Scientific journal grant within humanities and social sciences

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 journal

The journal must have

• a national or international editorial council that is responsible for the journal’s scientific focus. The editorial council shall consist of scientific experts, and the composition must correspond well to the journal’s scientific profile. The editorial council should be renewed and meet regularly.
• one or more editors, appointed by the journal’s editorial council for a limited period.
• a referee system with external quality review. Material sent in should be reviewed by a minimum of two scientific experts who are independent of the editors.
• a national and/or international (as opposed to local) focus.

The journal must also publish with open access. This means that the journal must offer immediate open access to the articles published in the journal.

The journal must use Digital Object Identifiers (DOI).

Applicant

The applicant for the grant must be a Swedish higher education institution (HEI) or another organisation that has been approved as an administrating organisation for grants from the Swedish Research Council. The administrating organisation shall be the host organisation for the journal’s editors, and be responsible for ensuring the grant is used according to the Swedish Research Council’s terms and conditions.

The application shall include a named editor of the journal who is active within the administrating organisation at the start of the grant period.

Number of applications and previous grants

General information about overlaps between applications and grants

An organisation may submit several applications provided they relate to different journals. There are no limits in terms of any other grants that may be applied for or held at the same time as a publication grant.

Please note that if the journal has previously been awarded a grant from the Swedish Research Council, this shall be stated in the application.

Participating researchers

No participating researchers may be included in this application.

Costs and grant amounts

The grant covers costs directly related to the journal, such as salary costs for the editor and editor’s secretary, printing costs, internet publication, distribution and language review. Salaries for other editorial team members are not covered by the grant. Please note also that indirect costs may only be included relating to salary costs.

The minimum amount you may apply for is 50 000 SEK per year, including indirect costs. The maximum amount you may apply for per year depends on the publishing profile of the journal, and is divided up into two levels:

Level 1

Maximum amount 240 000 SEK per year: Up to 2 issues per year, with fewer than 15 articles per year.

Level 2

Maximum amount 350 000 SEK per year: From 2 issues per year with 15 or more articles per year, or from 3 issues per year, irrespective of the number of articles.

Grant period

The grant may cover a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3 years, starting in January 2027. The first payment will be made during January 2027 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.

The application may be written in English or Swedish.

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

Descriptive information

Summary information about the journal

The abstract shall include a brief description of the following:

• the scientific focus of the journal and its significance to the research field
• the significance of the grant for the journal and the research field

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.

Scientific description of the journal

Scientific plan

The plan shall consist of a description of the journal’s scientific profile, importance to the research field and editorial practice. 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 plan must include the following headings and information, listed in the following order:

Scientific profile

Describe the journal’s purpose and target audience. Also describe the journal’s composition in terms of different types of contributions: articles, reviews, overviews, notices, essays, opinion pieces, etc.

Editorial quality‑assurance process

Describe the journal’s editorial process. How are editors, the scientific advisory board, and external reviewers recruited? How is the interaction between these different roles organised? What proportion of the published texts are peer-reviewed, and how? How are ethical issues handled?

Publication process

Describe the journal’s preparation and production process, from acceptance for publication, as well as its accessibility and archiving; also describe the journal’s publication statistics.

Significance

Describe the journal’s significance for the research field and its development. To what extent is the journal expected to fill a gap that is not covered by other journals?

Open access-model

Describe the journal’s open access model, as well as any plans for its development.

Composition of the editorial team

State the name, academic title and country of the members of the editorial team, as well as contact details for the responsible editor.

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.

Scientific council

Please state the name, academic title, higher education institution and country of all members of the scientific council.

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.

Previously awarded grants

Please state the project name, case number, grant amount and grant period (that is the payment period from the Swedish Research Council; the extra availability period shall not be included) for any previous grant awarded to the journal.

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.

Budget and research resources

Personnel

The grant may include salary costs for an editor and editor’s secretary. Please state the salaries applied for, 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

Please describe other running costs (such as costs of production, digital publication and distribution, and language review). Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Total cost of the journal

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). Here the applicant (project leader) can also add any additional costs that the journal 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 journal over and above what is applied for in this application. Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Costs, revenues and results

Please attach the completed appendix “Kostnader, intäkter och resultat”.

The template can be downloaded here (in Swedish). docx, 54.5 kB. (docx, 54.5 kB)

Administrating organisation

Please state the site of the journal.

Participants

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

How your application is assessed

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 the scientific journal grant within humanities and social sciences is evaluated by a 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 to make a proposal for a decision to the Scientific Council for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Review panel

To allow for more in-depth discussions of applications with higher quality and a reasonable chance of being funded, not all applications are discussed in detail at the review panel’s meeting. The applications that are not discussed thoroughly are those that the panel members during their individual review have assessed having the lowest quality among the panel’s applications. 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

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation of the scientific quality of your application is based on the Swedish Research Council’s three assessment criteria for journal grant applications (Scientific and editorial quality of the journal, Visibility and significance of the journal, and 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.

Scientific and editorial quality of the journal (1-7)

• To what extent does the journal’s peer‑review system ensure that the published texts are of the highest scholarly/scientific quality?
• To what extent are the journal’s authors and editorial team (editor‑in‑chief, editorial secretary, editorial board, etc.) scholarly/scientifically qualified?
• How well does the journal address ethical considerations?

Visibility and significance of the journal (1-7)

• To what extent does the journal’s distribution system ensure that its content is visible, searchable and accessible to researchers in Sweden and internationally?
• To what extent does the journal contribute to the development of its research field? To what extent does the journal provide knowledge that is not covered by other journals?

Feasibility (1-3)

• Does the journal have a publishing licence, ISSN number and a responsible publisher, or is it clearly stated how these will be obtained?
• To what extent are the journal’s time plan and budget realistic?
• To what extent are there established and well-functioning routines for manuscript handling, editing, production and distribution, or is it clearly stated how such routines will be developed?
• Is the journal expected to have a sufficient flow of article manuscripts and other material to fulfil its aims?
• To what extent does the editorial team have the experience and competence required to carry out the planned publication activities?

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 scholarly/scientific quality.