Who can apply?
You must hold a PhD and conduct research at universities, colleges, research institutes or agencies that carrying out research as part of their mandate. “Research institute” refers to organizations that have research as their sole or principal part of their mandate. As the main applicant you should be affiliated with a Swedish organization with a Swedish corporate identity number (organisationsnummer).
When can applications be made?
Applications can only be made when there are open calls, and must be made through the application portal.
This page contains information on how to fill out the forms and attachments, as well as how any funded research should be published.
The application deadline for the 2016 calls is September 15th. The possibility of obtaining administrative support with our application portal EDA is limited to our office hours. Therefore we advise you to submit your application before 17.00 o'clock.
Create user profile
Go to the Application Portal and select "new user". "The request for the login" will appear. Fill in your information. Login information will be e-mailed to your address.
Log in with your login information and select New application and call. Use the Save bottom at the bottom of the form. Once you are finished with the application, select check data. You can then choose to submit the application. You will receive a confirmation that the application has been received and will also receive a registration number.
The project description should preferably be written in English as we often make use of international reviewers. If the application is written in Swedish it will be translated by a professional translator without specific knowledge in the field of the research.
Reference
At the top of the page, you'll see a gray bar. It contains your contact information. Fill in the Reference (With reference, we mean the information about your organization who receives and administers the allocated funds so that the money gets to the right department).
CV as an attachment
Attach CVs of all project participants in a single pdf file (maximum 4 MB).
Project Title (Swedish and English)
Choose a name that is easy to understand and remember. The project's name should give a clear picture of what the research is all about.
Summary for the Web (Swedish and English)
Write a summary in Swedish and English with a maximum of 2000 characters including spaces. All approved projects will be searchable in our application portal's database, which is published on the SEPA’s website. Among the data available for search is the summary. It is therefore important that it is easily accessible and understandable even for those who are not specialists in the field. The Swedish and English summaries must be consistent with each other.
Project duration
Fill in the project's start and the end dates.
Project description appendix
Write a project description (preferably in English) for the entire period and attach it as a pdf file (up to 4MB). It may consist of a maximum of 15 A4 pages, excluding the list of literature / references. Use Times New Roman font size 12 points.
The project description should include the following headings:
- Purpose and questions raised
Describe the project's overall purpose, common scientific issues, focus and boundaries. Pay attention to the call text.
- Theory and method
A detailed statement of the research task, including theory and method, is required in this section.
- Current knowledge
Describe briefly the state of knowledge ("state of the art"), nationally and internationally, and relevant ongoing research.
- Practical relevance
Describe the importance of research and usability for SEPA, SwAM and other users. Describe how the project contributes to Environmental Objectives and how can the results be practically used.
- Organisation and management
Describe how the research is organized with respect to the implementation of the project and the scientific and practical management. Describe which disciplines and skills involved, how they interact and explain how they contribute to achieving the objectives of the project. Describe the network and other context in which the project researchers participate.
- Open access- data and scientific publication
(See the section for Open Access).
- Communication
Describe planned communication activities both within the project and with the SEPA, SwAM and other target groups. Communication activities shall also be added to the project activity plan to provide a comprehensive picture of all activities. In all communication activities it must be stated that the research is funded by SEPA. (See Guidelines for Research Communication).
- Activity plan
Present a comprehensive plan for the entire period in which the various research activities and deliveries will be ongoing (incl. publishing and communications).
- Budget
Present the detailed budget using the Excel template available here, for the whole project, divided into activities and any subprojects in the activity plan. Attach the completed budget template to the project description.
The template should specify the overhead costs of the project. This will be part of the assessment of applications, because SEPA has limited research funds that must be used cost-effectively.
> Budget template (xls)
- References
List the literature.
Budgeted costs for the project (SEK)
State the budget for the entire project, divided into salaries, travel, communication, and any other costs according to the template. The maximum budget for this call (see announcement) includes overhead costs.
The grant will be used essentially in the manner described in the submitted application and under the terms and conditions of the grant.
Environmental quality objective
Identify which Environmental Objective/s the project will contribute to.
Ongoing project
Enter other research that you or the co-applicants are involved in, which could be relevant to this project. Select new for each project you want to report.
Projects sought from other funders
Enter here any relevant projects that you sought from other funders. Select new for each project you want to report.
Open Access
Data publication plan
Describe what data the project will generate, how they will be stored, and when and how they will be made openly available.
Source data generated during the synthesis process must be published within a reasonable time and be openly available through relevant national and / or international organizations for data storage. For more information.
Note that Swedish universities, colleges, and other agencies are responsible for the safe storage of the data collected by their activities. Contribution to data storage that can be considered within the universities, colleges and other agencies’ responsibilities should not be included in the application.
Publishing scientific articles
Research and synthesis analysis financed fully or in part by SEPA should be published with open access, which means that the articles are free to read and to download. The cost of open access publication should be included in the applicant's budget.
The results can be published with open access in one of two ways:
- Published in open access journals directly, (“Gold” open access)
- Published in traditional subscription journals, and then archive the article within six months after publication in a open searchable database. This is called parallel publishing. (“Green” open access)
If the publisher's standard contract does not allow parallel publishing within six months, the authors can demand that the publisher makes an exception. In these cases, use a supplementary agreement (see link below). The researcher should publish in another journal if the publisher does not accept parallel publishing.
Guideline for research communication
Granted projects should make efforts to communicate their research. Alongside the scientific publication and exchange with other researchers, communication should also encourage authorities and other stakeholders to make practical use of the results. There should be specific objective for communication activities. For example, to bring clarify about the research objectives and results, to inform target groups, to have the opportunity to make an impact, or other similar goals.
The following topics should be included in the communication plan:
- Identify target groups for the use of the research results.
- Describe how SEPA and SwAM, as well as other identified target groups will be involved.
- Describe how the results of the research will be presented.
- Clarify tools to communicate the project's progression, for example, newsletters, press releases, posting on the website, and more.
- Compile all communication activities in the project plan.
Target groups
In the application describe which target groups have been identified for use of the research results.
Recipient group
Each granted research project should establish a recipient group where the relevant officers at SEPA or SwAM and other stakeholders are included. Regular contact should be maintained with the recipient group.
Final conference and communication of results
Granted projects should write a final report in Swedish as well as a short summary in an appropriate format. Granted projects should as well conduct a final seminar where the research results are presented to the stakeholders. Describe the application of the research results and how it will be mediated to different target audiences.
Communication activities
Describe the other outreach communication efforts that are seen as relevant for example newsletters, press releases, publishing news on the university's website, and more.
Compile the activity plan
All communication activities must be added to the project activity plan to provide a comprehensive picture of the activities planned in the research project. Also state communications activities directed to other researchers, research seminars, conferences and more. The communication should start as early as possible and be continued throughout the period of the research.
Attending SEPA's annual Research Day
You are expected to participate in SEPA's annual Research Day as well as other relevant conferences and seminars.
Web page
Granted projects should regularly inform about the research on a project web page to facilitate transparency and inform stakeholders involved/interested in the research.
Examples of information that should be available on the web page:
- What research should be accomplished, what are the problems /questions?
- Which people and institutions are involved in the project?
- Recipient group
- Various parts of the research / work packages
- Contact details
- Results, publications
- Planned conferences, seminars, etc.
- Funder
- A movie clip that describes / summarizes the project
The scope of the research determines which of the above mentioned points are relevant.