Apply for funding via the Foundation’s application system Apply. See more information under For researchers.

Calls for applications	Last application date	Notification	Last application date in stage 2	Decision
Two- and three year projects	Stage 1: 31 January 2025 at 3:00 pm	Stage 1: March 2025	Stage 2: 25 April 2025 at 3:00 pm	October 2025
Postdoctoral projects	Stage 1: 31 January 2025 at 3:00 pm	Stage 1: March 2025	Stage 2: 25 April 2025 at 3:00 pm	October 2025
Grand projects	31 January 2025 at 3:00 pm	May 2025	–	October 2025
Research networks	31 January 2025 at 3:00 pm	–	–	May 2025
Conference grants	28 February, 30 May, 30 September 2025 at 3:00 pm	–	–	March, June, October 2025
Publication grants	28 February, 30 May, 30 September 2025 at 3:00 pm	–	–	March, June, October 2025

On 25 November 2024 the Foundation held an information meeting before calls for applications in 2025. See the presentation from the information meeting.

2025 the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies announces calls for the following forms of support:

• two- and three-year projects
• postdoctoral projects
• grand projects
• research networks
• conference grants
• publication grants.

The calls for applications open on 16 December 2024 at 9 am. On the same day, new instructions for applications in 2025 will be posted on the Foundation’s website.

The last application date for projects, postdoctoral projects, grand projects and research networks is Friday 31 January 2025 at 3 pm.

Conference and publication grants can be applied for continuously between 16 December 2024 and 30 September 2025. Decisions are made three times a year. Deadlines for submission of applications before respective decision are: 28 February, 30 May and 30 September 2025.

On Monday, 27 November 2023 at 9:00-11:00 am the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies organises an information meeting before calls for project applications in 2024. The meeting takes place online (Teams) and is held in English. The Foundation’s secretariat, members of the Foundation’s research committee and representatives from Södertörn University will participate.

Register your participation not later than 22 November 2023 to ulrika.mansson@ostersjostiftelsen.se.

Programme

• Welcome and information about the Foundation
• Forms of support 2024
  • Overview
  • Two- and three-year projects
  • Postdoctoral projects
  • Research networks
  • Conference grants
  • Publication grants
• Assessment process
• How to write a good application? Some advice along the way
• Presentation from Södertörn University (grant administrator for Foundation’s research projects and conferences)
• Time for questions

On the Foundation’s website, you can find all information concerning the upcoming application round. Available here are instructions, an overview of the forms of support, information about which forms of support you are eligible to apply for, questions and answers, and a description of research relevance to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

Warm welcome!

The instructions apply to five forms of support: two- and three-year projects, postdoctoral projects, research networks, conference grants and publication grants. Calls for grand projects are announced every two years. The call is suspended in 2024 and the next call will be announced in 2025.

The instructions are separate for each form of support. The instructions, an overview of the forms of support, questions and answers, as well as a tables explaining who can apply for which grant are available in both Swedish and English. See For researchers.

Important changes in the instructions

New rules

• Relevance to society as a new assessment criterion
  A new assessment criterion ‘relevance to society’ has been added to the instructions for all forms of support. The criterion is defined as follows: “The relevance of the research to society, where it can be applied, is another key criterion in the assessment of a funding application. The findings from such research may bring practical benefits to the communities or societies under investigation and/or help to solve current problems there. Alternatively, the results may provide a background theoretical or empirical explanation for these problems.”
• Composition of the research network as a new assessment criterion
  A new assessment criterion ‘composition of the research network’ has been incorporated into the instructions for research networks. The criterion refers to the composition of the core group of participants within the research network.
• Modification of requirements for research networks
  Within research networks, the previous requirement that the great majority of participants must come from research environments outside Sweden has been shifted from a requirement to a preference.
• New rules for employment rate in projects
  The limitation of the maximal employment rate within two- and three-year projects (previously 75% of a full-time annual position) is removed. From 2024 it will be possible to apply for 100% research time in projects.
• Increase of the standard grant for results dissemination
  The standard grant amount for dissemination of the project’s results increases for two- and three-year projects to SEK 120,000 and for postdoctoral projects to SEK 60,000.

Practical changes

• E-signing of applications
  The Foundation has updated procedures for signing applications. Applications for two- and three-year projects and postdoctoral projects in stage 2 as well as for research networks, conference grants and publication grants are signed digitally with BankID via a new function in the Foundation’s application system Apply. The Foundation accepts e-signing only through Apply (no external e-signing services). Applications must, as before, be signed by the project manager and the grant administrator’s authorised representative (usually the head of the department (prefekt) for the department where the project is intended to be based). Applicants who do not have a BankID sign the application manually on paper by means of a signature form that is downloaded from the application system, signed, scanned and uploaded into the application form. More information will be available in the Foundation’s application system Apply once the calls for applications open.
• Calculation of social security contributions and overheads
  Within applications for two- and three-year projects, it will be possible to specify different values for payroll overhead in the form of social security contributions (lönekostnadspålägg, LKP) and for indirect costs (overheads) per project participant in the application. For project managers, the Södertörn University’s LKP still applies.

See detailed information in the instructions for each form of support.

Key dates

All the calls open on Monday 8 January 2024 at 9:00 am.

The last application date for two- and three-year projects and postdoctoral projects in stage 1 as well as research networks is Wednesday, 31 January 2024 at 3:00 pm.

Applications for conference and publication grants may be submitted on ongoing basis until 29 November 2024 at 3:00 pm. Decisions are taken four times annually: in March, June, September and December. Deadlines for submission of applications before respective decision are: 29 February, 31 May, 31 August and 29 November 2024.

Information meeting

An information meeting about the 2024 calls for applications will be held online on Monday, 27 November 2023 at 9:00-11:00 am. The meeting will be held in English. More information will be published on the website.

The Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has at its meeting on 11 October 2023 made the decisions on which research projects that will receive funding in this year’s calls. The assessment work in the Foundation’s various assessment panels has resulted in recommendations to the Foundation’s Board, which has now decided to grant a total of SEK 96,5 million to 17 research projects.

Two and three-year projects

Funding support for a project is available for an individual researcher or small group of researchers. The project period is two or three years and the amount of grant is a maximum of SEK 2 million a year. The Foundation has approved 11 project applications in this year’s application round.

Title	Project manager	Department	Amount granted
Crimes and socio-economic development in the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe in comparative perspective	Marcus Box	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 5,717,000
Networked misogyny in Sweden, Germany and Russia: articulations, intersections and transnational flows	Maria Brock	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 5,864,000
In the Shadows of War: Belonging, Identities, and Hierarchies in Intra-regional Migration in Central and Eastern Europe after Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine	Florence Fröhlig	The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 5,795,000
Crafts crossing the Baltic: development and transmission of osseous technologies in the Baltic Sea region c. 9500–3000 BCE	Sara Gummesson	The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 5,999,000
Ukraine and the Global Nuclear Order: an Environmental and Technological History	Tatiana Kasperski	The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 3,872,000
Culturally adapted behavioral interventions for promoting residential energy conservation in the Baltic Sea region	Andrius Kažukauskas	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 5,992,000
Gender and Expert Knowledge. A Study of Migration and Integration Policies in Germany, Poland and Sweden	Teresa Kulawik	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 6,000,000
Artrepreneneurs on the Edge Between Artistic Autonomy and Marketization: Organizing Creative Practice in the Baltic Sea Region (ArtR)	Ann-Sofie Köping Olsson	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 5,999,000
From a “Sea of Peace” to a “NATO lake”? A feminist security analysis of island militarisation in the Baltic Sea	Sanna Strand	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 5,747,000
The benevolent patriarch? How crises reveal early modern households’ labour organisation and the reach of patriarchal care across the Baltic Sea, 1723–1809	Carolina Uppenberg	The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 3,574,000
#SolidarityWithPolishWomen: Transnational Abortion Activism in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea Region	Katarzyna Wojnicka	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 4,773,000

See summaries of the approved two- and three-year projects.

Postdoctoral projects

Funding support for a postdoctoral project is available for an individual researcher who has recently obtained a doctoral degree. The project period is two years and the salary funding may cover 80–100% of a full-time annual position. The Foundation has approved 5 postdoctoral project applications in this year’s application round.

Title	Project manager	Department	Amount granted
Lawyer’s practical knowledge of children’s rights principles towards sustainable society – Experiences of Sweden and Serbia	Milena Banic	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 2,773,000
The Other Victims of Auschwitz: The Murder of Sick Prisoners in Upper Silesian Forced Labour Camps for Jews	Susanne Barth	The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 2,606,000
Music and Sustainability as Affective Assemblage: The Baltic Sea Festival and its Engagement with Scientific Research on Environmental Sustainability of the Baltic Sea Region	Elin Kanhov	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 2,790,000
Waterfront visions: Baltic and Black Sea urbanism after postsocialism	Vassilis Kitsos	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	SEK 2,550, 000
Marxism as an Event in Philosophy: Slovenian and Yugoslav readings of Marx between 1960–1990	Lea Kuhar	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 2,852,000

See summaries of the approved postdoctoral projects.

Grand projects

‘Grand projects’ are those undertaken by a group comprising at least four researchers, with a joint, coherent research task. Grand projects aim to engage in collaboration across subject and institutional boundaries and national borders, and to enable researchers to form a research group that is active in the long term. Within the framework of grand projects funding may be applied for postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students. The project period is four or five years and the amount of grant is a maximum of SEK 5 million a year. The Foundation has approved one grand project application in this year’s application round.

Title	Project manager	Department	Amount granted
Experimenting with Traditions: The Life and Afterlife of 20th Century Jewish Intellectual Culture in the Baltic Sea Region	Ulrika Björk	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	SEK 23,606,000

See the summary of the approved grand project.

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The assessments have been carried out by special assessment panels based on the applications and on external experts’ assessments and for grand projects also on interviews with research groups. The Board of the Foundation has followed the recommendations of the assessment panels.

The research projects will start from January 2024.

Notifications of the Foundation’s decisions are sent to the applicants by e-mail.

Granted research projects and research networks are presented in the Foundation’s project database. When the projects and networks have completed their activities, final reports are also posted in the project database. For each project, the publications that the project has resulted in are listed. Most of publications funded by the Foundation are published open access.

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Approved conference and publication grants

On June 7 and September 8, 2023, the Foundation granted SEK 230,000 to three applications for conference grants and SEK 7,000 to an application for publication grant. The funds may be used during one year from the date of the decision.

Conference grants aim to promote internationalisation and knowledge exchange among Swedish and foreign researchers and to help disseminate research on the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

Publication grants enable researchers who have had a previous research project funded by the Foundation to publish research results after the end of the project. The form of support can also be applied for in connection with a conference grant.

Title	Projekt manager	Department	Form of support	Amount granted
Secure Horizons: Ukraine’s Peace and Infosecurity Confluence	Nicholas Aylott	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	Conference grant	SEK 94,000
NordAnd16 – Nordic Languages as a Second Language	Zoe Nikolaidou	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	Conference grant	SEK 44,000
Key challenges to sustainability on small islands in the Baltic and Eastern European context	Paulina Rytkönen	The School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University	Conference grant	SEK 92,000
From a ’Black City’ to a Paradisical Garden: Villa Petrolea and the Metamorphoses of the Oil-Fevered Baku	Irina Seits	The School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University	Publication grant	SEK 7,000

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Östersjöstiftelsen, The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, funds research, doctoral studies and scientific infrastructure, and also activities that develop these areas at Södertörn University. The Foundation’s financial support must be related to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe and may cover all disciplines. The Foundation supports research projects by individual researchers and research groups after application in annual calls. It also supports activities at Södertörn University after an annual application from the university.

2024 the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies will announce calls for the following forms of support:

• two- and three-year projects
• postdoctoral projects
• research networks
• conference grants
• publication grants.

Calls for grand projects are announced every two years. The call is suspended in 2024 and the next call will be announced in 2025.

The calls for projects, postdoctoral projects and research networks open on Monday 8 January 2024 at 9 am and the last application date is Wednesday 31 January 2024 at 3 pm.

Conference and publication grants can be applied for continuously between 8 January and 29 November 2024. Decisions are made four times a year: in March, June, September and December.

New instructions for applications in 2024 will be posted on the Foundation’s website in October.

An information meeting prior to calls for applications 2024 will be held digitally on 27 November 2023 at 9 am. The meeting will be held in English. More information will be posted on the website well in advance of the meeting.

Peter Hedström has been appointed as Chair of the Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies from 7 July 2023. He is currently Professor of Analytical Sociology at Linköping University and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College in Oxford.

Peter Hedström received his PhD in sociology from Harvard and has previously, for instance, been a professor at Stockholm University and the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and has previously been a member of the Board at the Swedish Research Council and STINT. He was the founder of the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linköping University and has been CEO of the Institute for Futures Studies.

“I feel very honored by the assignment” says Peter Hedström. “It is a great responsibility and an exciting challenge to ensure that the extensive funds that the Foundation disposes of are used as wisely as possible. Personally, I hope that the Foundation will primarily focus on strengthening free, researcher-initiated research related to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe to by that means stimulate research with as much international influence as possible,” he underlines.

The Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has on April 18, 2023, made the decision on which research networks that will receive funding in this year’s call. The Foundation has granted SEK 443,000 to three research networks. Funding of the networks covers one year and has a start date on 1 September 2023.

On March 21, 2023, the Foundation granted SEK 818,014 to three applications for conference grants. The funds may be used during one year from the date of the decision.

Approved research networks

Project title	Project manager	Grant administrator	Amount granted
UniSus: The role of universities in sustainable development. Collaboration, academic freedom and cross-sectoral contributions	Peter Dobers	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 143,000
Mapping key challenges to sustainability on islands in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe	Paulina Rytkönen	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 150,000
HSUD-DRNI: Practices of Decolonisation and the Rise of New Imperialisms in the Uses of Heritage and Sustainable Urban Development	Irina Seits	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 150,000

Research networks support either creating new networks of researchers or maintaining already established ones. The networks must themselves initiate research and serve the purpose of contributing to future research through academic meetings and contacts where researchers can define, delimit and formulate research ideas that may eventually culminate in applications for research funds. The financial scope is maximum SEK 150,000 per network.

Approved conference grants

Project title	Project manager	Grant administrator	Amount granted
The Political Representation and Participation of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities: Eastern Europe in a Broader Context	Joakim Ekman	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 213,030
Decolonisation of Memory in the former Soviet spaces	Yuliya Yurchuk	Södertörn University, The School of Historical and Contemporary Studies	SEK 277,141
How to Be Prepared? Governance for Societal Resilience in the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe	Oleksandra Keudel	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 327,843

Conference grants aim to promote internationalisation and knowledge exchange among Swedish and foreign researchers and to help disseminate research on the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

The Swedish Research Council has taken an initiative to investigate what researchers think about open access publishing. The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond participate in the study. The survey is divided into two parts: one about open access to publications and one about open access to research data.

For the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies it is interesting to gain knowledge about how researchers with funding from the Foundation perceive issues related to open access. The survey is not checking whether researchers are complying with the terms and conditions set by the research funding bodies. The survey answers will only be reported in aggregated form.

The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies extends the deadline for submission of applications until Friday, 3 February 2023 at 3:00 pm. The extension applies to calls for applications within the forms of support:

• Two- and three-year projects, stage 1
• Postdoctoral projects, stage 1
• Grand projects
• Research networks.

The reason for extending the application deadline was a temporary problem with the Foundation’s application system on 23-24 January 2023.

Apply for funding via the Foundation’s application system Apply. See more information under For researchers.

Calls for applications	Last application date	Notification	Last application date in stage 2	Decision
Two- and three year projects	Stage 1: 1 February 2023 at 3:00 pm	Stage 1: March 2023	Stage 2: 26 April 2023 at 3:00 pm	11 October 2023
Postdoctoral projects	Stage 1: 1 February 2023 at 3:00 pm	Stage 1: March 2023	Stage 2: 26 April 2023 at 3:00 pm	11 October 2023
Grand projects	1 February 2023 at 3:00 pm	18 April 2023	–	11 October 2023
Research networks	1 February 2023 at 3:00 pm	–	–	18 April 2023
Conference grants	30 November 2023 at 3:00 pm	–	–	first week in March, June, September and December 2023
Publication grants	30 November 2023 at 3:00 pm	–	–	first week in March, June, September and December 2023

The Foundation for the Baltic and East European Studies has during 2022 granted almost SEK 254 million to research, doctoral studies and scientific infrastructure related to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

SEK 100 million has been granted to new research projects with start year 2023.

The Foundation has also granted almost SEK 130 million to next year’s activities at Södertörn University, after the Vice-Chancellor’s application for funding. The Baltic and East European Graduate School, BEEGS, has been granted almost SEK 52 million. Other grants were SEK 30 million to the Baltic and East European programme for professors and associate senior lecturers, and SEK 21 million to Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES. Additionally, funding has been granted, among other things, to laboratories, the university’s library, journal Baltic Worlds, publication funding and to special communication initiatives to make the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern European research at Södertörn University visible.

The Foundation’s support programme for researchers at risk has during the year been expanded to receive Ukrainian researchers at Södertörn University. The Foundation has, by now, granted almost SEK 24 million to the programme.

Funding granted by the Foundation in 2022

Funding for activities at Södertörn University	SEK 129,161,000
New research projects	SEK 100,363,000
Research networks	SEK 324,000
Support programme for researchers at risk	SEK 23,960,000
Total	SEK 253,808,000

Last updated: 07/12/2022

On Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 9:00 am until 11:00 am at the latest the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies organises an information meeting before calls for project applications in 2023. The meeting takes place on Teams and is held in English. The Foundation’s secretariat and members of the Foundation’s research committee and assessment panels will participate.

Register your participation not later than 25 November 2022 to ulrika.mansson@ostersjostiftelsen.se.

Programme

• Welcome and information about the Foundation
• Forms of support 2023
  • Overview
  • Two- and three-year projects
  • Postdoctoral projects
  • Grand projects
  • Research networks
  • Conference grants
  • Publication grants
• Assessment process
• How to write a good application? Some advice along the way
• Time for questions

On the Foundation’s website, you can find all information concerning the upcoming application round. Available here are instructions, an overview of the forms of support, information about which forms of support you are eligible to apply for, questions and answers, and a description of research relevance to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

Warm welcome!

The instructions apply to the same four forms of support that were announced in 2022 (two- and three-year projects, postdoctoral projects, grand projects and research networks) as well as two new forms of support: grants for arranging conferences and publication grants.

The instructions are separate for each form of support. The instructions, an overview of the forms of support, questions and answers, as well as a table explaining who can apply for which grant are available in both Swedish and English. See For researchers.

New forms of support

Grants for arranging conferences for knowledge exchange

Funding may be applied for arranging conferences that are clearly relevant to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe. The purpose is to promote internationalisation and knowledge exchange among Swedish and foreign researchers and to help disseminate research on the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.
The call is open to researchers in and outside Sweden. Södertörn University must be a grant administrator for an approved conference grant.

Publication grants if you have completed a research project

Researchers who have had a research project funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies can, within three years after the final report is submitted on a two- or three-year project, postdoctoral project or grand project, apply for grants to publish research results from the project.
A Swedish higher education institution must be a grant administrator for an approved publication grant.

Important changes in the forms of support

Note that the calls for grand projects, after application round 2023, will be temporarily suspended in 2024. The grand project calls will be thereafter announced every second year.

Postdoctoral projects may even be applied for by doctoral students who have not obtained their doctoral degree by the last application deadline. However, the doctoral student must have a doctoral degree before the start of the grant period (no later than 2023-12-31). If the project is granted and the project manager does not have a doctoral degree before the start of the grant period, the grant cannot be used.

Key dates

All the calls open on Monday 9 January 2023 at 9:00 am.

The last application date for two- and three-year projects and postdoctoral projects in stage 1 as well as grand projects and research networks is Wednesday, 1 February 2023 at 3:00 pm.

Applications for conference and publication grants may be submitted on ongoing basis until 30 November 2023 at 3:00 pm.

Information meeting

An information meeting about the 2023 application round will be held on Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 9:00 am, until 11:00 am at the latest. The meeting will be held in English on Zoom. More information will be published on the website.

The Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has today made the decisions on which research projects that will receive funding in this year’s calls.

–The Foundation has received many applications for research projects of high quality, says the Foundation’s Research Director Britta Lövgren. The assessment work in the Foundation’s various assessment panels has resulted in recommendations to the Foundation’s Board, which has now decided to grant a total of SEK 100 million to 17 research projects.

Postdoctoral projects

Funding support for a postdoctoral project is available for an individual researcher who has recently obtained a doctoral degree. The project period is two years and the salary funding may cover 80–100% of a full-time annual position. The Foundation has approved four postdoctoral project applications in this year’s application round.

Project manager	Title	Department	Amount granted
Camilla Larsson	Serious and with Poetic Powers: Polish Art Exhibited in Sweden from the Cold War Period up until Today	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 2,220,000
Anna-Karin Selberg	Industry of lies: How lies are transformed into reality in a Russian “troll-farm”	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 2,685,000
Ralph Tafon	Climate justice? Democracy, equity, capability, and power in Just Transition practice.	Södertörn University, School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies	SEK 3,100,000
Fredrik Valdeson	Language contact and language change in the Baltic Sea Region: The use of ditransitive verbs and the prepositions till and åt in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 2,657,000

See summaries of the approved postdoctoral projects.

Two and three-year projects

Funding support for a project is available for an individual researcher or small group of researchers. The project period is two or three years and the amount of grant is a maximum of SEK 2 million a year. The Foundation has approved 12 project applications in this year’s application round.

Project manager	Title	Department	Amount granted
Alireza Behtoui	School Dropout and the Post-Dropout Trajectories of Young People in Sweden and Finland: A Longitudinal, Multi-Method Comparative Study	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 5,874,000
Caroline Hasselgren	A matter of transition? Working life trajectories and retirement behavior in post-socialist contexts across Central and Eastern Europe	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 5,979,000
Ekaterina Kalinina	Sustainable Urban Development: Agency, Networks and Communication in uncertain times	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 5,968,000
Tora Lane	Writing and Thinking at the Margins: A Philosophical Strategy to Resist Totalitarianism in Post-War Eastern Europe	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 5,810,000
Lars Lundgren	A Sea of Data: Mediated temporalities of the Baltic Sea	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 5,917,000
Daniel Lövgren	Organizing REKO: The Viability of a Local Food System in Finland, Sweden & Latvia	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 5,651,000
Katarina Mattsson	Cruising the Baltic Sea: Nation, Gender and Sexuality in pleasure-based ferry traffic between Finland, Åland and Sweden	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 5,990,000
Linn Sandberg	Imagining Queer Aging Futures: a study of LGBTQ aging in Estonia, Poland and Sweden	Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education	SEK 5,986,000
Thomas Sedelius	Semi-Presidential Shifts in the Shadow of Russia: Executive Power and Party Behavior in Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 5,641,000
Liudmila Voronova	The future of visual journalism in Finland, Russia, and Sweden. Working with photographs as visual truths	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 5,772,000
Yuliya Yurchuk	From Sweden with love: circulation and interpretation of Ellen Key’s ideas about sexuality, love, motherhood, and education in the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union (1890-1930)	Södertörn University, School of Historical and Contemporary Studies	SEK 4,025,000
Francesco Zavatti	Strategies for Survival of Displaced Fascists: The Romanian Legionaries in the Western Hemisphere, 1945-1965	Södertörn University, School of Historical and Contemporary Studies	SEK 2,632,000

See summaries of the approved two- and three-year projects.

Grand projects

‘Grand projects’ are those undertaken by a group comprising at least four researchers, with a joint, coherent research task. Grand projects aim to engage in collaboration across subject and institutional boundaries and national borders, and to enable researchers to form a research group that is active in the long term. Within the framework of grand projects funding may be applied for postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students. The project period is four or five years and the amount of grant is a maximum of SEK 5 million a year. The Foundation has approved one grand project application in this year’s application round.

Project manager	Title	Department	Amount granted
Dominika V. Polanska	Sustaining Civil Society in the Context of Multiple Crises: Hubs of Engagement in Central and Eastern Europe and Sweden	Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences	SEK 24,456,000

See the summary of the approved grand project.

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The assessments have been carried out by special assessment panels based on the applications and on external experts’ assessments and for grand projects also on interviews with research groups. The Board of the Foundation has followed the recommendations of the assessment panels.

The research projects will start from January 2023.

Notifications of the Foundation’s decisions are sent to the applicants by e-mail.

Granted research projects and research networks are presented in the Foundation’s project database. When the projects and networks have completed their activities, final reports are also posted in the project database. For each project, the publications that the project has resulted in are listed. Most of publications funded by the Foundation are published open access.

Östersjöstiftelsen, The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, funds research, doctoral studies and scientific infrastructure, and also activities that develop these areas at Södertörn University. The Foundation’s financial support must be related to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe and may cover all disciplines. The Foundation supports research projects by individual researchers and research groups after application in annual calls. It also supports activities at Södertörn University after an annual application from the university.

Next year, the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies will announce calls for the same four forms of support as in 2022: two- and three-year projects, postdoctoral projects, grand projects and research networks.

A change within the call for postdoctoral projects is that even doctoral students who have not obtained their doctoral degree by the last application deadline may apply. However, the doctoral student must have a doctoral degree before the start of the grant period (no later than 2023-12-31). If the project is granted and the project manager does not have a doctoral degree before the start of the grant period, the grant cannot be used.

In the new instructions, information on ethical review is described in more detail. Each application must, according to the revised instructions, contain a description and justification of the ethical considerations.

Instructions for the application system are included in the instructions for the respective form of support.

The calls for applications open on Monday 9 January 2023 at 9 am and the last application date is Wednesday 1 February 2023 at 3 pm.

New instructions for applications in 2023 will be posted on the Foundation’s website in October.

An information meeting prior to calls for applications 2023 will be held digitally on Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 9 am. The meeting will be held in English. More information will be posted on the website.

The Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has today made the decision on which research networks that will receive funding in this year’s call. The Foundation has granted SEK 324,000 to four research networks.

A specially appointed assessment panel carried out assessment of the applications and has made a recommendation for decision to the Foundation’s Board. The Board has followed the panel’s recommendation. Funding of the networks covers one year and has a start date on 1 September 2022.

Notification of the Foundation’s decision is sent to the applicants by e-mail.

Approved research networks, 2022-04-20

Project manager	Project title	Grant administrator	Amount granted
Robert Lecusay	Transforming Early Childhood Education and Care in the Baltic and Eastern European Region: Revitalizing pedagogical perspectives from Serbian, Finnish and Swedish Scholarship and Practice in the Field.	Södertörn University, Teacher Education	SEK 78,000
Björn Hassler	Mapping key challenges to sustainability transitions in agriculture and food production in Armenia and beyond	Södertörn University, The School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies	SEK 106,000
Ulrika Björk	Experimenting with tradition – early 20th century East-European Jewish and German dialogues as a source of philosophical modernity	Södertörn University, The School of Culture and Education	SEK 82,000
Ann Werner	Contemporary post-Soviet popular music: Politics and aesthetics	Södertörn University, The School of Culture and Education	SEK 58,000

Research networks support either creating new networks of researchers or maintaining ones that are already established. The purpose of these networks must be to contribute to forthcoming research through scientific meetings and contacts where researchers can define, demarcate and formulate research ideas that may eventually lead to applications for research funds. The financial scope is maximum SEK 150,000 per network for maximum of one year. Read more here.

During the autumn of 2021 the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies made a decision to establish a support programme at Södertörn University for researchers at risk.

As a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the subsequent acts of war the Foundation has decided to temporarily expand the programme, as soon as possible, to include six positions.

The programme is funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies and scholars are offered an employment at the Södertörn University. The aim is for the scholars to be able to continue working as researchers and teachers within their academic fields.

At the same time, the Foundation and the University are jointly looking into possibilities to expand the programme to also include doctoral students.

The Foundation and the University are also looking into other possibilities to support researchers from Ukraine.

The Government encourages Swedish higher education institutions and research funders to make sure that contacts and collaborations with state institutions in Russia and Belarus stop immediately and to not initiate any new contacts. The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has no institutional collaborations in either Russia or Belarus nor will fund research collaborations with links to the governments of Russia and Belarus.

The Foundation and Södertörn University collaborate to manage the activities that are affected by the abovementioned guidelines and to investigate opportunities for support for researchers from Ukraine.

The following applies for:

Ongoing research projects

Funds from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies must not be transferred to governmental institutions in Russia or Belarus.

If an ongoing project cannot be carried out according to plan due to the current circumstances, the project manager is recommended to contact the Foundation and send an application for change in the project, including an updated project plan, to the Foundation.

New research projects

The grant administrator is responsible to assess whether new collaborations are in line with the Government’s positions. Prior to any funding of new research projects that involve Russian or Belarusian researchers, the Foundation will make an assessment of each individual case, in accordance with the Government’s guidelines. Funds from the Foundation must not be transferred to governmental institutions in Russia or Belarus.

Assessment of applications

The Foundation will not engage researchers who are employed at Russian and Belarusian governmental institutions as external experts for this year’s calls.

The mission of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies is to support research, doctoral studies and scientific infrastructure related to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe. Accordingly, researchers from this area, including Ukraine and Russia, but also from many other countries in the region, are supported by the Foundation. The Foundation also provides funding for research relating to Ukraine. Examples of research projects funded may be found in the Foundation’s project database, but are also listed below.

The Foundation shares Södertörn University’s profound concern about the current situation of universities and researchers in Ukraine and Eastern Europe due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Foundation intends to find ways of supporting continued free research, researcher exchange and independent development of universities in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Russia must immediately desist from all acts of war that are now tormenting the Ukrainian people. This aggression against an independent nation contravenes both international law and the fundamental moral principles of human coexistence.

Research projects about Ukraine

Project title	Project manager	Project type	Start year
Authoritarian Policy Transfer in Post-Soviet States	Olena Podolian	project	2022
To Eat or Not to Eat? Human Health, Scientific Knowledge, and the Biopolitics of Meat in Eastern Europe, 1860s–1939	Julia Malitska	project	2022
Student mobility at the crossroads of Western and Eastern Europe – aspirations, strategies and assets among Belarusian and Ukrainian students	Mette Ginnerskov-Dahlberg	postdoctoral project	2021
Connecting soldiers: Media ecologies and materialities on the East Ukrainian frontline	Roman Horbyk	postdoctoral project	2020
Reproducing (In)Justice: Towards a theory of relational reproductive justice of surrogacy in Baltic, Central and Eastern Europe	Jenny Gunnarsson Payne	project	2018
Religion and Politics in Ukraine: The Influence of Churches and Religious Traditions in Formation of Collective Memory	Yulia Yurchuk	project	2017
Propaganda and management of information in the Ukraine-Russia conflict: From nation branding to information war	Per Ståhlberg	project	2016
Fish in Water? Surveillance in Post-Communist Societies	Ola Svenonius	project	2013
Nation branding	Göran Bolin	project	2013
The Roma Genocide in Ukraine 1941-44: History, memories and representations	Piotr Wawrzeniuk	project	2012
Health and Population Developments in Eastern Europe in the Conditions of Economic Crisis	Ilkka Henrik Mäkinen	project	2011
East Meets West: Charismatic Christianity and Western Missions in Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine	Gunilla Gunner	project	2008
Swedish colonies in Ukraine	David Gaunt	project	2007
Coping with economic hardship in Lithuania, Sweden, and Ukraine. A comparative study of the effect of the means-tested benefits on the well being of the welfare recipients	Jolanta Aidukaite	project	2006
Agrar förändring och ideologisk formering – kooperation och medborgarskap i Östersjöområdet 1880–1939	Anu Mai Kõll	project	2006
Stater och marknader i transition: finansmarknadsutveckling i perspektiv	Mikael Olsson	project	2005
Multietnicitet, mångspråkighet och kulturell mångfald i Polen och Ukraina. Den polska och ukrainska intelligentians diskurser, 1945–2005	Janusz Korek	project	2003
Religious and ethnic tolerance	David Gaunt	project	1999
Institutionalising Democracy: A Study of City Regions in Poland and Ukraine	Martin Åberg	project	1998
Svanarna – Livsformer i förorter till större städer i Östersjöländer	Karl-Olov Arnstberg	project	1998

The Board of the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has today made the decision on which research networks that will receive funding in this year’s call. The Foundation has granted SEK 367,000 to three research networks.

A specially appointed assessment panel carried out assessment of the applications and has made a recommendation for decision to the Foundation’s Board. The Board has followed the panel’s recommendation. Funding of the networks covers one year and has a start date on 1 June 2021.

Notification of the Foundation’s decision is sent to the applicants by e-mail.

Approved research networks, 2021-04-14

Registration number	Project manager	Project title	Department	Amount granted
21-RN-0001	Yulia Gradskova	Researching gender and sexuality in Eastern European history and post-socialist present: Does race matter?	School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 133,000
21-RN-0002	Andrej Kotljarchuk	History and Memory of the Holocaust and Romani genocide in a Comparative International Perspective	School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 150,000
21-RN-0003	Anushree Sanyal	PHYTOREV: A coordinated effort to understand genomic changes in revived diatom and phytoplankton populations from Baltic Sea sediments in light of environmental change	School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Södertörn University	SEK 84,000

Research networks support either creating new networks of researchers or maintaining ones that are already established. The purpose of these networks must be to contribute to forthcoming research through scientific meetings and contacts where researchers can define, demarcate and formulate research ideas that may eventually lead to applications for research funds. The financial scope is maximum SEK 150,000 per network for maximum of one year. Read more here.