Urgent grants 2020 to secure access to data or research materials

WHAT CAN YOU APPLY FOR?

Urgent need to secure access to data/research material based on a phenomenon or a recently identified situation that could not be anticipated in advance and will not occur again.

WHO CAN APPLY?

Researchers with a doctoral degree.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU APPLY FOR?

Costs corresponding to the urgent need. Funding can be applied for a maximum of one year.

Given decision: 2021-03-31 14:00

In view of the ongoing corona pandemic Formas’ urgent call is open to provide the opportunity to collect data and research materials of an urgent nature to ensure the future availability of research. Forte is participating in Formas’ call for funding for data collection linked to the pandemic.

Fund­ed pro­jects

Preliminary decisions. Please note that only decisions published in Prisma is a guarantee of granted funding.

Formas funds research in the fields of environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning. Forte funds research in the fields of health, working life and welfare. In this urgent call, we welcome applications within all these areas of responsibility that demonstrate an urgent need to secure future access to data (measurement data, collection of samples, etc.) or other research materials (interviews, participating observations, etc.). The urgent need to secure the access to data and research materials must be based on a circumstance or situation that requires prompt attention or has not been foreseen and that will likely not be repeated.

Formas and Forte welcome applications from all scientific disciplines: the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and technology, as well as for interdisciplinary approaches.

Formas is responsible for the administration of all applications within the call for urgent grants 2020. Forte is responsible for the assessment of applications that fall within Forte’s areas of responsibility. Forte will only fund projects linked to the corona pandemic and covid-19.

In view of the ongoing corona pandemic Formas’ urgent call is open to provide the opportunity to collect data and research materials of an urgent nature to ensure the future availability of research. Forte is participating in Formas’ call for funding for data collection linked to the pandemic.

Formas funds research within the fields of environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning. Forte funds research in the fields of health, working life and welfare. The research Formas and Forte fund should be of the highest scientific quality and be relevant for achieving sustainable development. The research can be basic research or needs-driven research for the ecological, economical and socially sustainable development of society. Please note that applications within the areas of Forte must be linked to the corona pandemic and covid-19.

In this urgent call, Formas and Forte welcome applications within all areas of responsibility of the two councils. The research must show an urgent need to ensure future availability of data (measurement data, collection of samples, etc.) or other research materials (interviews, participating observations, etc.). The urgent need to ensure the availability of data and research materials must be based on a circumstance or situation that requires prompt attention or has not been foreseen and that will likely not be repeated. Applications within the areas of Forte must be linked to the corona pandemic and covid-19.

We welcome applications from all scientific disciplines: the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and technology, as well as for interdisciplinary approaches.

Your application for an urgent grant can be submitted to Formas on an ongoing basis. When your application is submitted in Prisma, it is registered directly with Formas. It must then be digitally signed by the administrating organisation within seven business days. Reviews and decisions regarding urgent-need applications are taken on an ongoing basis. Formas reviews applications for urgent grants promptly, and most of them receive a decision within two months.

Applicants must do the following in their application:

  • Justify the urgent need to ensure the future availability of data or research materials
  • Explain the possible consequences of a failure to receive an urgent grant
  • Explain how your project belongs to one or more of Formas’ areas of responsibility: environment, agricultural sciences or spatial planning
  • Briefly describe the research potential of the data or research material
  • Report on the method you will use to collect the data or research materials
  • Indicate the cost of securing the data or research materials.

The project may run for a maximum of one year.

The urgent call is targeted to researchers who hold a doctoral degree.

To apply for an urgent grant, the main applicant must have obtained a doctoral degree before the call closes.

  • Participating researchers must also have obtained their doctoral degree. Other staff involved in the project do not need to have a doctoral degree.
  • The proposed grant recipient must be stated as a project manager on the application.
  • Grants for research projects may only be administered by a Swedish university, college or other Swedish public organisation that meets Formas’ criteria for administrating organisations.
    Who can become an administrating organisation?
  • There is no upper age limit for the main applicant and participating researchers. However, researchers who are full-time pensioners are not eligible to receive funding towards salaries.

In the urgent call, grants are awarded only to cover costs for ensuring the availability of data or research materials for future use in research, such as:

  • Costs for carrying out the collection of data or research materials: researcher salaries, PhD students or technical staff, relevant operating expenses like consumables and travel, and other costs.
  • Costs for the processing and analysis of the data or research materials needed to ensure their future use.

The costs of participation in conferences and publication in journals are not covered by the grant.

When you apply for an urgent grant, you can apply for funds to cover both direct and indirect costs. Direct costs include costs for salaries, equipment and travel. Indirect costs are costs that are shared with others in your organisation, such as for administration, IT and renting of premises. Indirect costs are sometimes called overhead.

  • The amount of the grant must correspond to the costs of urgently securing the data or research materials for future research. The urgent need to ensure the availability of data and research materials must be based on a circumstance or situation that requires prompt attention or has not been foreseen and that will not likely be repeated.
  • The grant is awarded for a maximum of one year.
  • Formas does not grant funding for annual salary increases.

We recommend that you write your application in English, since the reviewers that will assess your application is international. If you write your application in Swedish it will be translated into English prior to assessment. This may cause the review process for your application to take longer.

Applications submitted to Formas become publicly available documents after a decision is announced. However, Formas does not disclose information about an individual’s business relationships or operating conditions, inventions or research results if the disclosure would be assumed to cause the individual suffering. If applications are requested, Formas conducts a confidentiality assessment.

How to apply

You apply for a grant in our application system, Prisma External link.. In Prisma, you must create a personal account where you will add the information you need for your application.

You should write your application in English, as the reviewers that will assess your application is international. However, the popular science description must be written in Swedish, and the abstract should be in both Swedish and English.

All limits for the maximum number of characters refer to characters including spaces. We recommend that you choose the Arial font in font size 12 for the information you enter in all text boxes.

Your application must include a clear description of the project under the following sections:

Basic information

  • Specify the number of months your application covers (the project can be a maximum of 12 months). For example, projects expected to start in May 2020 can have a project length until the end of April 2021.
  • Project title in Swedish and English.
  • Popular science description in Swedish and English.
  • Abstract in Swedish and English.

Both the popular science description and the abstract should clearly address the urgent need for the application, objectives and relevance as well as method.

Research programme

Objectives and purpose of the urgent grant application:

  • The urgent need. You must describe and justify the urgent need to ensure the data or research materials. What is the objective and purpose of ensuring the data or research materials? Also explain the possible consequences of not obtaining an urgent grant.Forte’s areas of responsibility. You must explain how the project belongs to one or more of Forte’s areas of responsibility – health, working life and welfare and how your project is linked to the corona pandemic and covid-19.You must explain the scientific relevance and importance. Your research questions and references should be clearly stated.
  • Formas’ areas of responsibility. You must explain how the project belongs to one or more of Formas’ areas of responsibility – environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning.

Project description

  • Describe how the research will be carried out (work package) and the timetable. You must explain the method for collecting the data or research materials.

Societal relevance

  • Explain the potential societal value of your research topic.

Budget

You report the project budget in Prisma. Note that you should always write the budget and budget specification in English; any Swedish budget specification will not be translated but will instead be assessed as is by the international review panel. In Prisma, write out the total amount you are applying for in kronor using digits. For example, 1 million kronor should be written as: 1 000 000 kronor.

The budget should include:

  • Salaries including social security contributions. For any current employment positions, the salary in effect at the time of the application (including social contributions) must be used for all subsequent years. For new employment positions, the starting salary at the administrating organisation must be used for all subsequent years. Note that Formas does not grant funding for annual salary increases.
  • Specify the level of activity for all project participants, including participants that provide in-kind services for their time or have other funding sources for completing the project.
  • Specify the operating costs and premises costs (if not part of overhead) in accordance with practices at the administrating organisation.
  • Specify equipment depreciation costs if relevant to the application.
  • Specify the indirect costs in the project budget in accordance with the practices at the administrating organisation. Indirect costs relate to overhead costs. Formas does not allow overhead for equipment depreciation costs or costs of premises.
  • Budget specification. Provide a brief justification for all salaries and other expenses. Also state the total project budget, including funding from other sources. The budget specification is part of the application assessment.
  • The “Other funds” field indicates whether the project receives funding from a source other than Formas or Forte that is relevant for completing the project.

Ethical considerations

Fill in only if relevant for completing the project. You must describe the relevant ethical issues and how they should be managed. Examples include research that uses personal data, or experiments on humans or animals.

Reporting ethical considerations

Classifications

Formas uses project classifications in analyses and supporting documentation on an overall level. The classifications are made when the applicant states the subject area, SCB codes and at least one sustainable development goal the project can contribute to.

  • Subject area
    Select the project’s subject area and add a sub-heading.
  • SCB code
    Select at least one SCB code with two sub-levels that together form the entire code.
  • Keywords
    Select at least one and a maximum of three keywords describing the project. Choose what best represents your project, even if it does not entirely match the field you work in.
  • Sustainable development goals
    Select a minimum of one and a maximum of three sustainable development goals (SDGs) that best fit your project. When selecting more than one goal, specify the goals in priority order. The goal that is most relevant to the project should be stated in the first box. As the meaning of the goals is sometimes narrower than what the title indicates, we encourage you to follow the link and read in more detail about the goals you intend to specify to ensure that the intended research contributes towards achieving that particular goal.
    More information about the meaning of the goals External link.

Administrating organisation – the organisation receiving the grant

An administrating organisation is the organisation that receives the grant money from Formas when a grant is awarded. Applicants under this call must be administrating organisations that are approved by Formas.

Who can become an administrating organisation?

  • Select your administrating organisation in Prisma and add the department or unit where the project is based. Read more about Formas’ criteria for administrating organisations External link..
  • Prisma contains a default list of approved administrating organisations. Contact your organisation if it is missing from the list. In that case, your organisation will need to create an organisation account in Prisma.
  • A registered application is automatically sent to the administrating organisation after the call is closed. The administrating organisation then has seven business days to digitally sign the application.

Review panels

For an urgent grant application, you do not need to select a review panel. For more information, please read the section “How does the assessment process work for an urgent grant application?”

Participants

  • The main applicant invites participating researchers.
  • A participating researcher is a researcher with a doctoral degree and is considered a co-applicant for the project.
  • You can also have participating administrators who are not involved in the project but who help you fill in the application form.
  • Each participant must have created a user account in Prisma.
  • The main applicant invites people to participate in the application process by searching for their given name, surname and email address in Prisma (note that exact spelling of names and email addresses is required).
  • Note that invited participating researchers must transfer their CVs and publications in the application so that the principal applicant can register the application when it is completed. See the next section, “CVs”.

CVs

  • The main applicant retrieves the information from his or her personal account in Prisma.
  • Participating researchers add their CV details from their profile to the application in Prisma themselves.
  • Applicants should review in good time that their CV in Prisma is complete and up-to-date.
  • If participating researchers have not filled in the required fields correctly, the main applicant will not be able to complete registration of the application.
  • Participants who are not co-applicants are not able to attach CV information. Instead, their qualifications for the project should be described in the research programme.

The following CV information should be added to the application.

Education. Postgraduate (doctoral), undergraduate and graduate level.

Professional experience. Current employment and major relevant prior positions, postdoctoral stays, postgraduate exchanges that are relevant for the research, and any significant gaps in the research (such as parental leave, illness, military service or political duties).

Qualifications and merits:

  • Lectureships
  • Number of advisor engagements: Doctoral students, postdocs, graduate theses; specify the total number for each category and name the most relevant ones (max. 10).
  • Grants received in competition: Specify the most relevant ones (max. 10).
  • Awards and distinctions: Specify the most relevant ones (max. 10).
  • Other qualifications, including bibliometric indicators: Here, the main applicant and participating researchers should give a brief summary of their bibliometric profile, for the past five-year period and in total if the applicant´s active research time is longer than five years (max 800 characters including spaces).
    This summary should include the following:
    • The number of publications of various types, such as articles in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, books and other monographs, conference papers and popular science contributions.
    • Any other publication or citation specifications relevant to your research field.

      Under “Other qualifications,” you can list other qualifications that are relevant to the application, such as any popular science publications or proven experience of collaboration and research communication (max. 10).
  • Intellectual property: For example, patents and open source software that you have developed (max. 10).

List of publications

The main applicant and participating researchers should list up to ten of their most relevant publications. The publications should be linked from the applicants’ personal profiles in Prisma.

Appendices

Appendix for illustrations. If you need figures, tables or images to describe the project, you can upload them as attachments here. A maximum of one PDF attachment of 4 MB can be uploaded. Please note that a CV should not be attached as an appendix.

After submitting your application

We first verify whether your application falls within the areas of Formas’ or Forte’s responsibilities and the scope of the call. If it does, it continues to a review panel for assessment. If it does not, it is rejected.

Your application can also be rejected if it contains procedural errors or is incomplete, meaning that it lacks the necessary information in the application form or appendix.

In a first step, Formas will assess your application to determine its urgency. If necessary, your application will then be assessed by external reviewers. The entire review process takes about two months (provided that the application is written in English).

Your application is assessed based on its contents. 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 following criteria:

  • The project must meet an urgent need to ensure the future availability of data or research materials.
  • The project must belong to one or more of Formas’ areas of responsibility: environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning or in the area of Forte’s responsibility, health, working life and welfare.
  • The project must meet Formas’ and Forte’s requirements for scientific quality and societal relevance.

Criteria for scientific quality: Research question with regard to the urgent need. Method and implementation for ensuring the data or research materials. Scientific competence of project manager and participants.

Criteria for societal relevance: Potential societal benefit and real-world impact of the research topic. Communication with stakeholders and end users is not assessed, as it is not relevant for the implementation of an urgent project.

Applications that do not fall within Formas’ or Forte’s areas of responsibility will be rejected without further assessment. Applications that do not adequately describe or justify the urgent need to ensure future availability of the data or research materials will be rejected.

Decisions on urgent grants are made on an ongoing basis. These decisions cannot be appealed.

Each granted project must submit a report to Formas containing a financial and a popular scientific summary in accordance with the decision. For urgent grants, this is done within one month of the end of the appropriation period.

How to report expenses and results External link.

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

Open access to research results and data External link.

If you receive funding from us, you must have a data management plan for the data produced in the project. This plan does not need to be submitted to Formas, but should be presented on request. We recommend that you follow the guidelines developed by Science Europe on what a data management plan should contain. For more information about the guidelines, see the Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management External link..

SweCRIS

Formas shares information about awarded grants to SweCRIS, a national database of grant-funded research that was instituted by request of the government.

Apply

A digital application is submitted in the Prisma application system External link.. Guidelines and information about what your application should contain can be found in the call text.

Download the call text as pdf , 343.9 kB..

Revision history

July 6, 2020: Forte is now participating in Formas’ call for funding for data collection linked to the pandemic. This means that researchers within Fortes' areas of responsibility also have the opportunity to apply for funding to ensure that data and research materials become available for future research, provided that these projects are linked to the corona pandemic and covid-19.

Contact Person

Updated:6 May 2021
Page manager: Kenneth Nilsson