How to use the Swedish Research Council’s open data on funding

Many public agencies collect and store large amounts of public information. By digitising, structuring, and making the information accessible to others, it can contribute to societal benefits beyond the agency. The information made available in this way is called “open data.”

For example, universities and other research institutions hold a lot of research data. The Swedish Research Council has a specific assignment to promote the transition to open access to research data.

Read more about Open access to research data

At the Swedish Research Council we also have our own open data regarding research funding. By sharing this data, we facilitate transparency, analysis, and follow-up.

Open data via API

The most common way to share and access open data is via a so-called API (Application Programming Interface). An API makes it possible to automatically retrieve and send data between different software systems. If the APIs are open to the public, it is easy to download a copy of the information — for example, a database or excel file — which can then be processed to perform your own analyses or to build new apps or web services.

An inter-agency data standard for open data on research funding

Together with the Swedish Energy Agency, Formas, Forte, and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova), the Swedish Research Council is working on the Joint Data Project (GDP). The collaboration is based on a government mandate. The goal is to enable the sharing of open and comparable data in a uniform manner using a joint data standard: the GDP standard, on which our APIs are based. The standard has been developed in collaboration with universities, companies, public agencies, and others who use data on research funding.

How to access the data via the API

Through a shared API portal, we provide data that anyone can access. The API has three so-called “endpoints.” These provide data on three core elements common to the five public agencies’ funding processes: calls for proposals, applications, and funded activities.

To retrieve data from the API, you need to create an account and obtain an API key. Additional information is available when you log in to the API portal below.

Data in the API is updated daily and may be used freely without fees or other restrictions.

Read more in the joint API portal (GitHub’s website about the Joint Data Project, in Swedish) External link.

About the Swedish Research Council’s open data in the API portal

The Swedish Research Council shares data on calls for proposals registered starting in 2016, as well as applications and funded activities linked to these calls. Earlier data is inadequate in terms of quality and is not shared. (Read more below)

However, such data can be retrieved via the API linked to the Swecris database.

The Swecris database External link.

The Swedish Research Council’s implementation of “DecidedFunding” includes the financial funds that the public agency has decided to pay to the funded activity. This includes any subsequent decisions to increase or decrease the funds awarded originally, but not any repayments of funds already disbursed.

“ResearchSubject” in the Swedish Research Council’s data are largely specified according to the 2025 version of the Standard for Swedish Classification of Research Subjects (SSIF2025).

Standard for Swedish Classification of Research Subjects (Statistics Sweden’s website, in Swedish) External link.

Applications classified using the 2011 version of the Standard for Swedish Classification into Research Areas have been converted to the 2025 version to the extent possible. However, the research subject codes removed in the 2025 version remain in the 2011 version of the standard.

Delimitations and missing data

The following applications and funded activities are not included in the data sharing:

• Applications that have been withdrawn by the applicant
• Applications that have been rejected on formal grounds
• Applications where the applicant has declined funding
• Funded activities that have been terminated prematurely, as well as the application linked to the funded activity

For the Swedish Research Council, data is missing for applications and funded activities regarding the variables “CategorisationFundingBody” and “SustainabilityGoals.” The Swedish Research Council also does not share any data on programs, whether linked to Calls, applications, or funded activities. For all of these variables, the value NULL will be returned.