Information to applicants for research grants

1   General principles for awarding research grants

• The project must concern research where the objective is to evaluate labour market policy, studies of the functioning of the labour market or an evaluation of the effects of different reforms and measures within the educational system. 
• The research that is being supported must be of high scientific quality and have a good potential to contribute to society through a large degree of policy relevance. 

• Since the researchers at IFAU are primarily economists and statisticians, we very much welcome researchers from other scientific areas to also apply for research grants from IFAU. 
• Grants are not awarded to fund top-ups on the researcher's regular wage. 
• Grants are not awarded to project leaders who have not fulfilled their obligations in accordance with previous agreements with IFAU. 
• The applicant must have documented competency as a researcher within the area. Graduate students can only apply for grants if a researcher with a PhD is the project leader. 

The applications are evaluated by IFAU’s scientific council. After reviewing the applications, the scientific council makes a recommendation on which projects that should receive funding. The Director General takes the formal decision, which is based on the recommendations of the scientific council as the starting point. 

2  Apply for research grant

The application is submitted both electronically and by mail with a signed original, see below. More information about the content and forms can be found under Application. 

IFAU has one fixed application period per year. Applications for research grants must be received by IFAU no later than September 15 (please note the new date for 2025). 

3  Processing applications

The personal data that is entered into applications for research grants is only used for IFAU’s processing of research funds. An application that has been awarded a research grant will be kept. All applications for research grants are entered into the registry and are uploaded in the organisation’s content management system. For those who are not awarded a grant, the e-mail and the original application will be erased in accordance with the IFAU document management plan. Due to technical limitations, uploaded applications are currently not erased from the content management system. 

4  Information about awarded grants in December

IFAU’s scientific council will meet in November in order to make recommendations on which applications that should be granted funding. All applicants receive written information about awarded funds when the decision has become public.

5 Final report

When an approved project is completed, the project leader must submit a scientific final report to IFAU. The report should not exceed 50 pages. As a general rule, the report is published in Swedish in IFAU’s report series. If there is also a research paper in English, the results are usually published in IFAU’s Working Paper series as well. 

Typically, the research should be published by IFAU before any other publication, and exceptions to this principle must be approved by the responsible editor at IFAU. 

IFAU has the right, but not the obligation, to publish all research reports resulting from the project. For more information about our quality assurance process and other important details, please visit the page For Grant Recipients.