SBEP JTC 2025: Sustainable Blue Economy

This call aims to support transnational research and innovation projects (36 months) that address one of the five priority areas below:

Priority area 1: Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTOs) at sub-basin scale

Priority area 2: Transitioning the blue economy sectors, and the development of the coexistence and the marine multi-use infrastructures

Priority area 3: Climate-Smart Planning and managing sea-uses at the regional level

Priority area 4: Blue Bioresources: sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and new bio-based products

Priority area 5: Resilient Coastal Communities and Businesses.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Formas funds Swedish researchers who apply for priority areas 2, 3 and 5 only. If you are interested in priority area 1, you should seek funds through Rymdstyrelsen (SNSA). Neither Formas nor SNSA fund projects in priority area 4.

The priority areas have been selected to strengthen the European blue economy through innovative solutions that promote the recovery of marine ecosystems. Read more specifically about the purpose of the different priority areas in the call text, https://bluepartnership.eu/funding-opportunities External link..

With regards to this call for research projects, grants can only be administered by a Swedish university, institution of higher education, research institute, government agency with a research mandate, or other primarily research focused organisations.

Who can become an administrating organisation External link.?

To apply for a grant in this call, the following criteria must be met:

• The principal applicant has obtained a PhD by the call's closing date.
• Participating researchers have obtained a PhD by the call's closing date. Other staff involved in the project do not need to have a PhD degree.
• The proposed grant recipient is identified as project manager on the application for the Swedish applicants.
• There is no upper age limit for the principal applicant and participating researchers. However, full-time retired researchers are not eligible to receive funding for salaries.

It is not possible to receive grants for projects involving collaboration with Russian or Belarussian state or federal institutions.

When applying for project funding, you can seek to have both direct and indirect expenses covered. Direct expenses include salaries, equipment and travel. Indirect expenses are those shared with others in your organization, such as administration, IT and renting of premises. Indirect costs are sometimes referred to as overhead.

Project costs that qualify for funding External link.

The projects must run over 36 months. Maximum funding from Formas is 300,000 EUR per proposal, or a maximum of 400,000 EUR per proposal if the Swedish applicant is also the project coordinator (regardless of how many Swedish partners participate in the project). The budget for the consortium depends on the available funding from other participating Funding Agencies.

The application is written in English as the preparation of the application is done by an international group of experts. Read more about the preparation of the applications in the transnational call text External link..

Evaluation of the application is based on the requirements and instructions set by the call secretariat for the transnational call SBEP 2025: Digitalisation and Innovation for Resilient Marine Ecosystems Businesses, and Communities to Strengthen the EU Blue Economy Competitiveness.

Instructions for drafting the application to Formas are sent to applicants via email after applicants have been invited by the international secretariat to submit a "Full proposal".

Your application (including attachments) submitted via Prisma is considered a public document under Swedish law when it has been received by us. According to Swedish law, your application and its appendices are considered public upon receipt. This means that anyone can request and read your application. Information can only be concealed if it is confidential as defined in the Public Access to Information and Confidentiality Act (2009:400).

Formas has limited capacity to keep personal data confidential. Therefore, your application should not contain the personal data of anyone who is not a participating applicant.

If the project is granted funding, the popular science description and project abstracts, written in both Swedish and English, will be published in open-access project databases without a confidentiality review. Therefore, the contents of these sections should not contain sensitive information.

The coordinator of the consortium submits the application to the transnational call’s submission platform. The applicant applying funding from Formas must be a part of a consortium with at least three partners from three countries applying funding from Funding Agencies participating in the call. You find the information regarding the transnational call’s submission platform in the call text.

You, both as a Swedish coordinator or a Swedish partner, will be invited to submit your application to Prisma when you have been invited to step 2. You will receive an invitation from Formas and Prisma after the decision from the Call Secretariat that you have progressed to step 2. To do this, you need to create an account.

Apply for a personal account in Prisma External link..

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

The following requirements will be verified in this call by Formas:

• The requirements for project managers, project participants and organisations under “Applicant and organisation requirements” are met.
• The principal applicant who is responsible for other projects or activities funded by Formas has submitted any requested reports by the stated deadline.

The following requirements will be verified by the call secretariat:

• The focus of the application falls within the calls area of responsibility
• The focus of the application falls within the call’s topics. areas.
• The application is complete and contains all mandatory information.
• That the requirements of the consortium are fulfilled.

Read more about the application verification in the call text. External link.

All applications are assessed by an external review panel based on the contents of the application. It is therefore important to write the application as clearly as possible and include all important and relevant information.

The applications are assessed based on the evaluation criteria described in the call text External link..

A decision on which projects are granted funding is expected to be taken in November 2026. The decisions will be published on the Formas website the following day, at the latest, and you will get later an email saying that the decision is available in Prisma. Grant decisions cannot be appealed.

All approved projects must report financial and project findings to Formas within three months of the end of the disposition period. An annual financial statement must be submitted to Formas for projects that are longer than 18 months. All reports are submitted in Prisma.

How to report expenses and results External link.

Formas may impose requirements on how projects must be reported in terms of content and findings to enable distribution and utilisation. In such cases, more information will be presented with the approval decision. Formas may also require you to participate in conferences and similar events in order to create synergies and platforms for learning and knowledge sharing.

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

You must also have a management plan for the data produced in the project. If you receive funding from us, you must develop such a plan. This plan does not need to be submitted to Formas but should be presented on request. By signing our grant terms and conditions, you certify that a data management plan will be available before the research begins and that it will be maintained.

Open access to research results and data External link.