The national programme on Applied Welfare Research started in 2017 and spans a ten-year perspective, giving Forte a unique opportunity for long-term, strategic planning of calls for proposals and types of funding within the programme. The current plan for calls includes calls where the start of the project is planned for 2025.

This plan is in draft form and may be modified, e.g. in the event of changes to the programme’s budget.

The planned calls are listed and named below after the year in which the financing starts. This means that a call can open or close the previous year.

The starting point for all calls is the programme’s strategic research agenda and the eight priority research areas presented in it. General requirements for applying for grants within the program are that the research is relevant to and applicable to the social services’ areas of activity and to users, and that the research takes place in collaboration with prectice and other relevant actors in the field.

Applied Welfare Research 2024

The call will be open to applications in all eight priority research areas presented in the program’s strategic research agenda. Within the call, it will be possible to apply for:

  • Project grants
  • Programme grants
  • Practice-oriented research fellow grants

Time plan

The call opens: 7 Sep 2023.
The call closes: 25 Oct 2023.
Decision in the call is made: preliminary February 2025
Funding start: preliminary April 2024.

Please note that the schedule is so far preliminary and subject to change.

Planned budget for the call is SEK 180 million.

Applied Welfare Research 2025

  • Project grants
  • Post-doc grants
  • Research overviews

Types of grant in brief

  • Project grants (3–4 years) are grants for individual research projects. Research projects must be based on the questions and needs of the profession and users/clients. The research projects must therefore be conducted in collaboration with social services, e.g. through regional support and collaboration structures, local R&D units, managers and staff.
  • Programme grants seek to build and strengthen research environments in the programme’s prioritised areas. The investment will enable research teams to address new issues and work on them for a prolonged period of time.
  • Visiting researcher grants seek to facilitate contacts, experience and knowledge exchange between Swedish and foreign research environments, and to promote career development for junior researchers. The visiting researcher grant is offered in two forms, for outgoing and incoming researchers.
  • International postdoc grants (2 years) provide junior researchers with the opportunity to continue their research career after obtaining their PhD. The grant is awarded for postdoc projects in which the researcher either travels from a Swedish institution to another country or from another country to a Swedish institution.
  • Practice-oriented research fellow grants are part-time (3 years) and give researchers with a PhD working on social services issues outside academia an opportunity to conduct research and translate research experience into practice. Applicants must hold a PhD and work on social services issues in social services, health and medical care, R&D units, or other agencies and organisations.
  • Network grants (3 years) seek to facilitate collaboration between researchers from different disciplines and different parts of Sweden and the Nordic countries in the prioritised areas. It may also include collaboration with practice, users/clients, user/client organizations and other actors. The networks can include researchers in other countries, but the coordinator must be linked to a funding administrator in Sweden.
  • Planning grants (1 year) are granted to prepare for a major research project, establish collaboration with different research disciplines, practitioners and users, etc. and provide an opportunity to conduct a pilot study.
  • Systematic reviews (1 year) seek to survey the status of research in the field and the need for research to answer well-delimited questions.

Your organisation needs to have a Prisma account

To apply for Forte’s grants, a Swedish university, higher education institution or other research organisation needs to administer the funding. An organisation account in Prisma is needed in order to do this. The organisations that will be administering the funds need to apply for an organisation account via Prisma in good time.