Call for project grants 2020

Aim
Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) calls for proposals for research projects relevant for pediatric oncology within the area of biomedical science. This includes biology, epidemiology, diagnostics and treatment, as well as health care research including psychosocial research.

Terms and conditions for the call
Barncancerfonden finances childhood cancer research within clinical, translational, basic and nursing science, for a time period of one to three years. In exceptional cases, research projects will be financed for a time period of four or five years.

Barncancerfonden supports research projects that can be expected to benefit children with cancer in Sweden. This includes both scientific research to improve care and increase survival rates, as well as research on complications, late effects and rehabilitation. The relevance for childhood cancer should be clearly stated inte in the application. This is particularly important for research with indirect relevance for childhood cancer, which may also be granted funding. In addition, funding may also be granted research projects that have the potential to aid next of kin or survivors of childhood cancer in Sweden.

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, counsellors, psychologists, and nurses. Co-applicants are not required to hold a PhD degree.

 

Co-applicants

After the imposition of the The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, also known as GDPR, Barncancerfonden has changed the handling of co-applicants. The following applies:

• All co-applicants must confirm their participation before the application can be submitted
• The main applicant is responsible to inform all co-applicants about this
• The main applicant fills in the co-applicant information
• The co-applicant confirms participation via an e-mail generated from the system after the co-applicant is registered
• Co-applicants that have not confirmed their participation must be deleted by the main applicant before the application can be submitted

 

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
Please refer to the web page of Barncancerfonden. Incomplete or late applications will not be evaluated. Note that the application system closes at 14:00 the last day of the call.

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-space, 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 fulfil 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 as these are not considered.  

The project description should also specify if the project involves ethical issues and if these need 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 or sub project.

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 others’ research, as well as previous findings in the research field.  
• Preliminary results; describe your own experiments and preliminary studies in the research area 
• 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 allocated 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 by email 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 parallel 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

For questions, please contact:

Mariette Nordzell, Research coordinator

mariette.nordzell@barncancerfonden.se

08-588 923 46

 

or

Emeli Lundström, Research coordinator

emeli.lundstrom@barncancerfonden.se

08-584 209 03

 

It is also possible to write to:

forskning@barncancerfonden.se