Selection criteria – Postdoc

The scholarship year begins in December when scholarships are advertised by post to postgraduate supervisors at Sweden’s universities and institutes of technology.

Anyone who wishes to do a postdoctoral work within the area of the Built environment, but has not received a temporary employment as a postdoctoral fellow or receives other funding for this, can apply for a scholarship.

The applicant must be in the process of obtaining a doctorate shortly or have a doctoral degree that is at most five years old. At the beginning of the postdoctoral period, the doctoral degree must be less than six years old. The doctoral degree must be Swedish.

The postdoc project can be conducted in a maximum of three places during a scholarship year. To conduct the postdoc work at other institutions than the own one is not a requirement, but gives an advantage in the assessment. It is possible to submit a continuation application for a second year.

Applications for scholarships must have reached the Foundation not later than the last day for applications in early February. Scholarship applications are received and allocated to the Board of Directors’ three expert members and their respective areas of expertise based on each research project’s focus.

Applications are assessed and rated by the Expert Committee in accordance with the following criteria:

QUALITY OF THE APPLICATION

The application is to contain a clear and concise description of the objective of the project, and its methodology and approach. The project’s target groups and their perceived need for new knowledge in the area of research must be described, and all the necessary information to assess the utility of the project should be included.

ACADEMIC QUALITY

The project must be clearly defined, its methodology relevant to the task, and its timetable reasonable. Novelty and originality are also of interest and apply in relation to both the research community and practice. As part of this criterion, the project’s feasibility is also assessed, meaning whether or not it is likely that the project can in fact be completed according to plan.

RELEVANCE

Relevance is assessed in relation to the purpose of the Foundation. It must be possible to utilize the anticipated results and they must be potentially useful for operators in the construction and real estate sector, and ultimately for society as a whole.

RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

It should be clear that the applicant collaborates with a good scientific environment where the applicant has the opportunity to further develop his/her research and to merit. By this, the foundation refers to a creative and versatile environment, where researchers with different specializations can exchange ideas with each other and where there are conditions for the doctoral student to create his/her own networks, both locally and internationally. The letter with an invitation from the director is very important in this context. Also that the host of the postdoc has a clear plan for the reception.

CONTINUATION SCHOLARSHIP

The assessment of applications also looks at whether the application concerns a current holder of a scholarship from the Foundation for a postdoc project. Researchers who are actively engaged in their postdoc project, are compliant with their reporting requirements to the Foundation, and who lack any other form of funding, may be granted a scholarship for a maximum of two years.

The Board of Directors meets in the spring and, based on the assessments already made, usually decides to grant a total of approximately ten to fifteen scholarships.

The Foundation requires full disclosure concerning the work that scholarship holders are doing, and monitors their projects by requiring a progress report twice per year as per an agreed schedule. The three expert members of the Board of Directors maintain contact with the scholarship holders during their projects.

The Board’s second meeting is held in the autumn, at which the work of the scholarship holders and their reports are reviewed.