The funding comes from various Government initiatives relating to coronavirus research. The Swedish Research Council has also set aside further funding to strenghten areas such as basic virus research.
Funding of research
In the summer of 2021, the Swedish Research Council issued a call for project grants to fund research into remaining or late-onset symptoms following COVID-19 infection (post-COVID syndrome). The call was open from 2 June to 17 August 2021, and the budgetary framework was 50 million SEK.
In November 2021, we decided to approve 14 out of 56 applications.
In spring 2021, we issued a call for research environments. The purpose was to give researchers the opportunity to collaborate nationally to conduct follow-up studies of COVID-19 vaccine that are justified by the needs of health and medical care and contribute to a permanent infrastructure for future follow-up studies.
The call was open from 23 March to 13 April 2021. In June, we decided to fund 6 research environments with a total of 100 million SEK.
The initiative was a Government mandate aimed at supporting research that can quickly contribute to stopping the spread of COVID-19 and preventing future pandemic outbreaks. The call was open for two weeks, from 19 May to 2 June 2020, and was aimed at project leaders with grants awarded by the Swedish Research Council or Forte whose projects had not yet been completed.
In July, we made a decision to approve 23 out of 255 applications. The researchers shared a total of 33 million SEK during 2020.
Read the news item about the grant decision
Brief descriptions of the projects awarded grants (in Swedish)
In spring 2020, the Swedish Research Council decided to boost basic virology research. Calls for international postdoc grant, starting grant and consolidation grant were aimed at researchers at the beginning of their careers. In December 2020, we decided to approve 5 out of 56 applications. The researchers shared a total of 48 million SEK.
In spring 2021, we followed up this initiative with a call for project grants. For this call too, the focus was on long-term research into basic virology and fundamental disease mechanisms caused by viruses.
The call was open from 10 February to 17 March. In October 2021, we decided to approve 11 out of 127 applications. The researchers shared a total of 51 million SEK.
Read the grant decision from 28 October 2021
The overall investment in in basic virology research is 100 million SEK for the years 2020–2024.
This is a cross-disciplinary call making it possible for researchers from Sweden and China to collaborate in studying the ongoing pandemic, and to prepare for future pandemics.
The call was open from 17 June to 11 August 2020. In November 2020, we decided to approve 4 multidisciplinary collaboration projects relating to coronavirus and virology research. The Swedish Research Council will distribute 36 million SEK to approved researchers from Sweden during the grant period 2021–2023.
In spring 2020, researchers from the Nordic countries, Estonia and Latvia were given the opportunity to apply for funding for collaboration to develop new knowledge that can contribute to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic through the use of existing health data. The call closed on 16 June, and decisions on the 5 projects awarded grants were published on 23 October the same year.
The Swedish Research Council is one of the funding bodies supporting the call, which has an overall budget of 53 million NOK for the years 2020–2022.
Read more about the projects on Nordforsk’s website External link.
This call made it possible for researchers in Sweden to apply for grants for collaboration with researchers in South Korea on questions relating to COVID-19.
The call was open from 10 June to 15 September 2020. In November 2020, we decided to support 4 collaboration projects. The Swedish Research Council is funding the call with 6 million SEK in total.
In March 2020, researchers with grants from the Swedish Research Council were given the option to temporarily use part of their funding for research into COVID-19, irrespective of what project idea had been funded to begin with. The research had to be completed no later than 31 July 2020. A total of 37 researchers used this option.
Research infrastructure
In June 2020, a national data portal for research into COVID-19 was launched. This makes it easier for researchers to find and share relevant research data. The portal is coordinated by SciLifeLab and the Swedish Research Council.
Biobank Sweden has received 10 million SEK from the Swedish Research Council to coordinate the collection of and access to samples linked to COVID-19.
Clinical studies
In June 2020, the six regional nodes within the Clinical Studies Sweden collaboration received a grant of 12 million SEK in total, to increase their ability to support clinical studies linked to COVID-19.
Read the news item about the grant decision from 3 June 2020
In September 2020, the regional nodes received additional support of 8 million SEK.
The Swedish Research Council is providing 10 million SEK to fund the ImmCoVA clinical study. The study focuses on immune blockers to counteract excess reaction of the immune system to the infection caused by COVID-19. It is expected to run for three years, starting in October 2020.
Our Government mandates relating to the coronavirus pandemic (in Swedish)
Mandate to prepare funding of follow-up studies of COVID-19 vaccines External link.
Mandate to prepare funding of research studies into long COVID External link.
Mandate to temporarily reinforce the activities within Clinical Studies Sweden External link.
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