Call for childhood cancer research postdoctoral position/fellowship 2024

Aim
Barncancerfonden (The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund) calls for proposals for childhood cancer research postdoctoral position/fellowship within the area of childhood cancer diseases. 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
Grants may be applied for salary costs and indirect costs connected to the grant.
Research positions can be applied for within the areas for biomedical science and health care science including psychosocial research. The research projects may be experimental (fundamental or translational research) or clinical.
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. 

Eligibility to apply
The main applicant should be the person that the applied position/fellowship is intended to finance. The application should refer to postdoctoral education within the area of childhood cancer diseases.

Childhood cancer research postdoctoral position/fellowship is applied for by an individual that holds a doctoral degree. The position/fellowship is applied for within 5 years after dissertation. Researcher with a doctoral degree from a Swedish university, returning to Sweden after a postdoc abroad, can apply 7 years after dissertation. The time from dissertation may be prolonged under special circumstances, for example clinical work or parental leave (note that time to be excluded must be clearly stated in a separate document).

Full- or part-time positions can be applied for, a minimum is 50%. Part-time positions are earmarked for clinically active researchers in pediatric oncology and shall be combined with up to 50% clinical work. Regardless of whether the applicant applies for a full- or part-time position, a maximum of two (2) years can be applied for per application. 

A continution application for childhood cancer research postdoctoral position/fellowship is possible under the prerequsite that the applicant still is eligible to apply. 

Within the frame of the grant, side activities as teaching and responsibility for equipment of maximum 20% is allowed, provided that these activities are not financed by another part. Other activities within the frame of the grant must be confirmed by the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund.

The position can be applied by:

• Researcher with a doctoral degree from a Swedish university that intends to pursue a postdoctoral education abroad. 2-year fellowship abroad according to EMBO fellowships rates. Grants can also be applied for accompanying children.
• Researcher with a doctoral degree from a foreign university that intends to pursue a postdoctoral education in a Swedish research group. 2-year grant.
• Researcher with a doctoral degree from a Swedish university that intends to pursue a postdoctoral education in a Swedish research group. A prerequisite for this grant is that the applicant should pursue the education in another research group than the one where the applicant received the doctoral degree. 2-year grant.
• Researcher with a doctoral degree from a Swedish university that conducts or has finalized a postdoctoral education abroad and intends to return to Sweden. 2-year grant combined with running costs of 500 000 SEK per year. The running costs do not need to be specified in the application budget, but cannot be used for indirect costs or premises.

Co-applicants
The main applicant should be the person the applied position/fellowship is intended to finance. Childhood cancer research postdoctoral position/fellowship is applied for with the PI (for the group where the project will be conducted) as co-applicant.

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. Exceptions may be made under special circumstances after an inquiry to Barncancerfonden. The grant is disbursed as a position except in the case for postdoctoral education abroad where the grant may be disbursed as a scholarship. 

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.
Allocated grants for childhood cancer research postdoc position returning to Sweden are combined with a grant for running costs of 500 000 SEK per year. 

Administration
The grant is to be administered by a Swedish university, hospital or institute, alternatively another Swedish organization with research as its main purpose in collaboration with a university, hospital or institute. 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.

Note that for the category Researcher with a doctoral degree from a Swedish university that intends to pursue a postdoctoral education abroad and who has dependents, this is specified on the tab "Other" under "Other information regarding the application that cannot be stated elsewhere".

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, CV and list of publications (stated under Personal details) 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
• Invitation from the host university
• Statement of time to be excluded (if >5 years after dissertation)

Content in 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.

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

Anders Höglund, Research coordinator
anders.hoglund@barncancerfonden.se
08 - 584 209 31