Doctoral programme grant within research on crime

Application procedure

For a person to access the call and start the application process, they must be authorised to create organisation applications on the organisation’s Prisma account, please refer to Prisma’s User manual for applying in calls for organisations. External link. If they will not be the project leader and responsible for completing the application, they must invite the project leader to the application once the process has been started (see under the heading “Applicant” below, and under the tab “Participants” in the application form).

Requirements for applicants

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

Framework for the graduate school

The Swedish Research Council invites Swedish universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) that are authorised to award third-cycle qualifications to apply for funding for national graduate schools in research on crime.

Depending on differing needs and prerequisites, a graduate school may be designed in various ways. To get a grant from the Swedish Research Council, the graduate school must fulfil the following general requirements:

• Be linked to an HEI with main and coordinating responsibility.
• Be operated by at least two Swedish HEIs in cooperation. Collaboration may also take place internationally and with foreign graduate schools that have other sources of funding.
• Be open to collaboration with public authorities, organisations, or other actors in areas relevant to the theme of the graduate school, and the application must justify how such collaboration contributes to promoting practice-oriented research and cooperation.
• Offer a structured educational programme, with joint courses and seminars of high scientific and pedagogical quality, which must be accessible at the national level.
• Have a clear organisation and leadership, including a board or governing body with overarching responsibility for quality assurance of the graduate school’s activities in collaboration with the participating institutions.
• Include at least 9 doctoral students, who must be employed by the applying or participating HEIs for the duration of their studies. They do not need to be employed by the institution at the time of application.

Focus

The call is part of the National Research Programme on Crime, which the government has tasked the Swedish Research Council with establishing and managing. The programme has a broad scope aimed at addressing pressing issues related to crime from a variety of perspectives.

The programme seeks to develop new knowledge about the nature, processes, causes, and consequences of crime, as well as methods for preventing and combating crime, and the social and cultural aspects of crime. It includes studies of police and judicial practices, various forms of treatment and rehabilitation, sanctions and incapacitation, victimisation, social control, and desistance processes. Research from the perspectives of offenders or their relatives is also important, as are gender and intersectional perspectives.

The research should contribute to evidence-based and relevant working methods for authorities and organisations engaged in crime prevention, law enforcement, and justice, or those that encounter crime in other ways.

The Swedish Research Council now invites applications for funding national graduate schools in crime research. In line with the government’s mandate, the grant aims to build and strengthen scientific expertise and ensure the long-term supply of competence in crime research.

Currently, doctoral education in crime research is spread across numerous HEIs and disciplines. National research schools can bring these together for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and the creation of future networks. The Swedish Research Council welcomes applications that include cross- and multidisciplinary approaches. Collaboration with stakeholders outside academia is also encouraged to promote knowledge exchange and cooperation with various professions and their practitioners.

The call is open to all scientific disciplines and approaches studying issues related to crime, including less frequently highlighted types of crime such as environmental crime, welfare fraud, economic crime, and war crimes.

Applicant

The applicant for the grant must be a Swedish higher education institution (HEI) with degree-awarding powers at third cycle higher education level that has been approved as an administrating organisation for grants from the Swedish Research Council. The HEI shall coordinate the national graduate school, and shall also be responsible for activity reporting and for scientific and financial final reporting of grants awarded. The graduate school shall be operated by no less than two HEIs in cooperation.

The application shall include a named researcher (project leader) who shall be the coordinator of the graduate school responsible for coordination and follow-up studies. The coordinator shall be employed by the administrating organisation at the start of and throughout the grant period and any further additional availability period. The coordinator does not have to be employed at the time of applying. A named representative of each participating HEI shall be listed (see instructions under “Design of the graduate school” below), and be included as participating researchers in the application.

Number of applications and previous grants

General information about overlaps between applications and grants

The 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 awarded, or be a reason for us to reject the application.

There is no limit to the number of applications a single HEI may submit or participate in within this call. However, a HEI may not submit an application to the call Doctoral programme grant within humanities and social sciences for the same graduate school.

Participating researchers

A representative of each HEI participating in the graduate school in addition to the applying HEI shall be included as a participating researcher in the application. The participating researchers are not required to hold a doctoral degree, but their scientific expertise must be crucial for carrying out the activities of the graduate school. Participating researchers shall provide the necessary information themselves in Prisma, and upload these to the application.

Costs and grant amounts

The grant may be used to fund both direct and indirect costs. Funding may be applied for to cover costs related to the graduate school, such as coordination (including salary for a coordinator), doctoral student salaries, and courses. The grant may not be used for scholarships or to finance departmental duties carried out by doctoral students. Graduate schools awarded funding are expected to participate in activities organised by the National Research Programme on Crime during the grant period.

You may apply for a maximum of 10 500 000 SEK per year, including indirect costs. The minimum amount you can apply for is 1 000 000 SEK per year.

The grant amount includes cover of indirect costs as a percentage of the direct costs, according to the model used by the administrating organisation. The Swedish Research Council assumes that the administrating organisation will cover any costs in excess of the amount received.

Grant period

The grant period is 4 years, starting from January 2027. The first payment will be made during December 2026 at the earliest.

What must the application contain?

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.

International 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, except the popular science description, which must be in Swedish.

The information we request under each tab in the application form is described below.

Descriptive information

Abstract

The abstract shall include a brief description of the following:

• the focus of the graduate school
• the organisation planned
• the significance to the research field.

The text shall provide an overview of the purpose and implementation of the graduate school. Please use wording to ensure that 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 activities of the graduate school 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 graduate school will support research on crime.

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.

Design of the graduate school

Research programme

The research programme shall consist of a brief but complete description of how the doctoral programme will be designed. 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. References may be provided either throughout or at the end of the programme. All sources must be provided with complete information; links alone are not sufficient.

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

• Thematic focus. Describe the theme, focus and relevance, and outline the graduate school’s overall objectives.
• Coordination. Describe which Swedish HEIs participate in the graduate school’s activities, and state the person or persons (name, title, organisational unit) who will be responsible for this participation at each institution. Briefly describe the planned distribution of roles, tasks, and responsibilities among those involved in the activities (including the coordinator), as well as the specific expertise that each participant will contribute.
• Research environments. Describe the research environments that support the graduate school. Describe these environments in terms of their focus and leadership, as well as the direction of ongoing research in each research environment. In particular, describe how the environments together can contribute to the development of the graduate school. Also describe any collaborations with other Swedish and/or international research environments, as well as other graduate schools, and how these can contribute to the development of the proposed graduate school.

• Programme description. Describe the graduate school’s planned educational activities. Describe the course offering, seminar activities, forms of supervision, and other educational components, and explain the basis for recruitment. Describe how the graduate school’s activities and offerings develop the doctoral students’ fundamental scientific competence and can contribute to innovative thinking and originality within the research field. Explain how courses, seminars, and supervision relate to the graduate school’s overall purpose and thematic focus. Also describe how the graduate school ensures that doctoral students have access to relevant research environments and resources.

• Organisation. Describe in detail how the graduate school will be organised and administered (course offering, seminars, course development, coordination, study follow-up, division of responsibilities between supervisors, examiners, and course providers, etc.), as well as the expertise available within the graduate school to provide high-quality third-cycle education. Also state the graduate school’s planned scale in terms of the number of doctoral students.
• Significance. Describe the national graduate school’s plan for achieving the objective of building up a new field, strengthening expertise within a specific field, or increasing collaboration nationally and internationally through contributions to doctoral education activities. The description should specifically explain how you intend to develop networking within the field, for example by linking postdoctoral researchers to the education, mentorship programmes, collaboration with external stakeholders, etc.

Report the following under separate headings if relevant to your application:

• Equipment: Describe the basic equipment relevant to the programme that the graduate school has at its disposal.
• Need for research infrastructure: Specify the graduate school’s need for international and national research infrastructure. The Swedish Research Council funds research infrastructures that are open to all. Any need to use infrastructures other than these shall be justified (also applies to local research infrastructure).

Description of merits

Describe how the merits you state in the project leader’s/coordinator’s CV and list of publications and other research outputs confirm their competence as project leader and responsible for implementing the proposed activities.

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.

Publications and other research outputs

The project leader’s/coordinator’s publications and other research outputs

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

Sort the outputs 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 research outputs:

List the 10 publications or other outputs that are the most important for confirming the project leader’s/coordinator’s competence as project leader and responsible for implementing the proposed activities. For each publication, please state how the researcher contributed to it, and its relevance to the graduate school described (maximum 4 lines per publication). Highlight the researcher’s name in bold in the author list.

2. Relevant peer-reviewed research outputs from 2018-2026:

In this part, the outputs listed under Item 1 shall also be included if they were published during the period in question. Sort them with the researcher’s name highlighted in bold in the author list/corresponding under headings (type of output) in the following order:

• Original articles
• Conference contributions, the results of which are not included in other publications
• Edited volumes
• Research review articles
• Books and book chapters
• Artistic work
• Other outputs that do not fit under any of the headings above. Please note that intellectual property rights shall be shown in the CV section of the application.

3. Relevant non peer-reviewed research outputs from 2018-2026:

In this part, the outputs listed under Item 1 shall also be included if they were published during the period in question. Sort them with the researcher’s name highlighted in bold in the author list/corresponding under headings (type of output) in the following order:

• Artistic work
• Publications including popular science books/presentations
• Preprints
• Other outputs that do not fit under any of the headings above. Please note that intellectual property rights shall be shown in the CV section of the application.

Participating researchers’ publications and other research outputs

Attach all participating researchers’ lists merged into one file.

The list for each researcher shall include the 10 publications or other research outputs that are the most relevant for the implementation of the activities described, and shall cover a maximum of 1 A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins. The name of the researcher in question shall be highlighted in bold and also be included in the page header of each list.

The outputs may be of the following types and must be 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.

Peer-reviewed

• original articles
• conference contributions
• edited volumes
• research review articles
• books and book chapters
• artistic work
• other outputs

and

Non peer-reviewed research outputs

Budget and research resources

Personnel

State the activity level (per cent of a full-time equivalent) of all personnel active within the graduate school, that is, the project leader/coordinator, other researchers responsible for participation in the graduate school at other HEIs, doctoral students and other personnel.

Please also state the salary you are applying for, for the project leader/coordinator or other personnel active within the graduate school, both as a percentage of a full-time salary and as actual annual amounts (including social security contributions). Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Other costs

Describe any other costs of the gruduate school (premises costs, running costs and depreciation costs). Please state annual amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

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

• the equipment has an economic life of at least three years
• the equipment has an acquisition value above a certain amount
• the need cannot be fulfilled by using national or international research infrastructure supported by the Swedish Research Council and open to all.

You may only include the proportion of depreciation costs that corresponds to the use of the equipment in the proposed operation. You may not include depreciation costs for equipment that is wholly financed via other grants.

Total cost of the graduate school

Prisma will automatically add up your budget items listed in a table. The total amount applied for shall also include indirect costs. These shall be added to the table by the applicant (project leader/coordinator). Here the applicant (project leader/coordinator) can also add any additional costs that the graduate school entails (for which you are not seeking funding under this call).

Justification of the budget applied for

Justify briefly each cost applied for in the budget stated. 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 any other funding of the graduate school over and above what is applied for in this application. Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Administrating organisation

Please state the site of the graduate school.

Participants

Under this tab, the person invited to be the project leader/coordinator may in turn invite participating researchers and participating administrators to the application.

CV

Under this tab, the project leader/coordinator shall upload the relevant CV information from their personal account in Prisma. The information/merits shall confirm the project leader’s/coordinator’s competence as project leader and responsible for implementing the proposed activities. Participating researchers must upload their own CV information to the application.

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

Education

First, second and third cycle higher education and specialist degrees.

Work

• Current employment (including information on employment format)
• Longer relevant employment
• Post-doctoral visits (state also as employment if applicable)
• Researcher exchanges of relevance to the research described
• Any longer interruptions in the research that have impacted on your opportunity to gain merit as a researcher.

Merits and awards

• Docentship/associate professorship
• Persons supervised (postdoctoral and doctoral students; state the number of persons in each category and list the names of the maximum 10 most relevant)
• Relevant grants received in competition (list maximum 10)
• The most relevant prizes and awards (list maximum 10)
• Any other merits of relevance to the application, such as invitations to lecture, leader assignments, representative assignments, membership of scientific associations and similar.

Intellectual property rights

For example, patents and open access computer programs developed; state up to 10 of the most relevant.

How your application is assessed

Your application is evaluated in competition with the other applications on the basis of the following evaluation criteria.

Evaluation process

Your application for Doctoral programme grant within research on crime is evaluated by a specialist subject review panel where the members are Swedish and international researchers.

At least five 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 to make a proposal for a decision to the Scientific Council for Humanities and Social Science.

Review panel

Following the grant decision your application will receive an individual final statement containing the grades and a summary of the review panel’s discussion and 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

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation of the quality of your application is made based on four criteria (Design of the graduate school, Quality of the research, Merits of the applicants, 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.

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.

Design of the graduate school (1-7)

• To what extent do the aims, content, and organisation of the graduate school contribute to added value for doctoral education within the relevant field?
• To what extent does the planned educational offering – including joint courses, seminars, and supervision – support high scientific theoretical and methodological quality in doctoral education?
• To what extent does the graduate school contribute to developing the doctoral students’ fundamental scientific competence and to strengthening originality and fostering innovative thinking in their academic work?
• Does the proposed model for doctoral education, and the structure of the educational programme, ensure high pedagogical quality in teaching and supervision?
• How is it ensured that the doctoral students become part of appropriate research environments at the participating higher education institutions? If the graduate school collaborates with external partners, to what degree does the graduate school promote knowledge exchange and collaboration with different professions and practitioners?

Quality of the research (1-7)

• To what extent is the focus of the graduate school grounded in relevant and up-to-date research of high scientific quality?
• To what extent do the participating higher education institutions complement each other in terms of relevant and current high-quality research?

Merits of the applicants (1-7)

• What experience do the project leader and participating researchers have in leading and conducting doctoral education?
• To what extent does the combined competence contribute to high quality in the doctoral education?

Feasibility (1-3)

• In what ways do the organisation and leadership of the graduate school ensure quality in its implementation?
• How does each of the participating departments/institutions contribute to the graduate school?
• How is the competence of supervisors ensured?
• Has the applicant demonstrated that there is a sufficient national supply of (potential) doctoral students?
• How is access to staff, infrastructure, and other necessary resources guaranteed?
• Is the budget of the graduate school realistic in relation to its aims, content, and organisation?

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 quality.