Smart Built Environment: Digital spatial planning in practice

The coordinating party should be a Swedish organisation, i.e., a legal entity linked to an organisation number. Sole proprietorships cannot be awarded funding, which means that applications including a sole proprietor will be rejected.

The coordinating party must be able to receive and administer the funds paid by Formas to an approved project. Formas draws a distinction between administrating organisations that can receive funding in all Formas calls and administrating organisations that can be approved to receive funding in an individual call. The coordinating party must be approved as one of these two forms of administrating organisation. See “How to apply” for more information.

Projects applying for funding from Formas must be led by a project manager. The project is to be carried out by the individuals identified in the application. Submitting the same application with a different lead agency is not allowed. Applications with the same content will be rejected.

Companies that do not have a Swedish organisation number may not receive funding in this call, but in some cases they may participate in kind.

The co-funding requirement from project applicants is at least 50 per cent of the total project budget. Companies and other organisations engaged in economic activity and that want to apply for funding from Formas are covered by state aid rules; see State aid rules for companies and other organisations engaged in economic activity.

At least two organisations are to participate in the project as project parties, at least one of which should be from the business or public sector. It is up to the project to assemble the most suitable project team, which can influence assessment of the criteria implementation and stakeholders (see explanation of these assessment criteria under “How the assessment process works”).

Companies and other organisations engaged in economic activity that receive funding from Formas are covered by state aid rules. These rules are based on the main principle of EU law that state aid to private enterprises normally distorts competition but that certain exceptions are allowed, including support for research, development, and innovation. This call for proposals is based on two regulations on support:

• Article 25 in the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER regulation 651/2014)
• the provisions on de minimis aid from Commission Regulation (EU regulation 1407/2013)

More information on state aid rules is available on the Formas website: State aid rules External link.. This call grants state aid primarily under the “industrial research” category for aid as per Article 25 GBER. The aid intensity (level) depends on the support basis and the company size.

Read more about aid intensity as per Formas’ aid scheme here: Aid intensity as per Formas’ aid scheme External link. (Swedish):

Prior to a decision, Formas conducts credit checks of all companies and organisations engaged in economic activity that might be awarded funding.

The aid intensity that Formas can provide depends on the size of the organisation and type of activities under the project. Organisation size is assessed using the EU definition of small and medium-sized enterprises. Activities are assessed based primarily on Article 25, Industrial research, in the General Block Exemption Regulation EU 651/2014. Aid intensity depends on the eligibility and the size of the company; read more in Aid intensities and definitions for grants under Formas’ aid scheme External link. (Swedish).

For the parties applying for grants as per GBER, Formas has a transparency responsibility to register the grant with the EU Commission if it exceeds EUR 100,000 or for grant recipients active in primary agricultural production or within the fishery and aquaculture sectors if the amount exceeds EUR 10,000. By submitting the application, the parties covered by the transparency reporting requirement are considered to have given their consent to the transparency reporting that will occur if the grant is awarded.

Formas can also grant aid in small amounts as per the provisions on de minimis aid. Information on the provisions on de minimis aid, Regulation (EU) 1407/2013, and the grant conditions covering companies and other organisations engaged in economic activity can be found on Formas’ website.

For parties applying for de minimis aid, the application is to include a certificate on previously received de minimis aid. This certificate is available on Formas’ website under State aid rules External link.. The certificate should state the scope of de minimis aid received, including the amount applied for in the call. It should list aid received in the previous three years. Organisations should report that collectively, the de minimis aid received in this period does not exceed EUR 300,000, approximately SEK 3 million (see p. 12 Formas’ legal bases and aid intensity (PDF) External link. (Swedish).

• Personnel costs: Eligible personnel costs may total actual personnel costs. There is no upper limit.
• Equipment, land, and buildings.
• Costs for consultants, licences, etc.
• Other direct costs, including travel.
• Indirect costs: Overhead (OH) costs. Higher education institutions and research institutes may charge a markup for indirect costs according to the applicable full-cost pricing method. Other project participants that conduct economic activity and that apply for state aid in the project, may charge a markup for indirect costs of up to 30 per cent of their eligible personnel costs.

The total budget for the call is approximately SEK 40 million. Applicants to this call may apply for funding between SEK 500,000 and SEK 4 million. The co-funding requirement from project applicants is at least 50 per cent of the total project budget. For example, a project with a total of SEK 2 million in costs may apply for a grant of SEK 1 million maximum.

Research, development, and innovation projects may run for 12–36 months. Project start is to be 1 June 2025. Projects must conclude by 31 May 2028.

Applications with a different requested amount or a project duration that does not fall within the above range will be rejected.

Projects have a three-month grace period after the end of the official project time. The grace period is a specified period of time after the formal conclusion of the project in which unused funding may be allocated, allowing the project to run beyond its approved deadline.

For projects with a duration of 18 months or more, a periodic financial report is to be submitted annually. The form for this report opens each year on 1 January and the project manager has three months to submit the report.

At the end of the grace period, the project manager has three additional months to submit a final financial and scientific report using a template provided by Formas.

We recommend writing the application in Swedish, as the panel that will assess your application speaks Swedish. You may write the application in English, but it will not be translated into Swedish for assessment. Include the project summary in both Swedish and English.

According to Swedish law, your application (including attachments) is considered a public document once it has been received by Formas. This means that anyone may request to see it. Before disclosing applications, Formas always conducts a confidentiality assessment but may only redact information as legislated for in the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400).

Formas is limited in its ability to designate personal data as confidential. For this reason, your application should not contain the personal data of anyone who is not included in the application. You should also avoid writing sensitive personal information in the application, both concerning yourself and others.

If the project is awarded funding, the popular science description and project abstracts in Swedish and English will be published in open-access project databases without a confidentiality review. For this reason, the contents of these fields should not include sensitive information. These texts are intended for use by Smart Built Environment’s programme office in external communication about the project.

For the project partners conducting economic activity, the applicant may indicate whether any part of the application is covered by business confidentiality as per Chapter 30, Section 223 of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act. Specify the economic damage that could occur for the party if the information is made public upon a freedom of information request for public documents. Upon a freedom of information request to Formas for a public document, Formas conducts an assessment in each case of whether the documents can be released in part or in whole while adhering to applicable confidentiality rules.

Formas currently does not limit your use of AI as support in formulating the application. You also do not need to indicate whether you have used AI. As the applicant, however, you are responsible for ensuring that the content of the application is correct. You certify this when registering your application. As the applicant, you are also to follow the principles for good research practice, which means that plagiarism, falsification, and fabrication of content in the applicant may not occur.

Formas is committed to funding projects that maximise positive and minimise negative impact on the environment and climate. As such, we encourage grant applicants to design their projects to enable primarily online collaboration and that any necessary travel minimises climate impact. We also suggest that your project planning includes measures that minimise energy use and other resource consumption, emissions, and waste. However, this is not part of the assessment of your application.

Read about Sustainability at Formas External link..

Grant applications are filled in and submitted in our application system, Prisma. Enter the necessary information for your application there.

Organisation account

The call is listed under your organisation account in Prisma.

Organisation calls are only visible when you log in to your organisation account. First click the organisation account tab. Then click the calls for organisations link. Use Prisma’s user manual for instructions on how to find the call in Prisma.

Finding the call in Prisma

The coordinating party is responsible for all administration in Prisma and is to be identified consistently as the coordinator/administrating organisation in the application.

The organisation that will receive and allocate funds paid by Formas if the project is awarded funding is called the administrating organisation in Formas’ application system, Prisma.

The organisation must have an organisation account at the time of application.

Formas draws a distinction between administrating organisations that can receive funding in all Formas calls and administrating organisations that can be approved to receive funding for an individual project.

Applicants from administrating organisations approved for all Formas calls

Higher education institutions, most research institutes, and government agencies tasked with conducting research are approved as administrating organisations for all Formas calls and already have organisation accounts.

Applicants from administrating organisations requiring individual approval

Most other public and private organisations require individual approval as administrating organisations in this call. These organisations must have an organisation account with Formas. If the organisation already has a Prisma account, contact the responsible research officer, Anna Gellerstedt (anna.gellerstedt@formas.se), to have the organisation added to the list of possible administrating organisations in the call. Include your organisation number in your email, even if your organisation was approved as an administrating organisation in a previous Formas call.

If your organisation does not have an account in Prisma, an appropriate representative (organisation account supervisor) should apply for an organisation account on the Prisma website. Apply well in advance, but no later than 31 January 2025.

Apply for an organisation account in Prisma External link.

Tick the box for Formas and fill in the “Reason for applying” box, write that you are applying for an organisation account because you want to apply under the Smart Built Environment call, the type of your organisation, and the organisation number.

If you are unsure whether the organisation has an account, contact Research Officer Anna Gellerstedt (anna.gellerstedt@formas.se) before you apply for a new account.

Initiate the application through the organisation account of the coordinating party. The responsible party for the organisation account will automatically be designated project manager. To change this designation, the responsible party can invite another party to be project manager. If someone else will be project manager, that person must have a personal account in Prisma. If the responsible party for the organisation account will be project manager, no personal account needs to be connected to the application.

Find more information on the Prisma support page External link.

Project site

To register an application, a project site in the organisation must be identified. The organisation must have at least one project site in its organisational structure. The term “project site” refers to the section/department/unit within the organisation that is applying. Project site information is required when submitting the application.

The organisation account coordinator must build a structure of divisions and sub-divisions (project sites) at two levels. Do so using the drop-down menus for Administrating organisation and Project site. The project sites that the applicant can select are from the organisational structure through the settings created by the organisation account manager in the organisation account.

If the organisation has no departments, then enter a sub-division with the same name as the organisation. Information on how this is done can be found in Prisma’s user manual.

Describe what your organisation looks like (create a structure) External link.

First, Formas verifies that the application meets the procedural requirements set out in the call. If the application does not meet these requirements, it is rejected.

For this call, the following requirements will be checked:

• That the amount applied for per project does not exceed SEK 4 million.
• That the project has applied for no more than 36 months and no less than 12 months.
• Requirement for co-funding of 50 per cent for the project overall from the business sector or other non-academic parties.
• The project parties must be legal entities (i.e., no sole proprietors or other unsuitable forms of enterprise).
• At least two organisations are to participate in the project as project parties, at least one of which should be from the business or public sector.
• That international project participants will not receive the funding.
• That there are not multiple applications with the same content.
• That the project description is written in the template provided on the call’s website.

If one or more of these requirements is not met, your application will be rejected. This means the application will not go on to review.

An external panel will then assess all applications based on the information presented in them. This means it is important for the application to include all relevant information and for the content to be as clear as possible.

Summary of the preparation process:

1. Formas assesses applications for state aid for those parties that conduct economic activity in the project and ensures that legal requirements and Formas’ requirements are fulfilled. Financial aspects are also examined for parties conducting non-economic activity.
2. Applications that meet the formal requirements will be assessed based on the assessment criteria (relevance, potential, implementation, and stakeholders) by independent external reviewers. Three assessors will review each application. The applications are then ranked and a funding recommendation is made.
3. Formas decides which projects will be funded.
4. The decisions are announced to the applicants and the Smart Built Environment’s programme office and are published on Formas’ and Smart Built Environment’s websites.

Assessment criteria

The applications are assessed based on the following criteria on a scale of 1–7, where 1 is the lowest and 7 is the highest. All criteria are weighed equally.

Relevance

• The project can substantially contribute to the purpose and goal of the call.
• The project addresses at least one thematic area External link. and impacts in accordance with the programme’s impact logic External link..
• The project’s problem formulation and purpose are clear, logical, and well defined.
• The project design and expected results have considered the needs and conditions of the relevant stakeholders.

Potential

• The project’s intended result is innovative or significantly better than the available solutions on the current market.
• The application describes the business-related or operational benefit that the project result is expected to have for the company/organisation or sector.
• The project’s potential for contributing to improved equality in the processes of spatial planning or through the result to which the project contributes.

Implementation

• The planned activities and methods are realistic and suitable for achieving the expected results during the duration of the project.
• The timeline and budget are realistic and appropriate in relation to the project’s purpose and goals.
• The plan for using the project’s results is well described and appropriate.
• Ethical considerations are described clearly, and the applicant’s plan for managing these is appropriate.
• Equality is well integrated into the implementation of the project, for example regarding analysis/problem formulation, goals, and activities.

Project organisation

• The project’s organisation and overall competence of the project group are appropriate for the implementation of the project, including real-world impact of the project’s results.
• The project will be carried out in collaboration with relevant stakeholders or end users. The involvement of the project participants is described well and appropriate for the objectives of the project.
• The project team (key people) is well composed with regard to gender equality, not only in numbers, but also in allocation of power and influence in the project. This is relevant for project teams of more than 3 people.

AI as support in assessing the application

Formas’ reviewers may currently not use AI tools as support in assessing applications. The are several reasons for this. There is a great risk that information uploaded could be disseminated. There is also a risk related to confidentiality and the processing of pers onal data. Uploading an application or information from an application to any form of AI tool constitutes the unauthorised sharing of information. This applies not just to AI tools but also to other services and tools for storing and sharing data.

Using AI tools in reviews of applications can also be inconsistent with the principles of responsible assessment. The European Commission, together with the countries of the European Research Area (ERA) and other stakeholders, has launched Guidelines for responsible use of generative AI in research External link.. These guidelines specify that AI tools should be avoided in expert reviews.

Decisions on which projects will be awarded funding are expected to be made on 27 May 2025. We publish our decisions the following day at the latest on the Formas website, and you will receive an email informing you that the decision is available in Prisma. Grant award decisions cannot be appealed.

All awarded projects must submit a report to Formas containing financial and project results within three months of the end of the grant grace period. The grace period is a specified period of time after the formal conclusion of the project in which unused funding may be allocated, allowing the project to run beyond its approved deadline. In some cases, the grace period can be extended by Formas due to special circumstances (related to the project manager and administrating organisation, such as illness or parental leave).

Projects longer than 18 months should submit a financial status report to Formas every year. All reports are submitted in Prisma.

Financial reporting in Prisma. External link.

Formas may have requirements for how to report projects regarding content and results to facilitate dissemination and real-world impact. In such cases, the award decision will include more information about this. Formas may also require you to participate in conferences and similar events to create synergies and platforms for learning and knowledge sharing.

Terms and Conditions for Grants – Formas External link.

Since this call is within the framework of the Smart Built Environment strategic innovation programme, special terms, conditions, and instructions governing reporting, follow-up, communication, and other aspects related to the programme may apply. Refer to http://www.smartbuilt.se/verktyg External link. for more information (Swedish).

Results of research funded by Formas must be published using open access.

You must also have a data management plan for the data produced in the project. If you receive Formas funding, you are to draw up a data management plan. The plan should not be sent into us, but you should be able to present the plan upon request. By signing our grant terms and conditions, you certify that a data management plan will be in place before the research begins and that it will be maintained.

Open access to research results and data External link.

No changes has been made to the call text.