Grant for research time within health care sciences

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.

Focus

Healthcare sciences aims to explain and study effects of interventions in healthcare, personal care, and rehabilitation, and the effect of various individual and contextual factors. Healthcare sciences is closely linked to health and medical research into healthcare processes and systems. The area is broad, and the research is often multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary in character.

Healthcare sciences covers theory formation, method development and intervention studies relating to human health, quality of life, and functional and activity ability. It also studies patient-centred care and methods for increasing patients’ abilities to care for themselves and knowledge about managing their own health and disease. Research in this field also focuses on the importance of interaction between patients and the care professions, as well as environmental factors (such as family, social networks, and work, as well as health and medical care as organisations) for the emergence and development of ill health.

The grant aims to promote international collaboration and mobility within Sweden, although this is not a requirement for applicants.

Applicant

The applicant must be an individual researcher, who is employed during the grant period in a healthcare profession, within, or in close connection to, health and medical care.

The purpose is to enable research on a part-time basis, so that you can establish yourself as an independent researcher in parallel with developing your professional competence. The position is intended as a step in the career for independent and established researchers, at or close to docent/associate professor level.

You must hold a Swedish doctoral degree or a corresponding foreign degree, awarded no more than 10 years before the deadline for this call.

The applicant shall be an individual researcher together with their organisation (Swedish higher education institution (HEI) or another Swedish organisation that fulfils our criteria for administrating organisations for Swedish Research Council grants Opens in new window.). We must have approved your organisation as an administrating organisation for you to apply. The administrating organisation must sign your application in Prisma no later than 7 calendar days after the deadline for this call.

You do not have to be employed by the administrating organisation at the time of application, but you must be employed at the start of and throughout the grant period and any additional availability period. The scope of the employment shall correspond to the activity level (research time) you apply for, that is, 30, 40 or 50 per cent of a full-time equivalent, and shall be adapted to the task and the implementation. The research shall be combined with employment of no less than 30 per cent of a full-time equivalent in a healthcare profession in, or with close links to, health and medical care. It is up to you, the healthcare principal/employer and the administrating organisation to agree on how the research and healthcare profession activities shall be divided up over the year.

You must not be a professor or adjunct professor at the time of the deadline of the call.

Note: If you are awarded a grant, you will have to validate your doctoral degree before the grant can be paid. If you have a Swedish doctoral degree, you can validate it easily before you send in your application. Read more in Prisma’s user support External link, opens in new window. about how to validate your doctoral degree via Ladok.

Career age

To apply for a grant for research time in healthcare sciences, your doctoral degree must have been awarded no more than 10 years ago, that is to say awarded no later than the deadline for the call, and no earlier than 28 March 2013. For applicants with Swedish doctoral degrees, the award date listed in Ladok applies. You will not be able to complete your application if your doctoral degree was awarded more than 10 years ago. An exception applies if you have not been in paid employment for (a) long period(s) after being awarded your doctoral degree, and and this has affected your ability to gain merit as a researcher (“deductible time”).

The Swedish Research Council’s approved grounds for deductible time are a minimum of one month’s consecutive absence due to one of the following reasons:

• parental leave
• position of trust in a trade union or student organisation
• mandatory service in the total defence force
• long-term illness (own reported illness or care of child/close family member)
• general medical internship/BT foundation period (maximum 24 months full-time work) or further training/specialist medical internship for clinically active professionals (maximum 24 months full-time education/work).

Please note that we do not accept other employment, unemployment or holidays as deductible time.

If you wish to claim deductible time, you must specify the recognised grounds and time involved in your application (please see instructions under “Descriptive information” below).

We conduct sample checks. This means that we might request a certificate in evidence of your grounds for deductible time.

Number of applications and previous grants

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. Further information about the grants you may apply for during the same year are shown in on the page Several grants simultaneously Opens in new window.. Please note that you can apply for an undirected project grant or a starting grant at the same time as this grant, and you may apply for the same or different project concept. If several applications are approved, you must choose one of the grants.

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.

If you already have an ongoing grant, then further information about the grants you may apply for are shown in on the page Several grants simultaneously. 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 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.

Participating researchers

You may not invite any participating researchers in this application. Any collaboration partners and their roles shall be described in the research plan (please see instructions under “Research plan” below).

Costs and grant amounts

The grant is a standard amount, consisting of two parts:

• A salary portion of either 510 000 SEK (for an activity level of 30 per cent), 680 000 SEK (40 per cent activity level), or 850 000 SEK (50 per cent activity level) per year, which must only be used for salary costs (including social security contributions) corresponding to the salary for your employment in a healthcare profession.
• A project grant of 1 000 000 SEK per year (which may be used to cover all types of project-related costs, such as salaries for participants, premises, running costs and depreciation costs).

The grant amount includes cover of indirect costs. The grant must not be used for scholarships. If a doctoral student participates, project funds must not be paid out as salary during teaching or other departmental duties.

The Swedish Research Council assumes that the administrating organisation, as the employer responsible, will cover any costs in excess of the standard amount.

Grant period

You may apply for a grant for a minimum of 2 year and a maximum of 3 years, starting in January 2024. The first payment will be made during January 2024 at the earliest.

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

International 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 (apart from the popular science description, which you must write in Swedish).

Sections of the application

The application form includes the following tabs:

• Descriptive information
• Research description
• Budget and research resources
• Publications
• Letter of support
• 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 third of an A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Popular science description

Describe the planned research in such a way that a person who is not a researcher can understand it. Do this by answering the following questions:

• What is the research about?
• Why is it important to research this?
• In what way may the new knowledge be important?

The popular science description is important when we inform about the research funded by the Swedish Research Council.

The text must be in Swedish and cover a maximum of 2 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately half an A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Deductible time

Please state any longer interruptions in your active research time after your doctoral degree caused by any of the grounds recognised by the Swedish Research Council. Please state the interruption calculated as a full-time equivalent and rounded up into full calendar months. Please see the recognised grounds for deductible time under the heading “Career age” above.

Other applications or grants

Describe the relationship between the different projects if

1. you are applying for or intend to apply for other grants from the Swedish Research Council
2. you are receiving an ongoing grant from the Swedish Research Council with a grant period that wholly or partly overlaps with the grant you are now applying for
3. there are applications or grants relating to the same project concept/purpose from the Swedish Research Council or other funding bodies (from you or another researcher).

In all cases, you should also justify why you are submitting one or several further applications. If there are no other applications or grants, please state so.

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

Specification of employment

Describe in what way you fulfil the requirement to be employed in a healthcare profession in or closely connected to health and medical care in Sweden corresponding to at least 30 per cent of a full-time equivalent during the grant period (see under the section “Requirements for applicants”).

The description may cover a maximum of 750 characters in Arial, font size 11.

Research description

Ethical aspects

Legal and formal requirements

State whether the research covers the handling of personal data, or experiments on animals and/or studies involving humans.

If the research covers any of the above, you must also describe/state the approvals and permits your research project requires, and how you plan to obtain these. Describe any other permits that affect your application, such as whether parts of the research will be done in a country other than Sweden. If no approvals or permits are needed, please state so.

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

More information is available on the page Conducting ethical research. Opens in new window.

Ethical considerations

Reflect on the ethical issues that may arise for your project, and describe these. 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. Examples of issues to reflect on:

• How do your research questions and expected results measure up in relation to the ethical issues?
• What (direct) risks (physical, mental, or integrity) will research persons or animals be exposed to?
• What long-term risks may arise from the research? Is there any risk that the research may be used in a way that is detrimental to animals, nature/the environment, or society (whole or parts of the same) in other respects?
• Is the research expected to contribute to other values over and above the knowledge gain? If so, to whom?
• How do you weigh up the risks (in particular short-term risks) against the value (which is often more long-term) of the research?

If no ethical issues are raised, please justify this. 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.

Sex and gender perspectives

Please state whether sex and gender perspectives are applicable in your planned research, and justify your decision. Please note that we are not asking for information about the composition of the research team (men/women). Read more about sex and gender perspectives in research content Opens in new window..

The following applies:

• If you answer “Yes”: Please justify your answer and describe also how you take account of sex and gender perspectives in the research plan. If you have stated that sex and gender perspectives are applicable, but still choose not to include them in your research plan, you will need to justify this here.
• If you answer “No”, and thereby do not consider that sex and gender perspectives are applicable for your planned research, you do not need to justify your decision.

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.

Research plan

The research plan shall be forward-looking and consist of a brief but complete description of the research task. It may cover a maximum of 10 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins, including references and any images.

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

• Purpose and aims: State the overall purpose and specific aims of the research project.
• State-of-the-art: Summarise briefly the current research frontier within the field or 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 the impact the project may have 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. If no preliminary results exist, please state this. State also whether the project continues to build on research and scientific results from a grant awarded previously by the Swedish Research Council.
• Project description: Describe the project design under the following headings:
  • 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. Describe also any crucial risks or obstacles that may impact on the implementation, and your plan for managing these.
  • Project organisation: Clarify the contributions of yourself and any other researchers and/or key persons to the implementation of the project, including a description of competences and roles in the project. Explain in particular how the time allocated by you (that is, your activity level) as project leader is suitable for the task, including the relationship with your other research undertakings.

Provide the following information also. If a heading is not relevant to your application, please state this under the heading.

• Data analysis and statistics: Modern methods often generate complex data. Describe how you plan to analyse data collected in the project, and the statistical methods you will be using. If the project covers clinical studies, please include a power analysis.
• Equipment: Describe the basic equipment you and your team have at your disposal for the project.
• Need for research infrastructure: Specify the project’s need for international and national research infrastructure. If you choose to use other infrastructure that those supported by the Swedish Research Council Opens in new window., and that are thereby open to all, you must justify this (also applies to local research infrastructure).
• International and national collaboration: Describe your collaboration with foreign and Swedish researchers and research teams. State whether you contribute to or refer to international collaboration in your research.
• Independent line of research: If you are working or will be working in a larger group, please clarify how your project relates to the other projects in the group. If you are (continuing) working in the same team as your doctoral or postdoc supervisor, or if you are continuing a project that wholly or partly started during your doctoral or postdoc studies, you must also describe the relationship between your project and the research of your former supervisor.
• Clinical significance: Explain how the results of the project may be transferred into practical clinical use within the area medicine and health.
• Relevance to healthcare science

Describe how your project is relevant for the focus (see the definition under the heading “Focus” above) and how the project promotes the development of this field.

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

Budget and research resources

Please state your activity level (per cent of a full-time equivalent) in the project as one of the three possible levels (30, 40 or 50 per cent). Your activity level as project leader must therefore correspond to no less than 30 per cent of a full-time equivalent.

The grant is a standard amount and you therefore do not need to enter any budget applied for in the application form.

Justification of the budget applied for

Describe briefly the primary costs you intend to cover within the framework for the grant budget. 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.

Other funding

Please state your or any other researcher’s funding for the project over and above what is applied for in this application. Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Publications

Applicant’s publication list

Please attach your publication list drawn up according to the headings and information below. The list may cover a maximum of 5 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins.

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 equivalent that are published or accepted for publication at the time of applying. The author name 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 10 publications of greatest importance to your application. Describe how you contributed to each publication, and its relevance to your research project (maximum 4 lines per publication). Highlight your name in bold in the author list.

2. Relevant publications from 2015–2023: In this part, the publications listed under Item 1 shall also be included if they have been published during the period in question. 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]

3. Number of publications: Specify how many publications you have under each heading (type of publication) below.

• Total number of peer-reviewed original articles
• Total number of peer-reviewed research review articles
• Total number of other publications including patents
• Number of peer-reviewed original articles from 2015–2023
• Number of peer-reviewed research review articles from 2015–2023
• Number of other publications including patents from 2015–2023

Please note that no further bibliometric information shall be stated in the application.

Letter of support

This document, covering maximum 1 A4 page plus possibly one further page for a digital signature, shall include information about your employment in a healthcare profession (position and employer) and employment level (minimum 30 per cent) and shall confirm that working hours corresponding to 30, 40 or 50 per cent will be released for the research project in question. The name and contact details of the operational manager or corresponding signing the certificate shall be stated. Please note that the letter of support is an important part of the assessment of the application, and that we are not asking for a letter of recommendation. The document must be written in English.

Administrating organisation

Please state the administrating organisation and project site of the project.

Participants

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

CV

Under this tab, please upload your relevant CV information from your personal account in Prisma.

The following information (where available) must always be included in your CV:

• Education: First, second and third cycle higher education and specialist degrees.
• Work: Current employment (including employment form) and longer relevant employment held, postdoctoral visits (also included as employment if relevant), research exchanges relevant to the research described and any longer interruptions in the research that have impacted on your opportunity to gain merit as a researcher.
• Merits and awards: Docentship/associate professorship, supervisees (postdoctoral and doctoral students; state the number of persons in each category and list the names of the up to 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 up to 20 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.

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

Evaluation process

Your application for a grant for research time within health care sciences is evaluated by a specialised subject review panel where the members are Swedish and international researchers.

At least three members review and grade your application individually. If extra competence is needed, your application might also be evaluated by an additional, external, reviewer. The entire review panel (not including any external reviewers) then meets at a review panel meeting to discuss and prioritise the applications, and finally to make a proposal for a decision to the Scientific Council for Medicine and Health.

Review panel Opens in new window.

In order to enable more in-depth discussions of applications of higher quality that have a reasonable chance of being funded, the applications that received the lowest grades from the panel members are not discussed in detail at the review panel meeting. Following the grant decision, all applications receive a final statement that includes the review panel’s grading of the application. The applications that have been discussed in more detail at the panel meeting receive an individual final statement which, in addition to the grades, also contains a summary of the review panel’s discussion and joint assessment of the scientific quality of the application.

Here you will find a more comprehensive description of the Swedish Research Council's assessment of applications Opens in new window..

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation of the scientific quality of your application is made based on four basic criteria (Scientific quality of the proposed research, Novelty and originality, Merits of the applicant, Feasibility). The purpose of using several components is to achieve a multi-faceted evaluation. In general, the scientific quality of the merits of the applicant receives a greater focus when evaluating career support applications such as this, in comparison to project support. The criteria are assessed on a seven-grade scale, except for feasibility, which is assessed on a three-grade scale.

In addition to the basic criteria, your application is also evaluated using an additional criterion (Relevance) on a two-grade scale.

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

Scientific quality of the proposed research (1–7)

Guiding questions:

• Is the research proposal relevant for medical research?
• Is the definition of the problems and proposed solutions clear and compelling?
• Do the study design, research questions and hypotheses meet the standard of the highest scientific quality?
• Are the hypotheses clearly defined and based on the appropriate literature and/or preliminary data?
• Are potential problems and alternative strategies identified and presented?
• Are methods, including data analysis and statistics, appropriate for the project and well described?
• Are the ethical considerations for the proposed project described and addressed properly? Does the applicant adequately consider risk/value/suffering for humans, animals, nature and/or society?
• If sex and gender is described as relevant to the research project, has the applicant considered sex and gender in the description of the proposed work, for instance as part of preliminary data, the choice of samples or study population, or data analyses?

Novelty and originality (1–7)

Guiding questions:

• Does the project extend or challenge current understanding, opinion or practice in its field?
• Is the project built on a unique combination of ideas, preliminary data, and different methodologies to create novel approaches to address the question at hand?
• Is there potential for creation of new knowledge, novel technologies, or new directions for research and advancement of the field?
• Will completion of the aims improve scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice?
• Does the researcher propose a line of research that has the potential to significantly advance current knowledge in the field or is he/she simply adding details to existing knowledge?

Merits of the applicant (1–7)

Guiding questions:

• Does the applicant have sufficient research experience, expertise, level of independence and scientific network for implementation of the proposed project?
• How do the applicant’s academic qualifications and achievements relate to his or her career age?
• Does the applicant have a documented independent line of investigation?
• Does the publication record suggest a coherent line of investigation? Does the applicant report publications as senior author? Focus is on the most relevant and important publications and reports, with emphasis on quality rather than quantity.

Feasibility (1–3)

Guiding questions:

• Considering the project as a whole, including participating researchers, does the applicant or project group have sufficient competence for completion of the project?
• Is the project leader’s level of activity within the project sufficient with regard to the proposed research plan?
• Is the general design, including the time-frame, realistic for implementing the proposed project?
• Are the materials, methods (including statistics and/or power calculations), experimental models, and when appropriate patient/study cohorts adequate and well adapted to the hypothesis or research question?
• Does the applicant adequately consider relevant legal and formal requirements for the proposed research, such as ethical permits and guidelines?

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.

Relevance (1-2)

The additional criterion of “relevance” is used by the review panel for applications related to research in the field of health care sciences. A two-point grading scale shall be used for this criterion. The “relevance”-criterion must not be weighed into the overall grade. Instead, it is to be weighed into an application’s ranking in relation to others. Thus, an application can be of high relevance, but low scientific quality (or vice versa).

Guiding questions:

• Is the research closely linked to health care?
• Does the research have the potential to explain the mechanisms, rational for or effects of care, nursing or rehabilitation, including the impact of various individual and contextual factors?