Strategic Research Grant B2 for 2027-2029

The Faculty of Medicine announces up to seven 3-year research grants of SEK 800,000 per year including funds for overhead. The call is open for all research areas within the Faculty of Medicine and aims to strengthen the competitiveness of researchers to attract external grants received in competition. The grant may be used for salaries (doctoral students, postdocs or other employees), infrastructures or for covering running costs. Researchers who receive funds from the faculty's calls are expected to contribute to peer review within the faculty.

The target group is teaching staff

The target group for the call is teaching staff with competitive research projects that are yet to be financed by regional grants from the university/ALF/TUA or Norra sjukvårdsregionen (Region Västerbotten/ Region Jämtland Härjedalen/Region Västernorrland/Region Norrbotten). This includes individuals who are not one of the faculty’s top researchers with regard to ongoing, significant external grants (as defined in this call).

Eligible to apply

The call is open for teaching staff at the Faculty of Medicine holding a PhD, that are at least 50% tenured during the entire period 2027-01-01 to 2029-12-314.

Researchers with a Ph.D. and a permanent employment at the Faculty of Medicine on a teacher/researcher position according to the Appointments Procedure for Teachers at Umeå University, valid as of 2024-11-01 (FS 1.1-939-24), including persons with permanent positions as assistant professors (biträdande universitetslektorer) or research fellows (forskare).

Additional eligibility criteria

A)     The applicant must include an attestation regarding ongoing research funding from a governmental funding body (VR, FORTE, FORMAS, VINNOVA), or regarding a filed application for such funding (as main applicant). Please note that in this call, project grants are not considered ongoing once they are outside the regular grant period. The project plan submitted to a governmental research council for a grant application does not have to match the one presented for the faculty's Strategic Research Grants call.

B)     The applicant may not, as of 30 April 2026, have obtained/been granted financial support of SEK 500,000 or more for 2026 from the faculty/UMU and/or from Region Västerbotten/Region Jämtland Härjedalen/Region Västernorrland/Region Norrbotten (including ALF/TUA). This excludes travel grants, funding for infrastructure, and basenhets-ALF.

Example of support can be funding or co-financing of employment, resources and/or indirect costs, such as support for KAW Fellows/Projects/ Scholars and WCMM Fellows. Other examples of financial support are co-funding of doctoral students, start-up grants, funding linked to promotion or recruitment, and the following grants from Region Västerbotten/Region Jämtland Härjedalen/Region Västernorrland/Region Norrbotten: Centrala ALF-medel, TUA-medel, spjutspetsmedel and funding granted for research when employed as professor. This excludes grants for research infrastructure.

For strategic research grants (3-year grant), there must be a one-year gap before you can obtain new funding from this call. So, if a teacher who has received the last payment of funds from either of these two calls during 2025, they can now apply for funds for the years 2027-2029 (even if the disposition period of the previous grant extends up to and including 2026).

C)     The applicant must not belong to the faculty’s top researchers – a top researcher is in this call defined as a teacher who, no later than 30 April 2026 obtains/is granted a total annual revenue for research equivalent to SEK 4 million or more for 2026 – including external funding as well as local grants according to B above.

If the said funding/grants are shared, the applicant need only to account for the sum that has been granted/requisitioned to him/her.

Do you need help?

The human resources coordinator at the department can assist in the event of uncertainty about eligibility linked to employment.

For questions on eligibility to apply regarding Criteria B and C, the financial officer of the department may contact the Faculty Office: Controller Carina Wallmark, carina.wallmark@umu.se, or the research coordinators via research.med@umu.se.

Review panel and grant decisions

The applications will be evaluated by Review panel 2; the review panel will be appointed by the Research Board (FON). The chair and the vice chair of the review panel will be recruited internally and should have experience from review panels at national research councils. The panel members will mainly be recruited among external researchers with experience from work in review panels in national and international research councils.

The goal is to appoint panel members who have the required competence to assess applications from all research areas at the faculty. If the review panel finds that it needs to be supplemented by members in order to evaluate all applications, then the panel will be complemented accordingly. One member from FON and/or one member from the Faculty Board (FN) will be appointed as observers.

Review panel 2 will evaluate the applications based on a combination of the assessment criteria used by Forte/Formas and include:

• The scientific quality of the project (1-7)
• The research competence of the project leader and research group (1-7)
• Societal relevance5 (1-7)
  Relevance in relation to societal needs for an increased knowledge in: public and individual health; efforts to promote good health and prevent ill health; rehabilitation and nursing and healthcare processes and systems.
• Feasibility (1-3)
• An overall assessment, reflecting the scientific quality and societal benefit of the application (1-7).

Based on the assessment, all members of the review panel will rank the reviewed applications. The individual rankings of each reviewer will be combined to give a preliminary ranking for further discussion at the review panel meeting. When two or more applications are assessed as equal, based on their total score, the score for scientific quality will be ranked most important.

The chair of the review panel will present the final ranking at a meeting with FON, which in turn will forward a recommendation for decision to the Faculty Board (FN); FN will make the final decision. The number of grants awarded in each group is dependent on the number of applications in each groups, as well as the scientific quality of the said applications

About the application

Last day to apply is 1 June at 14:00 CET

Applications are submitted via the Faculty's application portal in Researchweb

Note that only complete applications, submitted per instructions and in time, will be assessed as eligible.

The application should be written in English (since the reviewers may be English speaking); must be signed by the applicant and the head of department. The head of department must attest that the application has undergone an internal peer review process at the department.

The applicant shall select if the application should be reviewed by Review panel 1, which will review the application using the criteria for scientific quality of The Swedish Research Council (VR), or by Review panel 2, which will review the application using the criteria for scientific quality, and societal relevance, as used by FORTE/FORMAS. Only one application per applicant can be submitted; consequently, the applicant must choose whether the application should be reviewed by Review panel 1 or 2. The applicant is fully responsible for sending the application to the correct review panel: B1, FS 2.1.6-58-25 (B1), or B2, FS 2.1.6-59-25 (B2).

Applicants who meet the eligibility criteria for both Strategic research grants for 2027- 2029 and Strategic research grants for scientifically young researchers 2027-2028, may apply for a research grant from both calls. However, it's important to note that only one research grant will be awarded.

Appendices to your application

The application must include the following appendices and be sent in via the Faculty’s application portal Researchweb (see further instructions in the application portal)

CV, publications, local funding, and external research grants

To ensure your profile is updated in Researchweb, follow these steps:

1. CV och Publications: Make sure your CV is current and updated in your profile in Researchweb. You also need to have updated the publication list, i.e. synchronized it with SwePub.
2. Local funding (see section B on page 2): Update your profile with a list of obtained and/or granted local funding during 2022-01-01 - 2026-04-30; please specify the amount and year for each grant.
3. External research grants: Update your profile with a list of obtained (requisitioned) and/or granted external research grants during 2022-01-01 - 2026-04-30; please specify the amount and year for each grant. This also includes research grants received as a co-applicant.

Consult with the department’s financial officer to ensure the amounts are correct. Note that the disposition period after the regular grant period should not be included when calculating how much funding you have received per year.

As an example: You receive a three-year external grant of SEK 3 million with a disposition period of four years. The disposition period after the regular grant period should not be included; instead, the total amount should be divided over the first three years, i.e. SEK 1 million per year.

Revenues for WCMM fellows: Of the total received/approved WCMM funds for preclinical fellows, 15% is considered a grant (local support) and 85% as an external grant. For clinical fellows, 34.5% is considered a grant (local support) and 65.5% as an external grant.

Please note that the information requested in 2 and 3 above must be produced in consultation with the department's financial officer and head of department. Individuals selected to receive funding, as well as those placed in reserve, shall undergo an eligibility check.

Appendix A – Selection of publications

Select up to ten most important publications to the application. You should state, for each of the selected publication, your contributions to the publication and in which context the publication contributes to the intended project. (This must not exceed four lines per publication).

Mark your name in the list of authors in bold. Include number of citations for the publication.

Appendix B – Research plan for applications to Review panel 2 – to be reviewed according to a combination of the assessment criteria used by FORTE/FORMAS

The Research plan (Project description and Relevance) in its entirety must encompass no more than 20 A4 pages, (font Arial 11, or larger, single spaced) and structured according to that of a research plan in a FORTE/FORMAS application, i.e.

Project description

• Project title
• Purpose, research questions, theories, background, and the originality of the project: Describe the project’s purpose, specific research questions, background, and originality. Write a brief literature review and analysis of the theoretical starting points and describe the project’s added value in relation to previous research in the area. If the project is based on a previously completed or still ongoing project, describe and justify how the projects relate to each other and summarize the results of the previous research.
• Study design, methods for data collection and analysis: Describe the study design, which data will be used, how the data collection will be undertaken and the principles and methods for data processing and analysis. When applicable, include a brief description of current and possible novel need for basic equipment necessary for the completion of the project, including any preliminary data supporting the project’s main questions (frågeställning).
• Interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary approach: Describe the disciplines involved in the project and the way in which the project is inter- or multidisciplinary.
• Gender, diversity, and sustainability perspectives in the content of the research: Describe in what way theoretically based gender, diversity and sustainability perspectives are important for the research project. This applies in addition to a description of the variables included in the research project, such as gender, ethnicity, and disability. Disability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, and sexual orientation are aspects that are included in the diversity concept.
• Work plan: Clearly describe what is going to be done and how the work will be organized. The work plan should also contain information about the staffing of the project, including details of the persons’ project tasks. Cooperation with other researchers outside of the project group is described here. The work plan should be written so that the reviewers can appraise the feasibility of the project.
• International and national collaboration: Describe your and the team’s collaboration with foreign and Swedish researchers and research teams and its role in the project. State whether you contribute to or refer to international collaboration in your research.
• Ethical considerations: You must specify whether there are specific ethical concerns in your project. If so, you must describe the relevant ethical considerations and how they will be managed. Examples include research that uses personal data, or experiments on humans or animals.
  
  If you are researching people, human tissue, or sensitive personal data, you must submit an application for ethical approval to the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten) and have it approved.
  
  In the case of animal testing, you must also have approval from an ethical committee for animal testing (djurförsöksetisk nämnd). You can apply for this via the Swedish Board of Agriculture's e-service (Jordbruksverkets e-tjänst).
  
  You must state in your application whether you have an existing ethical approval or not. If you do not have it, and your application is granted funding, you must have ethical approval before the described experiments begin. The department where the research is to be conducted is responsible for ensuring that ethical approval has been obtained before the work begins.
  
  If your project is not expected to involve research that requires ethical approval, write this in your application, and justify how and why.

Relevance

• Relevance in relation to societal needs: Comment on the relevance of the project in relation to the societal needs of increased knowledge in: public and individual health; efforts to promote good health and prevent ill health; rehabilitation and nursing and healthcare processes and systems. Explain how the research questions relate to societal needs.
• Collaboration and user participation in the research process: Comment on the project’s planned collaboration with representatives for relevant organizations, authorities, users, or other actors. This concerns cooperation with actors primarily outside the scientific community. Describe which actors you will engage, in which phases of the research process and in what forms. Justify the relevance of the collaboration and describe expected effects.
• Utilization and communication of research results: Outline the plans for utilization of the project’s research results, both within the academy and to the public as well as to relevant users. Discuss possible target groups and describe the actors that are to be contacted and involved, methods that are to be used and the expected outcomes. This may relate to policy, practice and working methods etc.

Appendix C – Abstract

The description may cover a maximum of 1 A4 page (font Arial 11, or larger, single spaced).

• The abstract must provide a summary guide to the purpose and implementation of the research and be written in such a way that persons with a different scientific background can understand the information. Describe the societal challenges that the project addresses and how the project's results can contribute to managing these challenges.

Appendix D – Popular science description

The description may cover a maximum of 1 A4 page (font Arial 11, or larger, single spaced).

• Describe the project in such a way that a person who is not familiar with the subject can understand it. Describe what is to be done and why, and explain why the new knowledge may be important.

Appendix E – Budget and financial resources

• Briefly list personnel costs, other costs, and any other funding of the project for Year 1 – Year 3.
• Briefly justify each cost in the budget stated. The description may cover a maximum of 2 A4 pages (font Arial 11, or larger, single spaced).
• Other funding. Please state any funding for the project (whole or part) received by you or another researcher, in excess of the amount in this application. Please state rounded amounts in SEK.

Appendix F – Attestation regarding funding/filed application to a governmental funding body (statligt forskningsråd)

Attach a copy as proof of an obtained research grant from a governmental research council (VR, FORTE, FORMAS, VINNOVA) or a confirmation of the submitted application (as main applicant).

Appendix G – Certificate from the head of department

Via the application portal the Head of Department (or equivalent) certifies that:

• the application is supported,
• the application has undergone peer-review at the department.