Clinical project grants 2021

Aim
Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) calls for proposals for research projects of pronounced clinical character relevant for pediatric oncology including biology, epidemiology, registry research, diagnostics and treatment, and health care research including psychosocial research. This includes preclinical and phase I and phase II studies.

Terms and conditions for the call
Barncancerfonden finances research projects for a time period of one to three years for clinical research projects. 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. 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 monitoring costs, operating costs, 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 principal 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 must have active participation from a scientist based in Sweden (main or co-applicant).

• The main applicant must hold a Swedish doctoral degree or an equivalent foreign degree. The co-applicant does not need 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
Refer to the web page of Barncancerfonden. Please note that the call closes at 14:00 on the last day of the application period. Incomplete or late applications will not be evaluated.

Application documents
A complete application is submitted via the application system. Note that the application may not be submitted electronically if mandatory information is missing. Attachments must be in PDF file format (maximum 2 MB). Additions or revisions after closure of the call are not accepted. 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 treatment protocol if existing

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.

Confirmation of the application
The application must be confirmed by the main applicant and the head of department, director or equivalent in order to be valid. The main applicant confirms the application in connection to submission. Note that this must be done before the closure of the call. The day after the call has closed, an email with a request to confirm the application is sent to the head of department, director or equivalent you have stated in the application. Confirmation must be done no later than 7 days after the call has closed.

If the application for some reason cannot be confirmed digitally, the first page of the application must be printed, signed, and sent to forskning@barncancerfonden.se 

Application period
Refer to the web page of Barncancerfonden. Note that the call closes at 14:00 the last day for application. Applications cannot be submitted after the closure of the call. 

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. In special cases, exceptions from this term may be permitted. If so, the salary costs should be clearly motivated in the application.
• Barncancerfonden has some restrictions regarding parallel grants. Refer to the separate document "Policy for parallel grants from BCF".
• Refer to the separate document "Eligible costs BCF" for eligible costs for the grant form. 

General terms
Refer to the separate document ”General terms” in the application system.

Retrieval of grants
Refer to the separate document ”How to claim your allocated grant” in the application system. 

Contact
For questions, please contact:
Kristin Mattsson, Research coordinator
Send e-mail to Kristin
073 - 866 53 34

or

Anders Höglund, Research coordinator
Send e-mail to Anders
08-584 209 31

It is also possible to write to:

forskning@barncancerfonden.se