and their members, see the links below.
Links: Review panels incl research area and methods
Instructions for reviewers

Conflicts of interest

The Swedish Research Council's Conflict of interest policy

Decisions

Grant decisions will be published on the Swedish Research Council's website, www.vr.se. Letters rejecting or approving applications, with statements of opinion, will be sent to all applicants.

Disbursement of granted funding can begin starting from January 2010 at the earliest.

6. Contact

Humanities and Social Sciences, and Educational Sciences

Medicine

Natural and Engineering Sciences

7. How and when to apply

The applicant is responsible for submitting a complete application to the council. Technical support from the Swedish Research Council is provided for until 4 pm on 27 August 2009. Please, make certain to submit your application in time before 4 pm in case that you will need technical support. Appendix S with signatures must be received by the council no later than 1 September 2009.

Appendix S is sent to the address:

Vetenskapsrådet
M
103 78 Stockholm

Link to the electronic application form

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