Urgent call for proposals 2021 – Ensuring the future availability of data or research materials

Unexpected events sometimes occur within Formas’ areas of responsibility, such as airplane accidents, an outbreak of disease among animals, or a sharp increase in migration. Urgent calls serve as a tool enabling us to quickly collect valuable data for research in such situations before it disappears.

Many research projects generate research data that can be useful not only within a project but can be further analysed by others. Open data and good data management are the foundation for enabling this. Proper data management is an important part of awarding grants in the urgent call, and applicants must present a data management plan that states how the data generated will be managed after the project ends.

In this urgent call, Formas welcomes applications within any of its areas of responsibility that show an urgent need to ensure future availability of primary research data, such as measurement data and collected samples, interviews and participating observations. The urgent need to ensure access to research data must be based on a phenomenon or sudden situation that could not be predicted. The data should show great promise to lead to significant scientific results and real-world impact.

Research data and metadata produced in the projects must comply with the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable), and it must published using immediate open access in credible repositories in accordance with the principle as transparently as possible and as limited as necessary.

We welcome applications from all scientific disciplines, including the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and technology, and that take an interdisciplinary approach. The research data produced in the project can be intended for either basic or needs-driven research on environmentally, economically and socially sustainable development.

• To qualify for submitting an urgent grant application, the principal applicant must have completed their PhD.
• Participating researchers must also have obtained their PhD degree. Other staff involved in the project do not need to have a PhD degree.
• The applicant must be the project manager for the project.
• Grants for research projects may only be administered by a Swedish higher education institution or other Swedish public organisation that meets Formas’ criteria for administrating organisations.
  

Who can become an administrating organisation?

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

• Costs for carrying out research data collection: salaries for researchers, PhD students or technical staff, as well as relevant operating costs such as consumables, travel and other costs.
• The costs of processing and analysing the research data necessary to ensure its potential future availability.

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

The application must explain the urgent nature of the various costs.

When you apply for an urgent grant, you can apply for funding 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 grant amount must correspond only to the costs that will be incurred for urgently securing research materials and primary data for future research.
• Grant is awarded for a maximum of one year.

We recommend that you write your application in English since our reviewers are international. You can write your application in Swedish, but it will then be translated into English prior to assessment. This might delay the review process for your application. 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 reviewers.

According to Swedish law, your application and its appendices are considered as general public documents once they have been submitted to us. This means that anyone can request and read your application. Before Formas discloses any applications we always conduct a confidentiality assessment, but we can only hide information as legislated for in the Public Access and Secrecy Act (2009:400).

Formas is tasked with working towards achieving a sustainable development of society. Equal opportunities and inclusion are crucial to this direction. We therefore encourage applicants to think as much as possible about designing the project so that it can be relevant to diverse groups in society. We also encourage you to consider gender balance in the project team and including participants with different backgrounds and experiences. However, this will not be part of the assessment of your application at this time.

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

Basic information

Number of months applied for

Specify the number of months you are seeking a grant for. The project can be a maximum of 12 months. For example, projects with a planned start in May 2021 can run through the last day in April 2022.

Start month

Number of budgeted months

Estimated project duration

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 in this call must belong to an organisation that Formas has approved as a generally approved administrating organisation. Approved administrating organisations are pre-set in Prisma; contact your organisation if it is missing from this list. In that case, your organisation will need to create an organisation account in Prisma.

• Select your administrating organisation from the drop-down list.
• Select your domicile (department or institute) from the drop-down list.
  

Project title (max. 200 characters, including spaces, each in Swedish and English)

Popular science description (max 1,500 characters each, including spaces, in Swedish and English)

A brief popular science description of the project. This should include a description of the objectives, methods, the urgent need to implement the project, and the potential of the research materials and primary data produced to lead to significant research results and real-world impact.

Summary (max 1,500 characters each, including spaces, in Swedish and English)

A brief summary of the project. The summary must include an explanation of how the application falls within one of Formas’ areas of responsibility: the environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning. It must also include a description of the objectives, methods, the urgent need to implement the project, and the potential of the research materials and primary data produced to lead to significant research results and real-world impact.

Research programme

Urgent need (max. 5,000 characters including spaces)

Explain why there is an urgent need to collect the research data. Describe the consequences if this is not done. Describe your timeframes for collecting and processing the data.

Objectives and method (max. 10,000 characters including spaces)

Describe the purpose and objectives of the project. Provide a background description that contains one or more problem formulations where the project’s results can make a contribution, as well as an overview of the relevant research area. Explain why the project can provide research material and research data that lead to significant scientific results. Explain why the methods are appropriate in relation to the project’s objectives.

Expertise and implementation (max. 10,000 characters including spaces)

Explain why the experts who are participating in the application are needed to carry out the project. Describe the project plan and access to non-human resources. Explain the budget based on the project design and the objectives to be achieved. Describe how any ethical considerations will be addressed.

Describe how the research data will be processed and made available. The application must also be accompanied by a data management plan, Appendix X, which describes in detail how the research data generated in the project will be managed after the project is completed. We recommend the Swedish Research Council’s template for creating your data management plan. For more information on what a data management plan should contain and how it can be assessed, see Science Europe’s Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management.

• Swedish Research Council’s template: Data management plan template External link.
• Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management External link.

When the project report is submitted, an updated version of the data management plan must also be submitted.

Relevance and real-world impact (max. 5,000 characters including spaces)

Describe how and in what areas the research data generated in the project can benefit society. Include an analysis of stakeholders and users’ needs.

Budget

The budget and budget specification should be written in English. A Swedish budget specification will not be translated, but will be reviewed by the international reviewers as is. 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 current job positions, you must state the salary in effect at the time of the application submission. For new job positions, the starting salary at the administrating organisation must be used.
• 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 operating costs and premises costs (if premises are not included in overhead) in accordance with the practices of the administrating organisation.
• Specify equipment depreciation costs if relevant.
• Total budget.
  • Specify the indirect costs in the project budget in accordance with the practices at the administrating organisation. Indirect costs refer to overhead costs. Formas does not allow overhead on equipment depreciation costs or premises costs.
  • If operating costs and premises costs are not included in overhead, specify them in accordance with the practices of the administrating organisation.
  • The “Other funds” field indicates whether the project receives funding from a source other than Formas that is relevant for completing the project.
• Budget specification. Provide a brief justification for all salaries and other expenses. The acute nature of the different costs must be explained. A description of the total project budget, including funding from other sources, should also be included.

Ethical considerations

If ethical issues are relevant for the project’s implementation, report them and state how you will address them. Examples include research that uses personal data, or experiments on humans or animals.

If you are conducting research on people, human tissue or are processing sensitive personal data, you must obtain ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. If you are conducting an animal experiment, you also need to obtain ethical approval. You can apply for approval through the Swedish Board of Agriculture’s online service.

You should state in your application whether or not you have obtained ethical approval. If you have not obtained such approval and you are awarded a grant, you must obtain it before the described studies begin. Even if you do not expect your research to involve ethical concerns, you should state that this is the case in your application and explain why.

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, research topic (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.
• Research topic (SCB code)
  Select at least one research topic with two sub-levels that together form the entire code.
• Sustainable development goals
  Select a minimum of one and a maximum of three SDGs that fit your project. If you select more than one SDG, specify them in priority order. The goal that is most relevant to the project should be stated in the first box.
• 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.
  

Review panels

For an urgent-call application, you do not need to select a review panel. For more information, see the heading “How does the assessment process work in an urgent call?”

Participating researchers

A participating researcher is a PhD researcher who will participate in the project and is a co-applicant on the application. You can also have participating administrators who are not involved in the project but who help you fill in the application form.

The principal applicant invites those who will participate in the application by entering their e-mail address as well as first and last names in Prisma. Contact the participants in advance to find out which email address they use in Prisma.

Invited participating researchers must transfer their CVs and publications to the application in order for the principal applicant to be able to register the application when it is completed. See the next section, “CVs”.

CVs

The project manager retrieves the information from his or her personal account in Prisma.

Participating researchers themselves add the CV information from their profile to the application. If the participating researchers have not filled in the required fields correctly, the principal 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, 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
• Supervised students: PhD students, postdocs and graduate theses students; specify the total number for each category and name the most relevant ones (max. 10).
• Competing grant sources: Enter the most relevant (max. 10).
• Awards and honours: Enter the most relevant (max. 10).

Other qualifications, including bibliometric indicators: Here, the principal applicant and participating researchers should state their number of publications during the past five years, and the total number of publications if the applicant’s active research period exceeds 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 citation metrics should be given, excluding self-citations, and the database they are retrieved from.
• Note that the summary should not contain information about the H-index, the journal impact factor, or any other type of metric used to rank publishers or journals.
• Other qualifications relevant to the application, such as documented 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 principal 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 X (mandatory)

• The project’s data management plan, which describes in detail how the research data generated in the project will be managed after the project is completed. We recommend the Swedish Research Council’s template for creating a data management plan. For more information on what a data management plan should contain and how it can be assessed, see Science Europe’s Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management.

• Swedish Research Council’s template: Data management plan template External link.
• Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management External link.
  

Appendix Y (optional)

• 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. Note that a CV cannot be attached as an appendix.
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In a first step, Formas will make an assessment of your application to determine its urgency. If the application is deemed to fall within Formas’ areas and the framework of the call, your application will then be assessed by external reviewers.

Your application is assessed based on its contents. It is therefore important to write the application as clearly as possible and include all relevant information.

The applications are reviewed based on the following assessment criteria:

Urgent need

• The urgent need to collect the research data is well motivated and significant.
• Collection and processing must be done in the near future.

Scientific quality

• The purpose and objectives of the project are well substantiated. The relevant research area is clearly described.
• The research materials and data produced in the project can lead to significant scientific results.
• The methods are appropriate in relation to the project’s objectives.

Project implementation

• The project participants have the necessary skills to carry out the proposed project.
• The project has access to the necessary resources in addition to human resources.
• The project plan is well-defined and realistic.
• The data management plan is appropriate and specific.
• The budget is reasonable in relation to the work plan and the project’s objectives.
• Ethical considerations are described well, and the applicant’s plan for managing them is appropriate.

The project’s relevance and real-world impact

• The application identifies the key areas of society and the environment where the project’s research materials and data can be used.
• The project is designed with relevant consideration for the needs of different stakeholders and users.

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

All awarded projects must report on finances and project results to Formas three months after the end of the appropriation period. When the report is submitted, an updated data management plan must also be submitted. The appropriation time for a 12-month urgent project is six months. The reports are submitted in Prisma.

The financial report for projects in this call follows the same structure as the application. Costs and financing are reported according to the same structure as the . Formas may impose requirements on how projects must be reported in terms of content and results to enable distribution and application. In such cases, the award decision will contain more information about this. Formas may also require you to participate in conferences and similar events in order to create synergies and platforms for learning and knowledge sharing.

How to report expenses and results