Instructions on funding applications for conference grants in 2024

02/11/2023

Funding may be applied for in order to arrange 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.

Eligible to apply: an individual researcher with a doctorate.

Intended for: costs connected with arranging an individual conference that is clearly relevant to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe. The conference must have at least 25 attendees.

Grant administrator: Södertörn University.

Key dates:

• The call opens on Monday 8 January 2024 at 9:00 am and closes on Friday 29 November 2024 at 3:00 pm.
• Applications may be submitted at any time during the call.
• Decisions are taken four times annually: in March, June, September and December. Deadlines for submission of applications before respective decision are: 29 February 2024, 31 May 2024, 31 August 2024 and 29 November 2024.

Applications are submitted in the Foundation’s application system.

Instructions and conditions

A. General

1. Please note that the whole application must be written in English. Incomplete applications and/or applications written partly in Swedish will not be considered. The same is true of applications that clearly fail to meet the Foundation’s basic requirement of relevance to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe.

2. The project description is uploaded as a separate PDF file. No appendices may be attached, other than the PDF files requested in the application system.

3. The application must be approved by the grant administrator. This is attested by means of either digital signatures in the Foundation’s application system or a form signed by the project manager and an authorised representative of the grant administrator (usually the head of department, prefekt). This form is downloaded from the application system. The digital signatures or the undersigned form must be enclosed with the application form at the same time as the funding application is submitted. Applications that have not been signed by the project manager and the grant administrator’s authorised representative will not be processed. See more about what signing means under ’Signatures’.

4. The project manager is responsible for ongoing work to arrange the conference. The project manager is also the contact person for the conference vis-à-vis the Foundation and the grant administrator when the application is generated, during the assessment period and after a funding decision has been made.

5. The Foundation approves co-funding of conferences with another research funder, but the Foundation’s share of the total budget applied for must be made clear in the application. If funds for the same publication are also sought from another funder, this must be stated in the application. If funding is received from another funder, the Foundation’s secretariat must always be notified of this fact. Approved funds may not be used for costs that are covered by another funder.

6.  Approved conference funds must be administered at Södertörn University; that is, the University must be the grant administrator.

7. If funds are also sought for a conference publication of the abstract collection type or the proceedings type, it must be published with open access online.

8. When an application is submitted to the Foundation, particulars are collected and processed to enable management of the application.  If the project involves more than one project participant, the project manager is in charge of ensuring that all the participants are informed that the Foundation collects personal data required for the processing. See also the Foundation’s Data Privacy Policy. Confirmation in the application system that the project manager has received the Foundation’s Data Policy is obligatory before the application is submitted.

9. The Foundation provides information about funding awarded for publication in SweCRIS, a national database of grant-funded research. The Swedish Research Council is a data controller for the purpose of data management in SweCRIS.

B. Applicants: project manager and participants

1. The applicant must be the project manager for the conference.

2. There is no age limit for people who apply for funding from the Foundation. The precondition for applying for conference grants is that the applicant is not in full-time retirement during the grant availability period.

3. The conference must have at least 25 attendees.

4. The conference need not take place at Södertörn University, but must involve researchers at the University.

5. The Foundation is complying with the Government’s request to ensure that contacts and collaborations with Russian and Belarusian state institutions cease immediately, and no new ones are initiated. The Foundation will not fund research collaborations linked to the state in Russia or Belarus.

C. Costs and amount of grant

1. The application must relate to actual, specified costs connected with the conference.

2. Funding may be sought for costs of holding a conference, such as costs of premises; fees for conference speakers; costs of travel, food and lodging; costs of a conference publication of the abstract collection type or proceedings type; and indirect costs (overheads).

3. Funds cannot be applied for to cover salaries.

4. Costs of travel, food and lodging must be compatible with the grant administrator’s rules for travel and work-related entertainment.

5. Funding awarded is disbursed by the Foundation once the final report is approved.

6. If a conference anthology issued by a publisher is planned, the funds are applied for in the publication support form.

D. Application period, grant availability and reporting

1. The application must be submitted to the Foundation at least three months before the planned conference.

2. An approved conference grant must be used within 12 months after the award date.

3. The funds cannot be applied for a conference that has already taken place.

4. Within four months after the end of the availability period, a final report comprising a financial part and a scientific part must be submitted to the Foundation. Other forms of follow-up may also occur.

E. Assessment

Applications to the Foundation for conference grants are assessed by the Foundation’s research director and the chair of the research committee. Decisions are taken four times annually: March, June, September and December.

Assessment criteria

The criteria for assessment of applications are:

• scientific quality
• relevance of the conference to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe
• relevance to society

The content of the conference must be highly relevant to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe. The same description of this relevance as that relating to research projects is also applicable to conference grants. See below.

Under its Statutes, the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies funds research related to ‘the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe’. The ‘Baltic Sea Region’ is the Baltic Sea itself and the surrounding areas. ‘Eastern Europe’ refers to post-communist Central, Southern and Eastern Europe (see further information on the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe). The Foundation does not fund research relating exclusively to Sweden or Swedish conditions. However, support may be provided for research that concerns Sweden, or countries entirely outside the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe in comparative studies when this is scientifically justified.

For the research to be judged highly relevant to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe, it must make a specific contribution to our knowledge of this area. Research within the area involving collaboration with researchers, research institutions and other stakeholders in the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe is particularly relevant. Research with a more theoretical main question, in which the importance of the Baltic Sea Region or Eastern Europe is not explained in terms of the main question, or where the link to the region is indirect, is judged less relevant.

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.

F. Application instructions

1. Applications are submitted in the Foundation’s application system.

2. The whole application must be written in English.

3. The project manager must have an account in the Foundation’s application system Apply and submit the application. The account must be registered to the project manager’s email address. No other person than the project manager has access to the application in the application system.

4. In the application system, it is important to choose the application form for the correct category of support. Otherwise, there is a risk of the application being rejected without consideration.

5. If the conference is linked to a previous research project or network funded by the Foundation, this must be stated.

6. All the information filled in is saved automatically in the application system. A project manager who stops working in the system for 60 minutes is automatically logged out (with the information saved automatically).

7. Once the application has been sent in, the project manager personally cannot change it. If changes in the application are necessary, contact the Foundation’s secretariat.

8. The application system does not send confirmation that an application has been submitted. To verify its submission, log in to the application system and check that the space under ‘Status’ in the application shows ‘Submitted’. There, the application sent in can also be downloaded as a PDF file.

9. For a person with no Swedish Personal ID number, write ‘-XXXX’ after the date of birth, as follows: YYYYMMDD-XXXX.

Application

Summary 

The summary may be up to 1,500 characters, including spaces, in length. It must describe the purpose of the conference, its implementation and its relevance to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe. The summary must be written in a way that people with other research specialisations, too, can understand.

Project description

The project description may comprise a maximum of three pages of text (Times New Roman 12 points, line spacing 1.5).

The description of the project must clarify the following aspects of the conference:

• purpose and scientific relevance
• relevance to the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe
• relevance to society
• implementation of the conference regarding, for example:
  • target group
  • dissemination of information about the conference
  • organisation committee
  • how the conference is to be documented
• a programme for the conference, complete with
  • times
  • venue for the conference
  • named speakers.

Project costs

Here, a budget in SEK for the conference is provided.

Figures for indirect costs (overheads) are estimated according to, and must be compatible with, the grant administrator’s rules for indirect costs.

Note that funds can be applied for only for the purpose of arranging a conference. Within this form of support, funding for salaries is not available.

Budget commentary

Note that all costs must be specified and justified in detail in the space for ‘Budget commentary’. This means that the application must provide a realistic calculation of individual costs, with these specified at a level of detail that permits scrutiny of how reasonable they are in relation to the purpose of the conference. It also means that justification and arguments for the stated costs must be given. Unspecified or unjustified costs are not approved.

The calculation of total indirect costs (overheads) must be explained in the budget commentary.

Note that the commentary, too, must be written in English and that it is obligatory. The budget commentary may be up to 3,000 characters, including spaces, in length.

Signatures

The application must be signed by the project manager and the grant administrator’s authorised representative, who is usually the head of the department (prefekt) where the project is intended to be based. The Foundation processes signed applications only.

The application is digitally signed with BankID in the Foundation’s application system Apply. If BankID is not available a special signature form is downloaded from the application system. The signature form must be signed by both parties manually, on paper, scanned and uploaded to the application system.

The project manager’s signature represents confirmation that:

• the information in the application is correct and in line with the Foundation’s instructions
• the project manager will comply with all the conditions applying to the grant.

The grant administrator’s signature represents confirmation that:

• the grant administrator approves the cost calculation in the application
• the grant administrator will comply with all the conditions applying to the grant.

The parties must have discussed the above points before the project manager and the grant administrator’s representative approve and sign the application.