Research project grant Röntgen-Ångström Cluster

Please refer to the application form in Prisma in parallel with reading the instructions below, which describe the call-specific content of the application. More information on what to do in practical terms is available in our Guide for applicants Opens in new window..

Language

Foreign experts are involved in the scientific assessment of the applications. To ensure fair and equitable assessment and efficient processing, please therefore complete your application in English.

Sections of the application

The application form includes the following tabs:

• Descriptive information
• Research description
• Budget and research resources
• CV (full cv of all German participating researchers only)
• Publications
• Administrating organisation
• Participants
• CV (all participants)

Descriptions of the call-specific information requested under each tab follow below.

Descriptive information

Abstract

The abstract shall include a brief description of the following:

• what is to be done: purpose and aim
• how the research will be carried out: project organisation, time plan and the scientific methods to be used
• what is important about the planned research.

The abstract shall provide a summary guide to the purpose and implementation of the research. Please use wording to ensure persons with another subject specialisation can understand the information.

The description may cover a maximum of 1 500 characters including blank spaces (approximately one third of an A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing).

Popular science description

Describe the project in such a way that a person who is not familiar with the subject can understand it. Describe what is to be done and why, and explain in what way the new knowledge may be important.

The popular science description is an important tool when we inform about the research funded by the Swedish Research Council. If we grant your application, we reserve the right to use the description for information purposes.

Note: The popular science description must be written in Swedish, unlike the rest of the application.

The description may cover a maximum of 4 500 characters including blank spaces (approximately one A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing).

Special initiative

Please indicate whether the project relates to the special initiative described above.

Research description

Ethical considerations

Describe the ethical issues raised by your project or corresponding. You must also describe how you plan to address ethical dilemmas that may arise. Please justify why the research should be carried out against the background of the ethical issues you have identified. How do your research questions and expected results measure up in relation to the ethical issues? Please also state whether the research involves any handling of personal data, or experiments on animals or human subjects. If no ethical issues are raised, please justify this.

Research plan

The research plan shall consist of a brief but complete description of the research task and also the joint budget. The focus of the research plan shall be forward-looking, and it shall cover a maximum of 17 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing, including references and any images.

Please note that the German applicant/international project leader must submit an identical joint research plan to the BMBF/PT DESY system External link, opens in new window..

The research plan shall include the following headings and information, listed in the following order:

• Purpose and aims: State the overall purpose and specific goals of the research project.
• State-of-the-art: Summarise briefly the current research frontier within the field/area covered by the project. State key references.
• Significance and scientific novelty: Describe briefly how the project relates to previous research within the area, and its importance in the short and long term. Describe also how the project moves forward or innovates the current research frontier.
• Preliminary and previous results: Describe briefly your own previous research and pilot studies within the research area that make it probable that the project will be feasible. State also if no preliminary results exist.
• Project description: Describe the project design, including the following items:
  • Theory and method: Describe the underlying theory and the methods to be applied in order to reach the project goal.
  • Time plan and implementation: Describe summarily the time plan for the project during the grant period, and how the project will be implemented, including work packages, milestones and time schedule in a Gantt-chart. Responsible person for work packages must be named.
  • Project organisation: Clarify the contributions of yourself and any participating researchers to the implementation of the project. Describe and explain the competences and roles of the participating researchers in the project, and also any other researchers or corresponding who are important for the implementation of the project.
• Need for infrastructure: Specify the project’s need for international and national infrastructure. Specify also the need for local infrastructure, if depreciation costs for this is included in the application. Read more about research infrastructure supported by the Swedish Research Council. Opens in new window.
• Exploitation Plan: Describe in a few sentences the project’s economic prospect of success, scientific and/or technical prospect of success and the ability to extend the project towards further scientific and economic development.
• Joint budget: State a joint applied budget for the total grant period for the Swedish and the German partners according to the template below. The budget for each partner shall correspond to the amounts presented in the Prisma application form (see below under the heading “Budget and research resources”) and EASY-online, respectively. Present all numbers in EUR, where 10 SEK = 1 EUR. Please also provide a brief justification of each cost in the budget plan stated.

Provide the following information also. If a heading is not relevant to your application, please leave it blank.

• Equipment: Describe the basic equipment you and your team have at your disposal for the project.
• National and other international collaboration: Describe your own and the team’s collaboration with Swedish, German and/or other foreign researchers and research teams.
• Other applications or grants: If you are applying for or intend to apply for other grants from the Swedish Research Council, the relationship between the projects shall be clarified. This applies also if you are receiving ongoing grants from the Swedish Research Council with grant periods that wholly or partly overlap with the grant you are now applying for. You should also justify why you are submitting one or several further applications. Describe also the relationship with other applications to or grants from other funding bodies for the same project concept (from you or another researcher).
  

Budget and research resources

Under this tab, please list personnel costs, other costs and any other funding of the project. Please note that the following instructions for filling out budget and research resources concerns the Swedish part of the research budget and are to be filled out by the Swedish applicant in Prisma.

Project personnel

State the activity level (per cent of a full-time equivalent) of all personnel active within the project, that is to say yourself, any other researchers and other personnel. Please also state the salary you are applying for, for yourself and/or other personnel active within the project, both as a percentage of a full-time salary and as actual annual amounts (including social security contributions). Please state rounded amounts in SEK.

Other costs

Describe any other costs of the project (premises costs, operating costs and depreciation costs). Please state rounded annual amounts.

You may include depreciation costs for equipment to be used in the project, provided that

• the equipment has an economic life of at least three years
• the equipment has an acquisition value exceeding a certain amount (please contact your administrating organisation for information about the amount that applies to your department)
• the equipment needs for your proposed project cannot be satisfied through use of national or international infrastructure supported by the Swedish Research Council and therefore open to all.

You may only include the proportion of depreciation costs that corresponds to the use of the equipment in the proposed project. You may not include depreciation costs for equipment that is wholly financed via other grants. Please contact your HEI for information about what is included in local research infrastructure, acquisition values or how to calculate depreciation costs.

Total cost

Prisma will automatically add up your budget items listed in a table. The total amount you are applying for shall also include indirect costs. You will have to add these to the table yourself. Here you can also add any additional costs covered by the project (for which you are not seeking funding under this call).

Please contact your HEI for information on what constitutes indirect and direct costs.

CV (German researchers)

Please attach the CV of the German applicant/international project leader and any other German participating researchers, each comprising no more than 2 A4 pages.

Please note that the publication list(s) shall be included under the separate “Publications” tab below.

Publications

Under this tab, please attach your and the participating researchers’ publication lists to the respective fields (Swedish and German participants sorted separately). Each list must comprise no more than 5 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Please sort the publications under each heading in reverse chronological order, so that the latest publication is at the top of the list. Please only include articles or corresponding that are published or accepted for publication at the time of applying. The author order shall be identical to that of the published work. The application cannot be supplemented with publications after the deadline for the call.

1. Selection of publications: List the maximum 10 publications of greatest importance to your application. For each publication, please state how you contributed to it, and its relevance to the research project described (maximum four lines per publication). Highlight your name in bold in the author list.

2. Relevant publications from the last 8 years: Sort the publications, with your name highlighted in bold in the author list, under each heading (publication type) in the following order:

• Peer-reviewed original articles
• Peer-reviewed conference contributions, the results of which are not included in other publications.
• Peer-reviewed edited volumes
• Research review articles
• Peer-reviewed books and book chapters
• Other publications including popular science books/presentations

Administrating organisation

Please state the administrating organisation and project site.

Participants

Here you invite the German applicant, any other participating researchers, or participating administrators to the application. The German applicant represents the German part of the research collaboration is distinguished from other participating researchers by you giving her/him the status of international project leader in the table provided in the application form. You may assign full editing rights to the international project leader.

CV

Under this tab, please upload your relevant CV information from your personal account in Prisma. Participating researchers must upload their own CV information to the application.

Swedish project leader/applicant and any other Swedish researchers:

The following information, where available, must always be included in each CV, according to the stated limitation in numbers:

• Education: First, second and third cycle higher education and specialist degrees.
• Work: Current employment (including employment form) and longer relevant employment, postdoctoral visits (also included as employments if relevant), research exchanges relevant to the research described and any longer interruptions in the research that have impacted on your opportunity to gain merits as a researcher.
• Merits and awards: Docentship/associate professorship, supervisees (postdoctoral and doctoral students; state the overall number of each category and list the 10 most relevant to you), up to 10 of your most relevant grants awarded in competition, up to 10 of your most relevant prizes and awards, and other merits relevant to the application.
  
• Intellectual property rights: For example, patents and open access computer programs developed by you; state up to 10 of your most relevant.

German applicant/international project leader and any other German researchers:

The German participants are only required to upload their doctoral degree as well as current employment from the personal Prisma account. The full CV is attached in pdf-format as instructed above under “CV (German researchers)”.

Scientific quality is the fundamental criterion when the Swedish Research Council allocates grants to research. The application is evaluated in competition with the other applications on the basis of the following evaluation criteria.

The application is evaluated by a review panel where the members are Swedish and international researchers.

At least three members review and grade the application individually. The review panel as a whole will meet to discuss, grade and prioritize the applications, and finally to make a proposal for a decision to the Director General at Vetenskapsrådet and to BMBF.

Review panel

The applications will receive an individual final statement that reflects the review panel discussions and overall assessment of the scientific quality of the application.

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation of the scientific quality of the application will be made based on four basic criteria (Scientific quality of the proposed research, Novelty and originality, Merits of the applicant, Feasibility). The criteria will be assessed on a seven-grade scale, except for feasibility and relevance, which will be assessed on a three-grade grade scale.

In addition to the basic evaluation criteria, the application will also be reviewed regarding Relevance on a 3-grade scale.

For each criterion, there are guiding questions to support the panel member evaluation of the application. These can also function as guidance for you, when you write the application.

Scientific quality of the proposed research (1–7)

Guiding questions:

• Is the proposed research scientifically significant?
• How does the proposed project relate to the state of the art of the research area?
• Do the scientific questions have the purpose to fill in significant knowledge gaps, and is the project description sufficiently detailed and of sufficient quality to reach, or to approach these objectives in a significant way?
• When applicable, is the proposed development of methods, techniques or instruments of high scientific significance? Does the proposed development allow new scientific questions to be addressed?
• Will the proposed development be made in collaboration with a large-scale facility?
  

Novelty and originality (1–7)

Guiding questions:

• Does the proposed project define new, interesting scientific questions?
• Does the proposed project have the potential to substantially increase the knowledge within its scientific area?
• Does the proposed project use new methods and instruments to address important scientific questions?
• When applicable, does the proposed project show a clear progression in relation to the previous research of the applicant?
• If the project includes more than one of the techniques described in the call text (x-ray-scattering and neutron scattering) is this necessary for the project’s success?
  

Merits of the applicant (1–7)

The assessment should concern the merits of the applicant to perform the proposed project. The assessment of the complementary expertise of the participating researchers is only of relevance for the grading of the feasibility of the project

Guiding questions:

• Is the applicant a world-leading scientist or whatis the applicant’s potential in becoming a world-leading scientist in this research area?
• What is the applicant’s scientific competence within the research area of the application?
• When applicable, does the applicant have previous experience in the development of experimental or theoretical methods or instruments?

Feasibility of the proposed project (1–3)

Guiding questions:

• Is the project feasible with the asked for resources?
• Are the available equipment, infrastructure and other resources adequate for the proposed project? Would you suggest any cuts in the investments or staff number?
• Considering the project as a whole, including any participating researcher, does the applicant or project group have sufficient competence to perform the proposed research?
• Does the description in the research plan support the likelihood that the proposed project will be performed successfully?
• Is the scope of the project reasonable in relation to the amount applied for?
  

Relevance for the Call (1–3)

Guiding questions:

• Is the project within the scope of the call
• Does the proposed project provide added-value to national or bilateral research communities in the area?
• Does the proposed project demonstrate the benefits of bilateral collaboration?
  

Overall grade (1–7)

The above subsidiary criteria are weighed together into an overall grade, which reflects the review panel’s joint evaluation of the application’s scientific quality. The overall grade is formed without a pre-determined numerical weighing of the basic criteria.
As a guidance to the review panel’s assessment the relevance to the call, the scientific quality of the proposed research, merits of the applicants and relevance to the call should be given the higher importance. The feasibility shall be weighed into the overall rating of the application if it deviates from the grade “Feasible”.

Other comments and boundary conditions

Guiding questions, (this is not an obligatory field to fill in):

• Are there special conditions the panel proposes?
• Are there special comments that the panel would like to make?