Call for project grants on rare childhood cancer diseases 2018

Aim
Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) calls for proposals for research projects on rare childhood cancer diseases. The purpose of this directed call is to fund research proposals on malign cancer diseases with non-existent or limited research.

Terms and conditions for the call
Funding is granted for a time period of one to three years for clinical research, translational research, and basic science research relevant for children with rare cancer diseases. In exceptional cases, research projects will be financed for a time period of four or five years. The relevance for children with rare cancer diseases in Sweden and/or childhood cancer research in Sweden should be clearly demonstrated. The applicant should state which rare childhood cancer disease the research aims to investigate, with a short statement why the disease is rare in comparison to other childhood cancer diseases.  

Costs to apply for include operating costs, minor equipment, publication costs, travel costs and salary costs.  

Grant applications submitted to Barncancerfonden are awarded by a peer review process. Submitted applications are evaluated by independent research committees with respect to the research question, methodology, feasibility/merits of the applicant(s), relevance for children with cancer in Sweden, and when applicable the scientific report.

Within the call, applications for a new project or a continuation of a previously funded project are accepted. A continuation project is an extension of a project previously funded by Barncancerfonden. Reasonable modifications in the project approach are acceptable. An application for a continuation project must be submitted no later than two years after the project period of the original project was concluded. The application is otherwise regarded as a new project. A continuation grant based on an ongoing project may be applied for if the latter is finalized after the current call but prior to the next consecutive call for the same type of grant. The project number for the previously approved project must be stated in the application.


Eligibility to apply
• Funding is applied for by an individual scientist that has, or intend to locate, the main activity in one of the Nordic countries. The individual scientist is the main applicant and scientifically responsible for the project.

• Funding for international, non-Nordic, projects may be granted under the prerequisite that the main activity of the main applicant is in Sweden.
• The project should have active participation from a scientist based in Sweden (main or co-applicant).
• The main applicant should hold a Swedish doctoral degree or an equivalent foreign degree and be active in the field of childhood cancer. This includes, for example, medical doctors, researchers, counselors, psychologists, and nurses. The co-applicant does not need a PhD degree.
  
  About the grant
  The grant is a block grant unless otherwise stated in the decision letter.
  
  Administration
  The grant is to be administered by a Nordic university, hospital or institute, alternatively another Nordic organization with research as its main purpose in collaboration with a university, hospital or institute.
  
  Application period
  Refer to the web page of Barncancerfonden. Incomplete or late applications will not be evaluated.
  
  Instructions for applying
  The application system opens two months prior to the last day for application. A complete application includes: 
• a filled-in web form  
• a project description uploaded as an attachment in PDF file format.  

The project description may not exceed 6 A4-pages including references (12 ppt Times New Roman, single-spaced, automatic line break). 

The project description may be written either in English or in Swedish and should contain the information needed to evaluate the aim, originality and feasibility of the project.  

The project should have an overall aim and a number of specific goals. The aim may be visionary but the goals should be written as specific as possible. All project goals should be possible to fulfill if the project is fully financed (and the entire project period described in the application is granted). It is therefore of utmost importance that the application has a reasonable budget with respect to the proposed research. The project goals should be directly comparable to the final report where the progress and results from the project will be described.  

The project description should give a clear representation of its position in a national and international context. Do not refer to appendices since these are not considered.  

The project description should also specify if the project involves ethical issues and if these needs specific ethical considerations. The project description must also indicate if other permits and approvals are required for the project. The main applicant is responsible for ensuring that he required permits and / or approvals are obtained for the project and all its parts.

The project description should contain the following headings:
• Aim and goals; present the overall aim and the specific goals of the research project. 

• Background; a summary of your own and other's research, as well as previous findings in the research field.  
• Preliminary results; describe your own experiments and preliminary studies in the field of research.
• Work plan; summarize the project and present a timetable. Describe theories, methods and implementation.  
• International and national collaboration: short description of collaboration with foreign and Swedish researchers and research groups or clinical partners.   
• Ethical considerations.
• The five most relevant publications for the project (published by the applicant).
• Literature references of importance. 
• If the main or co-applicant has awarded grants or other applications under review at Barncancerfonden that are similar to the present application, the differences between these and the present application should be described under a certain heading.

Note that the application may not be submitted electronically if mandatory information is missing. After submission, the first page of the application must be printed, signed, and sent to Barncancerfonden no later than one week after the last day of the application period. Revisions to submitted applications are not allowed.

The signed first page is to be sent to:  

forskning@barncancerfonden.se

Organization of the application
Instructions on how to fill in the application form is found in the top right corner on each tab.

The application may be written either in English or in Swedish with the following exceptions: 
• The popular science title must be written in Swedish. 

• The project title must be written in English. 
• The popular science description must be written in Swedish.  
• The summary must be written in English. 
  
  Special terms
  • A maximum of 25% of the respective salaries of the main and co-applicant may be covered by grant, and a maximum of 25% of the total grant may be used for this purpose.
• Barncancerfonden has some restrictions regarding parallell grants. Refer to the separate document "Policydokument flera anslag" (In Swedish) on the web page of Barncancerfonden under Apply for research grants.
• Refer to "Policydokument godkända kostnader" (in Swedish) for approved costs for the grant form. The document is found on the web page of Barncancerfonden under Apply for research grants.
  
  General terms
  Refer to the separate document ”Generella villkor” (in Swedish) in the application system.
  
  Retrieval of grants
  Refer to the separate document ”Så här får du dina beviljade medel” (in Swedish) in the application system.
  
  Contact
  Abraham Mellkvist-Roos, Research Coordinator
  Tel: 08-584 209 22 (00)
  abraham.mellkvist.roos@barncancerfonden.se

or

forskning@barncancerfonden.se