Closed call
19 April - 23 May 2023
Grant for research time within primary care
The purpose of the grant is to give persons working in primary care the opportunity to conduct research and to establish themselves as independent researchers in parallel with developing their professional competence. The focus of this call is on long-term research into diseases and disease conditions that are diagnosed and treated within and referred from primary care.
Support form: Career support
Subject area: Medicine and Health
Focus: Primary care
Applicant: Individual researcherIndividual researcher who completed a doctoral degree no more than 7 years ago and is employed within primary care during the grant availability period.
Participating researchers: No participating researchers may be invited to join the application.
Grant period: 12 months of full-time research, allocated over the period the grant is available (3 years).
Grant amount: 2 000 000 SEK
Start of grant period: January 2024
Application period: 19 April 2023 (14.00/2 pm) – 23 May 2023 (14.00/2 pm).
Publication of grant award: No later than the end of November 2023.
Please note:
- As from 2023, all who are awarded a career grant must validate their doctoral degrees. 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.
- The application shall include a letter of support from your employer for your employment in primary care.
- Read here for information on project collaboration with researchers in Russia and Belarus Opens in new window..
Specific instructions for the call
In addition to reading the call text, you also need to consult our Guide for applicants Opens in new window..
Open publication of data relevant to COVID-19
If you are awarded a grant, you are expected to publish your research data and research results of relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic with open access as quickly as possible. Determining what data can be published with open access shall always be based on applicable legislation. Please use the national COVID-19 data portal External link, opens in new window. to make your data accessible when possible. Here you can also get practical support with data management and data sharing. The data portal, which is operated by SciLifeLab in collaboration with the Swedish Research Council, is linked to the European COVID-19 data portal External link, opens in new window..
Practical tips and advice relating to register-based studies
Registerforskning.se External link, opens in new window. has practical information for those who are planning to use register data in their research projects, including a step-by-step guide. Here you can also find the metadata tool RUT (Register Utiliser Tool), which offers researchers detailed information at metadata level about the variables used in the Swedish registers and biobank sample collections linked to the tool. New registers are continually being added to RUT.
If the application includes a clinical study
Clinical Studies Sweden – regional support for your work
The collaboration Clinical Studies Sweden consists of six regional nodes that can provide contacts with relevant regional resources, such as research units, quality register centres, biobanks and cancer centres. You can also access support via the nodes in the work with a clinical study, for example with study protocols, permit applications, data management and statistics, infrastructure for implementation, education in clinical research methodology, and also relevant experts. More information about the nodes and what you need to consider when conducting a clinical study can be found at kliniskastudier.se External link, opens in new window..
Registering and reporting clinical studies
As from 2022, there are guidelines for study registration and result reporting for clinical studies Opens in new window. funded by the Swedish Research Council. This means that information about the study shall be registered in a public study register, and that a summary of the results shall be published in the register.
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
The aim of the special initiative in primary care is to support research into diseases and health conditions that are diagnosed, treated and referred within primary care. Examples are participation in the development of new medicines, new diagnostics, new preventions, new medical technology products/therapies, and the development of digitisation. Research in primary care relates to the patients and contents of primary care, and many healthcare professions may be involved.
The initiative is based on a Government mandate, and is intended to help build up and develop research competence in primary care.
Applicant
The applicant shall be an individual researcher, who is employed in primary care during the availability period of the grant. The employment shall cover minimum 20 per cent of a full-time equivalent. The purpose is to enable research, so that you can establish yourself as an independent researcher in parallel with developing professional skills. You shall be the project leader and have scientific responsibility for the project.
You must hold a Swedish doctoral degree or a corresponding foreign degree, awarded no more than 7 years before the deadline for this call.
Grants from the Swedish Research Council shall be administered by a Swedish HEI or another Swedish organisation that fulfils our criteria for administrating organisations. Pdf, 30 kB, opens in new window. Your organisation must therefore be approved 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.
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 following a separate request from you, the administrating organisation and your employer. 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.
The time you set aside for research shall correspond to 12 months of full-time research in total over the time the grant is available (3 years), and shall be adapted to the task and the implementation. It is up to the individual researcher, the primary care principal and the administrating organisation to agree on how the research and primary care activities shall be divided up over the year.
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 within primary care, your doctoral degree must have been awarded no more than 7 years ago, that is to say awarded no later than the deadline date for the call and no earlier than 23 May 2016. 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 7 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/foundation medical internship (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 may apply for this grant even if you have already applied for one of our undirected project grants or starting grants, and that you may also apply for this grant at the same time as you apply for a project grant for research in primary care. You may apply for the same or different research concepts, but if you are awarded several grants with the same research concept, you will need to choose only one of them.
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 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 part of 1 000 000 SEK per year, which may only be used for your salary costs (including social security contributions) during the 12 months of research time.
- A project grant of 1 000 000 SEK (which may be used for 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. 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 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 can apply for a grant to cover 12 months of full-time research, to be allocated over the three-year period starting in January 2024.
The first payment will be made in 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 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.
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
- you are applying for or intend to apply for other grants from the Swedish Research Council
- 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
- 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.
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 that will be applied 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 (including any doctoral students) 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 than those supported by the Swedish Research Counci Opens in new window.l, 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.
Relevance
Describe how your project is relevant for the focus on primary care (see the definition in the introduction to the call text) 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, single line spacing.
Budget and research resources
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
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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
The letter of support from your employer in primary care shall cover maximum one A4 page, plus one further page if required for any digital signature.
The letter of support shall be written in English, and shall include:
- information about your employment in primary care (employer and percentage of a full-time equivalent) during the entire availability period of the grant
- certification that time will be made available to implement the research project in question as described in the application
- name and contact details of the operational manager or corresponding signing the certificate.
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.
Administrating organisation
Please state the administrating organisation and project site.
Participants
Here you 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 Grant for research time within primary care is evaluated by a subject-specific review panel where the members are international researchers.
At least three or more members review and grade your application individually. The entire review panel then meets at a review panel meeting to discuss and prioritise the applications, and 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.
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. 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 for primary care) on a three-grade scale. The relevance-criterion is not 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 scientific quality, but low relevance (or vice versa). Only applications of both high scientific quality and relevance can be funded.
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:
- Are the ethical considerations for the proposed project properly described and addressed? Does the applicant adequately consider risk/value/suffering for humans, animals, nature and/or society?
- Will the project, if successful, significantly advance our understanding of the field?
- 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?
- 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.
- Has the applicant shown the ability to work independently of former advisors?
Feasibility (1–3)
Guiding questions:
- Does the applicant adequately consider relevant legal and formal requirements for the proposed research, such as ethical permits and guidelines?
- Considering the project as a whole, 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?
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 for primary care (1-3)
Guiding questions:
- Does the research have a close connection to primary care?
- Does the project have the potential to contribute to the development of new pharmaceuticals, prevention, diagnostics, medical devices, therapies or digitalisation?
- Will the project contribute to the inclusion of results in primary care?