Grant for investment in existing research infrastructure

Please refer to the application form in Prisma in parallel with reading the instructions below, which describe the call-specific contents 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 evaluation of the applications. To ensure fair and equitable assessment and efficient processing, please therefore complete the application in English.

Sections of the application

The application form includes the following tabs:

• Descriptive information
• The goals and activities of the infrastructure
• Budget and research resources
• Key references
• Letter of support
• Administrating organisation
• Participants (only administrators in this call)

The information we request under each tab is described below.

Descriptive information

Participating organisations

List the organisations participating in the application. Participating organisations shall fulfil the Swedish Research Council’s criteria for approved administrating organisations Opens in new window..

Abstract

The abstract shall include a brief description of the following:

• the research infrastructure the application relates to, and its specific function within the area
• the infrastructure’s activities and organisation
• the infrastructure’s scientific goals
• what the grant is to be used for
• the national added value the infrastructure is expected to contribute to.

The abstract shall provide a summary picture of the infrastructure’s purpose, activities and the research supported. Please use wording to ensure persons with another subject specialisation can understand the information.

The description may cover a maximum of 2 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately ½ A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Popular science description

Describe the infrastructure in such a way that a person who is not familiar with the subject can understand it. Please use the following items as the starting point:

• Describe the infrastructure’s activities and organisation.
• Describe how the planned investment will enhance the operation and its scientific goals.
• Highlight the (new) opportunities the investment offers to Swedish research, innovation and societal benefit.
• 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 approve the application, we reserve the right to use the description for information purposes.

The description may cover a maximum of 4 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately 1 A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

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

Goals and activities of the infrastructure

Ethical considerations

Describe the ethical issues raised by the infrastructure. Also describe the plan on how to address ethical dilemmas that may arise. Please also state whether the infrastructure activities involve any handling of personal data, or experiments on animals or human subjects. If no ethical issues are raised, please justify this.

The justification may cover a maximum of 4 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately 1 A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Scientific plan

The scientific plan shall consist of a brief but complete description of the infrastructure. It shall cover a maximum of 8 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins, including references and any images. Please note that the key references requested shall be attached as a separate appendix under the tab “Key references”.

The scientific plan shall be based on the specific area/infrastructure the grant application relates to, and include the following information, listed in the following order:

Scientific justification for the infrastructure, with particular focus on the importance of the new investment.

• Describe how the existing infrastructure addresses specific scientific challenges, and what scientifically prominent research is made possible by the existing infrastructure. References shall be stated in the appendix “Key references”.
• Describe the user groups for the existing infrastructure, and state the following information:
  • Statistics for the number of academic users (state also the scope divided up per research field, men/women, and HEI/organisation where possible).

• Describe how the infrastructure contributes in the long term to national competence accumulation.
• Describe the infrastructure’s policy for making available data produced at the infrastructure.
• Describe the positive effects expected from the investment applied for.
  • Describe Swedish researchers’ need for the existing infrastructure (in which way it is of national interest).
  • Describe the relationship to any other existing national and/or international infrastructure within the area, and why the investment applied for is needed.
  • Describe how the investment is of interest to existing and expected new user groups.

Description of the infrastructure and its operation

The description may cover a maximum of 10 A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins, including any images. At least one of these pages shall be used to describe data management (the type of data generated and how it is managed) within the infrastructure and the infrastructure’s need for supporting e-infrastructure. See more below under “Data management and need for supporting e-infrastructure”. Please note that the key references requested shall be attached as a separate appendix under the tab “Key references”.

The description should include the following headings and questions:

1. The infrastructure’s organisation and leadership (organisation chart)

Describe the infrastructure’s organisation and leadership according to the items below.

• Describe the organisations behind the infrastructure and their roles in the leadership of the infrastructure.
• Describe the infrastructure’s organisation form (consortium or not a consortium), and what any participating organisations shall contribute.
• If a national infrastructure is also wholly or in part the Swedish node of an international infrastructure, clarify how the two parts relate to each other in terms of operation, budget, organisation and leadership.

2. The infrastructure’s operation

2.1 Graphic overview

Describe the infrastructure’s organisation and leadership graphically.

2.2 Time plan

State a time plan for development, procurement, construction/data collection, installation, operation and decommissioning. Attach the time plan in the form of a Gantt chart. The Gantt chart shall include subsidiary goals and results (deliverables) for the operation linked to the investment the application relates to.

2.3 Users

The infrastructure shall have a policy for accessibility. According to the Swedish Research Council’s special terms and conditions for infrastructure grants, in the event the infrastructure offers a limited resource, accessibility shall be based on scientific excellence.

• Describe how the infrastructure intends to safeguard national accessibility to the investment based on scientific excellence.
• Describe how the infrastructure informs and communicates with current and possible new users.
• Describe how the infrastructure works with advanced user support and education for users. User support/education may include planning of experiments, handling of instruments, choice of experimental analysis methods and data analysis.
• State whether the infrastructure charges user fees. If so, describe how these are calculated and which users are covered by fees. Commercial users or contract research using the infrastructure shall cover the actual cost of use.

2.4 Construction, development and operation of the infrastructure

Investment refers to direct costs for purchasing, technical development, construction, installation, as well as adaptation of premises for scientific equipment or supplementary data collection for research databases. The investment may consist of scientific equipment/research database or a “functional package”, where individual equipment or research databases are needed together for a research purpose.

Describe the following items for the investment applied for:

• Describe the investment’s function and link to the infrastructure’s scientific goals.
• Include a technical description of the equipment and an estimate of its economic life, and describe also how it replaces or complements existing investments and ongoing activities within the infrastructure.
• State the needs for other resources, such as operation, maintenance and user support, and how these are to be funded. (Please note that grants for operation, maintenance and user support cannot be applied for under this call, and that the grant recipient must guarantee that resources for these are available.)
• Investments and associated resources for operation, maintenance and user support shall be reported divided up into logical items in the budget (see the budget template).

State how the individual items are linked, whether they are dependent on each other and what the dependency consists of.

3. Data management and need for supporting e-infrastructure

At least one page of the appendix shall be used to describe data management (the type of data generated and how it is managed) within the infrastructure, with particular focus on how the new needs arising as a result of the investment applied for will be managed.

• Describe whether the infrastructure has a data policy and data management plan in place or planned, and whether/how the operation works with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).
• Describe the infrastructure’s technical solutions for e-infrastructure, and which supporting e-infrastructure will be used. “Supporting e-infrastructure” refers to access to network connection and computer resources for large-scale computation and storage. State specifically whether, and if so how, the infrastructure manages personal data and other sensitive data.
• Describe the infrastructure’s access to and development of advanced user support and user tools, such as training, specific software, databases and similar, required for the infrastructure’s operation (that is, to conduct experiments and to collect, manage, and process data at the infrastructure).

In cases where the e-infrastructure only requires normal office equipment or existing data networks, please state this.

Budget and research resources

Total cost

State the amount applied for from the Swedish Research Council in Prisma (the amount shall correspond to what is stated in the budget appendix below). Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Budget

Attach the budget for the research infrastructure in Excel format. Use the budget template Excel, 24.2 kB, opens in new window. (Excel, 24.2 kB) supplied by the Swedish Research Council and state costs in thousands of Swedish krona (KSEK).

Please note that the overall cost for investment in and operation, maintenance and user support shall also be shown in the budget. In the event the Swedish Research Council’s grant for investment forms part of the funding, investment grants from the administrating organisations, any consortium members and grants from other funding bodies shall also be included in the application.

For an explanation of types of cost, please see the tab “Explanation of types of cost” in the budget template.

All costs in the application budget must be clearly linked to the description under heading “2.4 Construction, build-up and operation of the infrastructure”, under “Description of the infrastructure and its activities” above.

The following headings (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) refer to tables shown in the budget template.

Table 1. Summary: Costs

State the total costs for investment, operation, and supporting e-infrastructure. Each line in the table shall correspond to the total line for all types of cost.

Table 2. Summary: Income – grants

Line 2.1 shows the amount of funding applied for from the Swedish Research Council. Please note that you can only apply for new investment in infrastructure (Line 1.1 and line 1.2 in Table 1).

The other budget lines in Table 2 show how much the administrating organisation and any consortium members intend to contribute to investment, operation, and supporting e-infrastructure. Each participating organisation’s grant shall be summarised here across all types of cost.

Please state also other grants for investment, operation and supporting e-infrastructure over and above the direct grants from the Swedish Research Council and consortium members. These may be grants from other public and private funding bodies, the EU, other public agencies and/or direct government appropriations.

Table 3. Summary: Income – user fees

Please state any user fees linked to the investment covered by the application.

The overall expected income for investment, operation and supporting e-infrastructure (Tables 2+3) shall correspond with the overall expected costs (total lines for “Table 1. Summary: Costs”).

Table 1.1 Investment in equipment, research database, or ‘functional package’

Please state all the costs for the investment. If the investment forms a functional package of equipment, major supplementary parts to the equipment, or databases, the constituent components shall be stated as separate components with their own budget lines. The costs shall not be distributed across the grant period, but be stated as total amounts.

Investment includes all costs directly attributable to purchasing, installation, and adaptation of premises for scientific equipment and also costs for supplementary data collection for research databases.

Needs for investment in data storage and making data available may also be included here, if it can be considered to be part of a ‘functional package’ together with other investments. However, other costs for supporting e-infrastructure must not be included here (personnel costs, licences, etc.).

Existing resources (including depreciation of equipment already acquired) made available to the research infrastructure by the administrating organisation or consortium shall not be included. Examples of such existing resources may be existing equipment, databases or other long-term activities made accessible nationally via the research infrastructure (the estimated value of these may be stated in “Table 4 Summary: Existing resources made available by participating organisations”).

Table 1.2 Technical development and construction

State costs for personnel and/or procured services to enable necessary technical development and/or construction to be conducted. Each budget line shall be matched against a component listed in Table 1.1. Please note that according to the terms and conditions for grant period (see above), costs may only be budgeted for the year 2021 and/or 2022.

Table 1.3 Resources for operation, maintenance and user support made available

Specify the resources made available for operation, maintenance and user support, and estimate the costs of these. Please note that these may refer to both existing resources made available by the consortium, or new resources. The resources may be funded by the consortium or by another funding body, but must be guaranteed by the administrating organisations during the availability period of the grant, that is 2021–2026.

Each budget line must be linked to a specific activity for operation, maintenance and user support.

Table 1.4 Supporting e-infrastructure

Specify the resources made available for supporting e-infrastructure for data storage and making data available.

Specify the resources made available for operation, maintenance and user support, and estimate the costs of these. Please note that these may refer to both existing resources made available by the consortium, or new resources. The resources may be funded by the consortium or by another funding body, but must be guaranteed by the administrating organisations during the availability period of the grant, that is 2021–2026.

Each budget line must be linked to a specific activity for supporting e-infrastructure.

Please note that investments in e-infrastructure that can be considered to constitute a ‘functional package’ together with investments under Table 1.1 may be listed there and included in the application to the Swedish Research Council.

Indirect costs (Tables 1.1–1.4)

Only indirect costs relating to personnel costs shall be included in the budget template. Indirect costs relating to personnel costs shall be reported according to the SUHF model, but may be calculated differently for differing participating organisations. Please contact the HEI administrators for information about the local calculation model. Indirect costs relating to scientific equipment, procured services, or other direct costs cannot be applied for under this call, and shall not be included in the budget template.

The totals for Tables 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 is then transferred to Summary Table 1.

Table 4. Summary: Existing resources made available by the applicant

• Existing resources refer primarily to existing equipment and databases within the administrating organisation/consortium that is made nationally accessible by being made available to the research infrastructure. They may also refer to other resources that the administrating organisation/consortium wishes to make nationally accessible. These resources do not count as co-funding.
• The administrating organisation/consortium members choose themselves whether they want to state a value for the existing resources, and how to calculate that value. It is not necessary for the resources to have been paid for originally by the administrating organisation/consortium members.
• Describe what the existing resources consist of, how they are made available to the research infrastructure, and what they contribute to the research infrastructure. Do this under “Description of the research infrastructure and its activities”.

Note: Existing personnel made available for operation, maintenance, user support or supporting e-infrastructure shall be listed in Tables 1.3 or 1.4.

Explanation of the budget

The appendix may cover a maximum of 2 A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Key references

The appendix may include a maximum of 20 key references (references to publications, CVs and patents) for the application, and may cover a maximum of 5 pages. Use headings to mark which key references correspond to a specific question in the call text. Begin each heading with an asterisk (*) according to the example: “*Key references describing scientifically prominent research enabled by the infrastructure”.

Letter of support

Attach letters of support (confirmation of undertakings) from any consortium members. If several letters of support are to be attached, they must be merged into a single PDF file. A template for letters of support can be found here Word, 21.3 kB, opens in new window. (Word, 21.3 kB).

Administrating organisation

Please state the research infrastructure’s project site.

Review panels

Please propose the review panel or panels (in priority order) that you wish to carry out the scientific assessment of the application.

Review panels Opens in new window.

Participants

Here the person invited to be the project leader for the application may invite participating administrators. Please note that participating researchers may not be invited in this application.

The Swedish Research Council supports research infrastructure of national interest. The infrastructure must be scientifically justified, openly accessible to research of the highest scientific quality, and have long-term funding and an organisation that is established with Swedish higher education institutions. These different aspects are assessed in the review of applications for investment in existing research infrastructure in 2021.

Assessment process

The Council for Research Infrastructures (RFI) allocates funds to investment in equipment or research databases, including purchasing, technical development and construction at existing research infrastructures of national interest.

All applications are reviewed both by RFI’s advisory groups (RÅG).

The advisory groups then make a summarising assessment and prioritise the applications based on scientific and organisational considerations, as well as various national strategic aspects. The e-infra group discusses e-infra aspects in the applications, which the advisory groups weigh into their assessment.

Advisory groups RFI Opens in new window.

Based on the documentation from the review process outlined above, RFI then makes a decision on which investments it intends to support. These decisions will be published no later than August 2021. The Swedish Research Council then makes a final decision, including a set amount of funding and special terms and conditions for the awarded grants. All statements will be published in our application system Prisma.

Prior to the Swedish Research Council's decision on the level of funding and special conditions, the administrating organistion will be given the opportunity to comment on the special conditions.

The framework for the call must be fulfilled in order for the organisation to be qualified to apply for the grant. We carry out checks to ensure unqualified applications are rejected from further processing. If an application is not completed according to the instructions, this will be weighed into the assessment of the application.

Assessment criteria and guiding questions

The assessment of applications for “grant for investment in existing research infrastructure” is done using seven criteria. The purpose of using several components is to achieve a multi-faceted evaluation. The criteria are assessed on a seven-grade scale, with the exception of the criteria for national interest and e-infrastructure, which are assessed on a three-grade scale.

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

National interest (1-3)

• To which extent does the hosting infrastructure fulfil the Swedish Research Council’s criteria for research infrastructures of national interest?*

Ethical considerations (text only)

Where applicable, comment on any ethical considerations that have not been adequately dealt with in the application.

Scientific impact (1-7)

For assessing the scientific impact of the investment, following aspects should be addressed:

• Does the proposed investment answer to the conditions stated in the call?
• Does the investment provide state-of-the-art capabilities for advancing research?
• Is there a sufficiently broad and sustainable scientific user base/potential users of the investment?
• Are there any other cost-efficient alternatives that would satisfy the identified need (i.e. that would make the proposed research investment less urgent)?

On the national research infrastructure applying for the investment:

• How does the research infrastructure compare to similar facilities in other countries and/or international facilities?

Implementation, leadership and organisation (1-7)

An assessment of the implementation and management of the investment. The following aspects should be addressed:

• Is the proposed plan for technical development, construction and investment appropriate and feasible?
• Is the management structure and the responsibilities of the host institution and/or partners clearly defined?
• Does the organisation possess the necessary competence to operate the investment?
• Is the support from the host institution and/or partners in terms of funding and personnel appropriate and sufficiently secured to maintain operation of the investment?
• Will users be appropriately served in terms of availability of resources, support functions and communication of necessary information?

E-infrastructure (1-3)

An assessment of whether the data management and policy are in line with international standards and if the e-infrastructure (hardware and software) needs are properly addressed. The following aspects should be addressed:

• Does the infrastructure have an appropriate data policy and plan for data management in place?
• Are the technical solutions for e-infrastructure appropriate? E.g. access, analysis, active data storage and data management.
• Is there sufficient support for users in terms of software, user-specific tool development, and database solutions at the infrastructure or collaborating partners?

Prioritisation between functionalities/modules (text only)

Where applicable, suggest a prioritisation between different components of proposed investments. Consider how each component of the investment contributes to the scientific goals. For each function please state one of the following:

• Core – The part is a crucial component for the investment to meet the needs identified in the call. Without this part the proposed investment cannot be established and/or operated.
• Highly Relevant - The component contributes significantly to meet the identified needs and is very important for the scientific impact of the proposed investment. Although it is not crucial for establishing and/or operating the investment, it is highly recommended to be financed.
• Relevant – The component is a relevant component that contributes to meet the needs within the research area. However, the part is not a prerequisite for the functioning or for the scientific impact of the investment and should be given lower priority compared to the Core and Highly Relevant modules.
• Less relevant – The component does not bring significant benefits, is unlikely to be widely used or there are other existing, more adequate and/or cost efficient solutions.

Overall grade and final comment* (1-7)

Make a non-numerical compilation of the criteria above, resulting in a final grade (1-7), and give a summary statement of the application, which acknowledges the most important aspects.

Please also comment on any significant benefits, obstacles or risks with the infrastructure, not already listed above, which need to be addressed.

*The Swedish Research Council’s definition of research infrastructure of national interest is:

• Research infrastructure of national interest is intended to provide resources that enable the research of several research teams and different projects within one or more research fields.

In addition to the definition, the Swedish Research Council applies the following criteria for infrastructure funded by the Council for Research Infrastructures (RFI). RFI funds research infrastructure that:

• Enables research of the highest scientific quality, which thereby contributes to the development of society.
• Is openly accessible primarily to researchers, but also to industry and other relevant actors operating in Sweden. When access is limited, prioritisation shall be made primarily on the basis of scientific excellence.
• Is of broad national interest, which in most cases means that the research infrastructure is used by several research teams and researchers from several research organisations, and that RFI’s funding creates national added value.
• Has long-term planning for the scientific activities.
• Has long-term planning for management and control, funding, competence accumulation and development.