Research project grant for international collaboration on quantum technologies (QuantERA)

The following requirements must be fulfilled in order for you to be eligible to apply for the grant. We carry out checks and reject applications that do not fulfil the requirements.

Applicant

The applicant for the project grant must be a participant in a QuantERA consortium, with at least 3 partners from at least 3 participating countries. You can see full eligibility requirements for the composition of the consortium in the call text on QuantERA’s website External link, opens in new window.. The time you set aside for the project (your activity level, that is the percentage of a full-time equivalent) must be suited to the task and its implementation throughout the grant period.

You must hold a Swedish doctoral degree or an equivalent foreign degree, awarded no later than the deadline for this call. The degree award date we use is the date you fulfilled all the requirements for a doctoral degree, such as mandatory courses, oral defence and an approved doctoral thesis. For applicants with Swedish doctoral degrees, the award date listed in Ladok applies.

Grants from the Swedish Research Council shall be administered by a Swedish HEI or another Swedish organisation that fulfils our criteria for administrating organisations Opens in new window.. Your organisation must therefore be approved as an administrating organisation for you to apply. Please note therefore that Swedish researchers working for a company, for example, cannot be funded and may therefore not submit an application to the Swedish Research Council, even if they are part of a consortium application. The administrating organisation must sign the full application in Prisma no later than 7 calendar days after the deadline for this call.

If you are awarded a grant, you must be employed by the administrating organisation at the start of and throughout the grant period and any additional availability period, unless the Swedish Research Council approves an exception from this requirement. The employment must equal at least 20 per cent of a full-time equivalent. You do not have to be employed by the administrating organisation at the time of applying.

Number of applications and previous grants

The requirements described in this section only apply to applicants (project leaders).

General information about overlaps between applications and grants

Your application must not cover costs for purposes that are already funded by the Swedish Research Council or any other funding body. Overlaps with other grants or applications may impact on the grant amount you are awarded, or be a reason for us to reject your application.

What grants may I apply for simultaneously from the Swedish Research Council?

You may only submit one application for this grant under this call, and you may only be the Swedish partner of one consortium in this call. Other restrictions on the grants you may apply for during the same year are shown in the table below. Grants under this call are counted as “Focused project grants”.

Table: Grants you may apply for simultaneously Opens in new window.

What requirements apply if I already have a grant from the Swedish Research Council?

There are certain restrictions if you are the project leader of an ongoing grant, that is to say where the grant period (payment period from the Swedish Research Council) overlaps the grant period of the grant the application relates to. Please note that the availability period, that is to say the time during which you have the right to use your grant, is normally longer than the grant period. You can find information about the requirements for your ongoing grant in the “Approval of terms and conditions” you received from the Swedish Research Council.

The table below shows information and other restrictions on the grants you may apply for if you already have an ongoing grant. Grants under this call are counted as “Focused project grants”.

Please note that you can apply for a project grant within QuantERA even if you are already a project leader for an ongoing project grant, provided your ongoing grant has a different focus than QuantERA and a different project concept.

Table: Grants you may apply for if you have an ongoing grant Opens in new window.

Note: If you have been the project leader for previous grants from the Swedish Research Council that have ended, final financial reports for all of these must have been submitted within the permitted time frame in order for you to apply for a new grant. Please contact your administrating organisation if you are unsure whether all your final financial reports have been submitted.

What applies for applications to or grants from other funding bodies?

If your application to the Swedish Research Council relates to the same project concept as a grant you have already been awarded by, or are applying for to another funding body, please describe this in your application to QuantERA.

Costs and grant amounts

The grant may be used to fund all types of project-related costs, such as:

• salaries (including your own salary), however no more than corresponding to the person’s activity level in the project
• premises
• running costs (such as consumables, travel including stays at research facilities, publication costs and minor equipment)
• depreciation costs.

Grants must not be used for scholarships. If a doctoral student participates, project funds may not be paid out as salary during teaching or other departmental duties.

The maximum amount you may apply for in total for Swedish participation in a consortium is 4 500 000 SEK (approximately 447 000 EUR). A maximum of 2 Swedish participants may apply for funds within the same consortium. The maximum amount for all Swedish participants together is therefore 4 500 000 SEK (approximately 447 000 EUR). The minimum amount you may apply for is 1 200 000 SEK (approximately 119 000 EUR) per Swedish participant.

Grant period

You may apply for a grant to cover 3 years, starting in January 2022. The first payment will be made during January 2022 at the earliest.

Please refer to QuantERA’s call text External link, opens in new window. and the application form in Prisma in parallel with reading the instructions below, which describe the call-specific content of the application to the Swedish Research Council. More information on what to do in practical terms is available in our Guide for applicants Opens in new window..

Sections of the application

The application form in Prisma contains the following tabs (applies to both outline and full applications):

• Descriptive information
• Research description
• Budget and research resources
• Administrating organisation
• Participants (only administrators in this call)
• CV

The information we request under each tab is described below.

Descriptive information

Abstract

In the abstract, please describe in brief the following:

• What is to be done: purpose and aims
• How the research will be carried out: project organisation, time plan and scientific methods
• What is important about the planned research.

The abstract shall provide a summary picture of 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. This is approximately one A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Popular science description (only applies to those invited to submit a full application)

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. Explain also 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 4 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately one A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Research description

Ethical considerations (only applies to those invited to submit a full application)

Describe the ethical issues raised by your project or equivalent. 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.

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

Application for the international collaboration

Please attach the application submitted by the consortium to QuantERA here.

Other appendices

No other appendices need to be attached to this field.

Administrating organisation

Please state the administrating organisation and project site.

Budget and research resources

Please state the total amount applied for in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Participants

Here you as applicant may invite participating administrators to your application.

CV

Under this tab, please upload the following CV information from your personal account in Prisma:

Education: Third cycle higher education (doctoral degree)

Work: Current employment (including whether it is permanent employment or not).

The scientific assessment of the application is carried out by QuantERA (see the assessment process in QuantERA’s call text External link, opens in new window..