Call for research residency for pediatricians/pediatric oncologists

Aim
Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) calls for proposals for research residency for pediatricians or pediatric oncologists in training. The purpose is to recruit more researchers to the field and to enable research for clinically active individuals employed in Swedish health care or equivalent.

Terms and conditions for the call
The results from the research related to the position are expected to be beneficial for children with cancer in Sweden and/or childhood cancer research in Sweden. The relevance for childhood cancer should therefore be clearly stated in the application. 

The grant is intended to cover 20-50% of the resident’s full-time salary/calendar year, to cover for time spent in clinical or translational cancer research. The remaining time should be within clinical childhood oncology or a highly relevant area for pediatric oncology. If the residency is in another field than pediatric oncology, it is important that the application clearly state the importance and benefits for childhood cancer. The research program must be highly relevant for childhood cancer. The residency should be funded by the health authority.

Eligibility to apply
The main applicant should be the person the applied position is intended to finance. The operations manager/head of the section for pediatric oncology at a Swedish childhood cancer center must be a co-applicant.

Main applicant
Eligible to apply is a resident who has chosen residency within pediatrics or pediatric oncology, or another specialty with high relevance for childhood cancer. Residents who have already completed training in pediatric oncology may be eligible if the residency or research program is highly relevant for childhood cancer. 

Research residency can be applied for by a resident that holds a PhD, who is accepted to a research training program or who has a fixed admission date to a research training program. Awarded residents who completes the residency during the project period may continue using the funds the remaining time of the period.

Co-applicants
Operations manager
The operations manager/head of the section for pediatric oncology at a Swedish childhood cancer center must be a co-applicant. The operations manager should in a separate attachment motivate why the main applicant is suitable for the research residence. If the resident (main applicant) does not work in pediatric oncology, this must be particularly motivated.  
If more than one resident from the same Childhood cancer center applies for research residence, the operations manager must send in a priority list, in which the individual applicants are ranked against each other. The operations manager sends the priority list directly to forskning@barncancerfonden.se.

Main supervisor (if appropriate)
The main supervisor should be a co-applicant in case the resident still is to complete research training and does not hold a PhD. The main supervisor must hold a PhD and have his or her main professional activity in one of the Nordic countries. The main supervisor may be the operations manager, but it is not a requirement. 

Co-supervisor (if appropriate)
Co-supervisors are required in case the main supervisor is not active at the workplace where the resident's research project is conducted. The co-supervisors must hold PhDs and be active where the resident is conducting research.

Please use the section " Other information regarding the application that cannot be stated elsewhere " on the tab "Other" for any additional information on co-applicants, including main and co-supervisors. 

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

• 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 personal and may not be transferred to another individual. The grant is disbursed to administering organization.

Refer to the document Eligible costs for eligible costs for the grant form.

Barncancerfonden has some restrictions regarding parallel grants. Refer to the separate document Parallel grants from BCF on the web page of Barncancerfonden.

Grant sum
The sum of the grant is calculated according to the salary flat rate sums from Barncancerfonden. The grant includes holiday compensation and indirect costs. The actual salary of the application including expected salary raise should be stated in the budget. The final sum for part-time positions will be adjusted according to applied working hours.

Applications can also include application for running costs up to 250 000 SEK per year. The running costs must be specified and justified on the tab "Budget justification". The running costs are awarded as a financial envelope.

Administration
The grant is to be administered by a pediatric oncology section at a Swedish university hospital. Reduction of 15,25% for indirect costs is allowed. Any premises costs should be accommodated within this deduction. Remaining funding at the end of the project period is reimbursed to Barncancerfonden.

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 abstract must be written in English.

Application documents
The application system opens approximately two months prior to the last day for application. A complete application includes a filled-in web form and mandatory appendices. The appendices should be uploaded in PDF format and may not exceed 2 MB. Note that the application may not be submitted electronically if mandatory information is missing.

Mandatory attachments

• Project description
• Motivation by Operations manager

Content of the project description
The project description 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. The project goals should be directly comparable to the final report where the progress and results from the project will be described. It is important that the project description provides a good overview of the project in a national/international context. Do not refer to additional appendices, as those will not be considered.

The project description should be maximum 6 A4 pages including references (12 ppt Times New Roman, single space, automatic line break) and 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 pre-studies in the research area
• Work plan; summarize the project and present a timetable. Describe theories, methods and implementation.
• Patient material; if the research project includes patient samples, the approximate number of patients should be stated, and if patients are children or adults. If a combination of samples is used, the distribution between child and adult samples should be stated. 
• International and national collaboration: short description of collaboration with foreign and Swedish researchers and research groups or clinical partners. 
• Ethical considerations
• Five own publications that are most relevant to the project
• 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. 

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 the application must be submitted AND confirmed by the main applicant 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.

Application period
Refer to the web page of Barncancerfonden. Incomplete or late applications will not be evaluated.

Evaluation criteria
All submitted applications are subjected to peer review evaluation by active researchers on the basis of the following criteria: research problem, methodology, feasibility/merits of the applicant(s), relevance for children oncology, and, when applicable, the scientific report.

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

Contact
For questions about the call contact:
forskning@barncancerfonden.se

or

Johanna Andrae, Forskningssamordnare
johanna.andrae@barncancerfonden.se
070-420 03 84