Postdoctoral Position

Hitta rätt direkt

Guidelines
Practical information
To apply
Changes in your grant and reporting
Do you have questions?

The deadline for applications in Fenix is Thursday 3rd of October 2024, at 3 p.m.

Page updated 2 july 2024.

The Swedish Cancer Society, organisation number 802005-3370, 101 55 Stockholm, is the body responsible for the collection and processing of personal data in connection with grant applications.

The Swedish Cancer Society has a digitised grant application system called Fenix. Fenix uses BankID and Swedish social security numbers for both identification and the signing of the application.

More information about Fenix

Guidelines – generative AI

When you apply for research grants at the Swedish Cancer Society you can use generative AI-tools or other tools when you write your application. You don’t have to state that you have done so.

Regardless of if you write the application yourself or with the help of an AI-tool the same rules apply:

It is your responsibility that everything in the application is correct.
It is your responsibility that everything has been filled in in accordance to our application process.
You have to follow good research practices. It is forbidden to plagiarize, forge or fabricate the content of your application.

When you sign and send in your application you certify that you have followed the above.

Guidelines

Objectives

The objective is to benefit cancer research by recruiting successful, younger researchers to the field.

To promote the researcher's development, the Swedish Cancer Society would prefer the postdoctoral program to take place at a different department and with a different supervisor than during the graduate research program.

The grant for postdoctor can be used for a postdoctor position in Sweden or abroad. If you chose to use the grant for a postdoctor position abroad the third and last year of the grant must be conducted at the university in Sweden.

The Swedish Cancer Society pays research grants only to Swedish universities. This rule applies regardless if your using your grant for a position in Sweden or abroad.

Practical information

Formal eligibility requirements

The applicant must have completed a doctoral degree (Swedish or foreign) after 1 July 2021 (i.e. no more than 3 years ago) but before the application deadline.

Exceptions to the eligibility rule regarding the date of the award of a doctorate

The following exceptions must have taken place after the award of the doctoral degree. Complete your request in the application system.

Exceptions can be granted after absence due to:

Sick leave;
Exceptions may be granted if the applicant has been on at least 50% sick leave for at least 30 consecutive calendar days. A certificate from the employers HR/payroll department or the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) must be attached.
Parental leave;
a) Applicants who have had children and been on parental leave may be granted an exception with the standard 275 calendar days per child. Certificates may be requested.
b) Alternatives to the standard deduction above can be granted to applicants who have had 100% continuous parental leave exceeding 275 calendar days. This must be attested by a certificate from the employer's HR/payroll department or the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan), covering the entire parental leave in question from day one.
Internship or equivalent compulsory work experience required to obtain professional certification;
A certificate stating the date, scope and type of internship must be attached to the application.

Certificates from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency must not contain personal data for children.

Grant period

Grants for Postdoctoral Positions are granted for a maximum of three years.

The grant period can begin between 1st of July of the same year in which the decision is made, and up to, and including 1st January, of the year following the decision. Regardless of the choice of start date, the contract starts on 1st July.

Payments are made quarterly, and the first payment is made in September. It is retroactive from 1st July the same year as the decision is made.

When awarding grants for Postdoctoral Positions, the Swedish Cancer Society requires that the grant holder will be working full time with the project. The grant can be combined with a maximum of 20% secondary employment, for example clinical employment.

Basis for assessment

The application is assessed according to the following criteria:

scientific quality
merits of the applicant
cancer relevance – according to the Swedish Cancer Society's statutes, the society must "support, organize and coordinate cancer research".

The following applies only for Fellowship:

relevance for the current call in healthcare science
the Swedish Cancer Society will also give special consideration to applications where the applicant intends to spend part of the Fellowship at a department abroad.

The assessment panel may call some of the applicants for an interview. The interviews take place in January and are conducted digitally.

The size of the grant

The grant is calculated in accordance with current salary standards.

The grant is calculated based on the current salary standard, holiday pay (1.3%) and salary fees (51.7%) plus the managing institution's deductions for indirect costs (15.25%).

The grant holder's actual salary is determined by the employer. It is a requirement of the Swedish Cancer Society that the entire grant is used to finance the position.

The grant from the Swedish Cancer Society may not be used as project funds or for another person's salary.

Current fixed amounts in salary standards

Patient perspective

Many of the projects supported by the Swedish Cancer Society either take advantage of patients' experiences, or lead to knowledge that can affect patients.

If your project belongs to this category, you need to indicate whether the patient perspective has been taken into account and, if so, in which way.

There is a specifically designated box for such description in the application process, under the heading “patient perspective”.

You need to write a short summary of your project that will be provided for our patients participating in the assessment of the project.

Examples can be that patients have been involved in the planning of a clinical study, that there has been a discussion with patients in the development of the research program, that the research project is based on patient contacts, or that the project has otherwise considered the family/patient perspective in its design.

There are co-opted patients in some of the Swedish Cancer Society's assessment panels.

If you consider that the patient perspective is not relevant to your project or the development of your research program, you should justify this in the designated box as well.

To apply

How to apply in Fenix

If you already have an account you can login:

If you don’t have an account, you need to create one:

Create an account in Fenix

More information on how to apply in Fenix

The following headings are based on the application process in Fenix.

Applicant

In this tab you need to fill in general information about yourself as an applicant.

This is, for example, your name, date of birth and current employment.

Organisation

In this tab you need to fill in information about your university, department and Head of department.

The Swedish Cancer Society pays research grants only to Swedish universities.

The Swedish Cancer Society approves deductions for overhead costs with a maximum of 15.25 % of the grant.

By signing the application the Head of department guarantees co-financing of the project if the above deductions prove to be insufficient.

This applies only to Postdoctor abroad:

Under the tab Organisation you should enter the Swedish department.

Under Head of department, you need to fill in your head of department at the Swedish department.

Under Main supervisor you need to fill in information about your main supervisor at the foreign department.

Under Invitation from the host department, you need to attach an invitation from the foreign department.

Merits

In this tab you need to fill in your CV and attach a list of publications and other merits. All attachments must be attached as pdf.

Invitation from the host department. (Applies only for the postdoctoral grant)
Complete list of publications.
Give the total number of publications under each category (type of publication) below.
a) Total number of peer reviewed original publications.
b) Total number of peer reviewed published reviews.
c) Total number of other publications including patents.
Sort your publications under each category in reversed chronological order with the most recent publication on top of the list.
Include only articles published or accepted for publication at the time of submitting your grant application.
The order of author names should be identical to the order of the published article.
The publications should be of the type; peer reviewed original publications, conference abstracts, reviews, books and book chapters, other publications including popular science articles or books.
Maximum 3 x manuscripts, not yet published, with original data.

Eligibility

In this tab in Fenix you have the opportunity to state your exceptions to the eligibility rule, e.g. sick leave, parental leave or internship or equivalent compulsory work experience required to obtain professional certification.

Under the heading Practical information further up this page, there is more information about Eligibility.

Project

In this tab you fill in everything related to your project, for example your research program and patient perspective.

The research program must be written in English and may comprise a maximum of ten pages including references (12pt, single line spacing, 2.5 cm margin).

The following is the recommended outline:

Specific objectives
A brief account of the aim of the proposed research work.
Background
Summary of your own and others' results in the research area.
Work plan and preliminary results
Detailed description of hypotheses, planned work and any preliminary results. The work plan should also include a methodological description where it is made clear that current technology/methodology also tools for statistical considerations, power calculations etc, is in place and mastered, or is otherwise available for the project in question.
Significance
Brief account of the expected importance for cancer research.
Literature references
Author, title of work, publication name and year of publication. Include only the absolutely essential references.
Independent research line
Applicant that is active, or will be active, in a research group or network shall clarify how the project here applied for connects, or differs, from other ongoing research projects in this group. If the applicant continues in a project that was initiated during a doctoral or postdoctoral period, the relation to the project here applied for and the research of former supervisors needs to be clarified.

This applies only to Postdoctor abroad:

Under the tab Project - Justification of host department, you justify the choice of department for both the Swedish and the foreign department.

Under the heading Practical information further up this page, there is more information about:

Patient perspective
Possible invitation from foreign host institution (The foreign institution)

Popular scientific description

If your application will be granted, this text may be published at our website:www.cancerfonden.se and can be read by people who donate to the Swedish Cancer Society.

Therefore, write as easily understandable and concise as possible. Please avoid any personal data.

The text must be in Swedish and a maximum of 650 characters per question/section.

Your text will not be edited. It will be published as you write it.

A title that is easy to understand.
The background of the project.
What is the project about? Describe, for example, what cancer diseases are being studied, what treatment it is about, whether it is in diagnostics, epidemiology, prevention or care of cancer patients, or whether it is about how cancer arises.
What do you hope to achieve with your research?
A very brief summary for those who quickly want to know what the project is about.

Statistics

To help the Swedish Cancer Society track research statistics, please indicate what proportion of your project relates to each research area and which of the Swedish Cancer Society’s four key goals for Sweden by 2030 aligns with your proposed research.

State whether the research covers the handling of experiments on animals and/or studies involving humans.

Grants

Here you enter all of your ongoing research grants, as well as those you have applied for, from both the Swedish Cancer Society and other research funding bodies. State total amount and not per year.

Applicants holding grants from, or having appointments at, the tobacco industry can not apply or be awarded financing from the Swedish Cancer Society.

The Swedish Cancer Society attaches considerable importance to ensuring that project applications contain accurate budget information.

A complete picture of all the applicants' grants relating to the project applied for, and any other funding is important both for assessing the project's chances of successful implementation and in calculating the need for funding.

Please note that applications with incomplete financial statements may be rejected because the information is insufficient to enable a decision to be made.

Preview (and signing)

In this tab, a preview of your application is shown. You can, for example, see if there is any missing information.

If the application is filled in correctly, you can start the signing process by first sending it to your Head of department. When the Head of the department has signed the application you need to sign it before submitting the application.

Signing your application

At the bottom of the page, you click "Request signing/Be om signering". This sends the application to your Head of department, who receives it and signs it digitally with BankID.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: The latest date and time for submitting your application can be found at the top of this page.

Note that if you make changes to the application after sending it to the Head of department for signing, you must send a new request for signing by your Head of department, as the application has changed. This applies regardless of what changes have been made.

When the Head of department has signed the application digitally with BankID, you as the applicant will receive an email. You can then log in and sign the application digitally with BankID.

Make sure that you allow enough time for your application to be signed by your Head of department and then for you as the applicant to sign and submit the application before the call closes.

Use of personal data

Read more about the Swedish Cancer Society's handling of personal data in the Swedish Cancer Society's privacy policy (in Swedish).

Changes in your grant and reporting

Changed circumstances during the grant period

Changed employment and financing circumstances must be reported immediately to the Swedish Cancer Society for reconsideration of the grant.
If the grantee applies for and receives an advertised position as a senior lecturer or professor within the first three-year period, the grantee can not keep the grant. If the grantee is promoted to professor or senior lecturer before the end of the first three-year period, the grantee can keep the funding already awarded but can not receive an additional three-year period.
If the grantee applies for and receives an advertised position as a senior lecturer or professor within the second three-year period, the grantee can not keep the grant. If the grantee is promoted to senior lecturer or professor before the end of the second three-year period, the grantee can keep the funding that has been awarded.
A researcher who has been awarded funds can retain these funds if the person in question continues their activities but is promoted in the meantime.
Researchers who have been awarded a grant for the Senior Investigator Award and, during the grant period apply for and are appointed to a position as senior lecturer or professor cannot retain funding from the Swedish Cancer Society.
Researchers who have been awarded grants for Postdoctoral Positions cannot use the funds for any other type of work. If the Postdoctoral Position is terminated, the grant will also be terminated.

Exceptions to the above rule are researchers who during the grant period:

are appointed associate senior lecturer or research associate, in which case funding from the Swedish Cancer Society can be retained. (not applicable for Postdoctoral grants)

Transfer to another university/department

When transferring grants to another university or to another department at the current university, the application for change must be made in Fenix with digital signature/approval from both the current and receiving head of department.

Transferring grants to another university or to another department is not permitted for postdoctoral positions.