More Review Panels within Humanities and Social Sciences

In 2025, the Swedish Research Council's Scientific Council for Humanities and Social Sciences conducted a review of the panel structure associated with undirected project grants within Humanities and Social Sciences. The background is a significant increase in the number of applications in recent years.

The largest panels – those handling subjects such as history, political science, and sociology – have been divided.

“The idea is to ensure that panel members responsible for these subjects have a more reasonable workload,” says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, Secretary General for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Swedish Research Council.

Some research areas have been combined differently than before. One example is media and communication studies, which will now be reviewed together with sociology.

“We certainly hope that researchers will continue to find it easy to choose the appropriate panel for their project ideas. Most applicants to the free project grant call probably won’t notice the new panel structure,” says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.

The call opens and closes earlier

In 2026, the call for undirected project grants will open as early as 7 January and close 10 February. This change is being made to allow earlier notification of how project ideas have been assessed.

The new structure with 13 review panels:

• HS-1 Aesthetic Sciences
• HS-2 Philosophy, Ethics, Religious Studies
• HS-3 Language, Rhetoric, Translation
• HS-4 History, History of Ideas, History of Technology and Environment
• HS-5 History, Archaeology, Classical Studies, History of Religions
• HS-6 Anthropology, Ethnology, Gender Studies, Migration, Cultural Studies
• HS-7 Geography, Economic History, Demography
• HS-8 Sociology, Social Work, Working Life, Criminology
• HS-9 Sociology, Media and Communication Studies
• HS-10 Political Science, Law, Public Administration
• HS-11 Political Science, Peace and Conflict Research
• HS-12 Economics, Business Administration, Statistics
• HS-13 Psychology, Pedagogy