Tage Erlander visiting professorship

Application procedure

In order for a person to access the call and start the application process, they have to be authorised to create organisation applications on the organisation’s Prisma account. If this is not the same person who will be the project leader and responsible for completing the application, the project leader must be invited to the application once the process has been started (see under the heading “Applicant” below, and under the tab “Participants” in the application form).

Requirements for applicants

The following requirements must be fulfilled in order for the organisation to be eligible to apply for the grant. We carry out checks, and reject applications that do not fulfil the requirements.

Focus and nominated candidate

The holder of the Tage Erlander professorship shall be an internationally prominent researcher, within a research field that changes according to a rolling schedule. The researcher nominated for the 2026 visiting professorship shall be active within one or several of the following fields:

• materials science and engineering
• applied and engineering physics
• astronomy and sub-atomic physics
• light and matter physics
• mechanical engineering
• biomedical engineering
• systems and electrical engineering
• computer science
• computational mathematics, data science and statistics
• mathematics

The researcher nominated for the visiting professorship shall be the holder of a professorship or corresponding at the time of application, and must not already be active in Sweden. The researcher must also be aware of the nomination and what acceptance of the professorship entails. If the nominated candidate declines to accept the professorship, the HEI cannot propose a replacement.

The visiting professor is expected to participate in the department’s research, and also to visit other departments across Sweden within their research field.

The visiting professor awarded the professorship shall be employed by the administrating organisation throughout the visit.

Applicant

The applicant for the grant must be a Swedish higher education institution (HEI) that has been approved as an administrating organisation for grants from the Swedish Research Council.

The application with a nominated candidate for the visiting professorship shall include a named researcher (project leader), who represents the department wishing to act as host for the visiting professorship. The project leader shall be employed by the administrating organisation at the start of and throughout the grant period and any further availability period.

When the application is registered and signed in Prisma (see below), the HEI and the nominating department undertake to be responsible for the local hosting and all practical arrangements associated with the visiting professor’s visit to Sweden, if the grant is awarded.

Number of applications and previous grants

General information about overlaps between applications and grants

The application must not cover costs for purposes that are already funded by the Swedish Research Council or any other funding body. Overlaps with other grants or applications may impact on the grant amount awarded, or be a reason for us to reject the application.

There is no limit to the number of applications a single HEI may submit or participate in, but a single researcher may only be nominated in one application.

Participating researchers

No participating researchers may be included in this application.

Costs and grant amounts

Funding may be applied for to cover salary costs in Sweden including social security contributions and insurance, rent of housing in Sweden, and travel between Sweden and the home country. The funding may also include travel costs for accompanying family members. The amount applied for may be maximum 2 000 000 SEK, including indirect costs.

The grant amount includes cover of indirect costs as a percentage of the direct costs, according to the model used by the administrating organisation. Grants must not be used for scholarships.

The Swedish Research Council assumes that the administrating organisation will cover any costs in excess of the amount received.

Grant period

The visit to Sweden shall last no less than 6 months, and no longer than 1 year, and shall begin in 2026. The visit may be divided up into more than one period. If so, this shall be clearly stated and also justified in the application. The visit may, however, not be divided up in such a way that it cannot be completed within the availability period of the grant, which is 12 months over and above the grant period applied for. This means that a visit for 6 months must end no later than 30 June 2027 and that a visit for 12 months must end no later than 31 December 2027.

The entire grant amount will be paid during 2026, irrespective of when during the year the visit begins. The first payment will be made during January 2026 at the earliest.

What must the application contain?

Please refer to the application form in Prisma in parallel with reading the instructions below, which describe the call-specific contents of the application. More information on what to do in practical terms is available in our Guide for applicants.

International experts are involved in the scientific assessment of the applications. To ensure fair and equitable assessment and efficient processing, please therefore complete your application in English.

The information we request under each tab in the application form is described below.

Descriptive information

Under this tab, in addition to what is asked for below, please state the name of the nominated researcher, their current HEI and country as project title (such as “Anna Smith, University of xx, USA”), and project period (the length of the visiting professorship in number of months).

Abstract

The abstract shall include a brief description of the following:

• name, university and country of the nominated researcher
• time (dates) for the visit
• brief justification for the visit
• planned programme

The description may cover a maximum of 1 500 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately one third of an A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Research description

Research programme

The research programme shall consist of brief but complete information about the nomination. It may cover a maximum of 8 page-numbered A4 pages in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing and 2.5 cm margins, including references and any images.

The research programme must include the following headings and information, listed in the following order:

• The researcher and their research: Present the nominated researcher and their research.
• Justification: Justify the visiting researcher’s visit.
• Contribution to research: Describe how the visiting researcher may contribute to Swedish research within the area in question.
• Plan for department participation: Specify the planning of the visiting researcher’s participation at the host department and other departments in Sweden.

Nominated visiting professor

Please state the following:

• name, title, current position and workplace of the nominated researcher
• the competence the researcher is expected to bring to the host department
• the length of the visit, and whether it is divided up and, if so, how
• the department(s) or corresponding where the visiting professor will be active, and the name of the representative (head of department or corresponding) of the department(s).

The nominated researcher’s CV and publication list

Please attach a brief CV with full address details (including email address) and current position title of the nominated researcher. Please also attach a publication list, divided up under the headings Peer-reviewed articles, Other articles and Books.

Please also note that no CV data or publications shall be entered elsewhere in the application.

Budget and research resources

Salary

Please state the salary applied for for the nominated researcher (select the role “Participating researcher” in the table), both as a percentage of a full-time salary and as actual annual amount (including social security contributions). Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Running costs

Describe the nominated visiting professor’s costs for rent of housing, insurance, or travel between Sweden and the home country on separate lines. Please state the amounts in Swedish krona, rounded to the nearest 1 000 SEK.

Total cost of the visiting professorship

Prisma will automatically add up your budget items listed in a table. The total amount applied for shall also include indirect costs. These shall be added to the table by the applicant (project leader). Here, the applicant (project leader) can also add any additional costs that the visiting professorship entail (for which you are not seeking funding under this call).

Justification of the budget applied for

Justify briefly each cost applied for in the budget stated. The description may cover a maximum of 4 000 characters including blank spaces. This is approximately one A4 page in Arial, font size 11, single line spacing.

Administrating organisation

Please state the site of the visiting professorship.

Participants

Here the person invited to be the project leader for the application may invite participating administrators. Please note that participating researchers may not be invited to this application.

How your application is assessed

Scientific quality is the fundamental criterion when the Swedish Research Council allocates grants to research. Your application is evaluated in competition with the other applications on the basis of the following evaluation criteria.

Evaluation process

Your application for Tage Erlander visiting professorship is evaluated by appointed external reviewers with competence in the specific topics of the call within natural and engineering sciences and discussed by a review panel where the members within the topics of the call are Swedish and international researchers.

At least two external reviewers will review and grade your application individually. The appointed review panel then meets to discuss and prioritise the applications, and to make a proposal for a decision to the Scientific Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences.

Review panel

Following the grant decision your application will receive a justification for the decision which contains a summary of the review panel’s discussion and overall assessment of the scientific quality of the application.

Here you will find a more comprehensive description of the Swedish Research Council's assessment of applications.

Evaluation criteria and guiding questions

The evaluation of the scientific quality and position internationally of the visiting professor are assessed on a seven-grade scale.

For each criterion, there are guiding questions to support the panel members’ evaluation of your application. These can also function as guidance for you when you write your application.

Scientific merits and position internationally of the visiting professor (1-7)

Guiding questions:

• How significant are the scientific merits of the guest professor in relation to the suggested research area?
• How scientifically eminent is the guest professor internationally?

Relevance to the call (1-7)

Motivation of the stay, in particular how the nominated guest professor can contribute to the development of the host institution and more generally of research in Sweden within the scientific area.

Guiding questions:

• What competence is the guest professor expected to bring to the host institution? To what extent will the guest professor contribute to the development of the research at the host institution?
• How well is the research plan formulated regarding the quality and scope of the guest professor’s contribution to the host institution, as well as other institutions in Sweden? How well are the suggested activities motivated?
• How will the guest professor contribute to the development of the scientific area in general in Sweden?
• What is the quality of the suggested research program and to what extent is it relevant to the scientific area?