Deadline: 30 March 2020
SciLifeLab welcomes proposals from researchers nationwide with the hope to create a comprehensive program to combat the corona virus pandemic, short- or medium-term, directly or indirectly via scientific approaches.
SciLifeLabb welcomes proposals for:
- coordination of samples, studies and data,
- technology development and
- research projects.
SciLifeLab will consider individual proposals, but will also coordinate the suggestions between applicants to form synergies. All proposals should be placed in an international context and contribute to open science when possible. This call is funded via national SciLifeLab funds as well as external sources, e.g. the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW).
Focus Areas
The focus of the call is these 3 areas:
- Project plans to facilitate coordination of samples, studies and data
- Support is available for joint efforts to collect and share samples and data, in order to facilitate clinical, translational and epidemiological research on the corona pandemic. Coordination of initiatives and studies is central in order to increase efficacy and avoid burden on the health care system. Shared study designs would be critical to also achieve data integration and sharing.
- Project plans for technology development
- Support is available for technology development projects with a clear relevance for battling COVID-19, including diagnostic and therapeutic tools and data/bioinformatic capabilities or work that will facilitate and support such developments (e.g. protein production).
- Project plans for research projects and broad research collaborations
- Support is particularly targeted for translational, clinical and epidemiological research. These could involve national or international collaboration (including facilitating the participation of Sweden in key international consortia). Data-driven and data science initiatives are welcome.
Funding Information
The funding can cover: costs for critical reagents, consumables and materials, and cost from the use of SciLifeLab infrastructure. Personnel costs are allowed in exceptional cases. They typically expect that you have funds available to support your staff. Please confirm that you have the personnel needed for this. The overall funding available for this call is expected to be in the range of 20-25 MSEK, where they expect to fund a few bigger proposals in area 1 and 3 and many smaller ones across all areas. Exact amounts are not yet defined. They expect that the community would get together to fight COVID-19 and use other personal, departmental and university funds to help in this.
Eligibility Criteria
The call is open to all researchers or infrastructure staff scientists in Sweden (SciLifeLab/non-SciLifeLab), affiliated to a university or institute.
Evaluation Criteria
Key overall goals with impact on criteria for evaluation:
- Scientifically sound and high-quality in international comparison
- Clear short-term and medium-term impact in combating the COVID-19 epidemic
- Synergy with other proposals and overall goals of the SciLifeLab Corona-plans
- Commitment to open science, sharing data and resources, and real-time sharing of breakthroughs towards the community and in health care
For more information, visit https://www.scilifelab.se/covid-19/open-call