Forte announces Welfare Research Program 2025 (Sweden)

Forte’s work within the programme for applied welfare research is based on a vision of a more evidence-based social services system that can better support both individuals and their relatives affected by social services interventions.

The aim of the national research programme is to strengthen client- and practice-oriented research within the social services’ areas of activity, and the research should be conducted in collaboration with relevant target groups.

Priority Areas

• The focus of this call for proposals is based on the programme’s strategic research agenda and the eight priority research areas outlined in it:
  • Effects of interventions: This area concerns intervention research that evaluates the effects of interventions used in social services based on individual-centered outcome measures. It includes research on both existing interventions as well as the development and evaluation of new ones. The social aspects of interventions are included, such as methods for engagement, relationship-building, and approaches. The cost-effectiveness of different interventions is also part of this area.
  • Methods for assessing individual needs for interventions: This area includes methods for investigating, assessing, and describing individuals’ problems, situations, and needs for interventions. It encompasses both quantitative research and research with a qualitative approach that examines engagement, interactions, and relationship building, and how these affect assessments.
  • Preventive work and early interventions in social services: This area concerns the effects of social services’ preventive, early, and outreach interventions. Beyond an individual and group perspective, the research area also includes community-based social services. For example, it includes research on the effects and benefits of social services’ involvement in community planning to help prevent social problems and contribute to a good community environment.
  • Implementation, change management, and improvement work: This area concerns methods for transferring new knowledge into practice and knowledge about how to organize operations to create a learning and quality improvement culture. It also includes research on methods for systematic follow-up, such as the development and research of planning and follow-up tools, both for core social services and for treatment services.
  • Coherent intervention chains and collaboration: This area concerns research on coordination at the interface between social services and, for example, healthcare, schools, various authorities, or the civil society, and includes the effects of coordination on users. It also includes research on cooperation between municipalities and within local social services, as well as socioeconomic aspects of coordination.
  • User involvement/participation: This area is about methods for including users and their needs in the work of social services, and how this can be used to organize work and practices within social services. It also includes research on methods for creating participation and influence, as well as research on the effects and outcomes of user participation.
  • Digitalization and welfare technology: This area concerns research on welfare technology to develop both methods, processes, organization, and interventions in social services. It includes research on ethical and legal aspects of welfare technology, as well as health economic research on the effects of digitalization and welfare technology.
  • Nonprofit and private sector as providers of social services: This area deals with whether providers of social services are private, nonprofit, or public organizations and what impact this has on users, the quality and content of services, and cost development. Conditions for societal governance and control of this field are important research questions, as well as how information to users/clients and relatives should be organized and delivered.

Types of Grant

• Project Grants: Project grants facilitate the implementation of a defined research project designed to contribute to increased knowledge about an identified issue. Project grants may be applied for by individual researchers as well as research groups.
• Grant for research reviews: Grants for research reviews are given to identify the state of knowledge and research needs within a well-defined topic with relevance to the focus of the call. The call for proposals is open for different types of research reviews, but they must follow a well-established method. The results must be made available to relevant target groups in an appropriate way.

Funding Information

• Project grant
  • Duration: Funding may be sought for two, three or four years. When applying for a fourth year, this must be specifically justified in the application.
• Grant for research reviews
  • Amount: You may apply for a maximum of SEK 1 million.
  • Duration: Funding may be sought for one year.

Eligibility Criteria

• Doctoral degree:
  • To apply for a grant under this call for proposals, you must have obtained a doctoral degree no later than the closing date of the call for proposals.
• Reporting for previous grants:
  • The main applicant must have submitted the final report for any previously approved grants from Forte within the reporting deadline. This only applies to grants where the deadline for final reporting has passed. Any previously granted extensions of project duration, and consequently of reporting deadlines, will be taken into account.

Review Criteria

• All applications that fulfil the conditions in the call for proposals are forwarded to Forte’s review panels for assessment. Based on their assessment, Forte’s Board makes the final decisions on which applications will be granted funding.
• To be eligible for funding from Forte, applications must meet the requirements, be of high scientific quality, be relevant to society, and feasible. Applications are assessed against the assessment criteria described below. The assessment is an overall assessment that weighs all the criteria and relates them to the call for proposals and its objectives. Key to the assessment is how the applicant has explained and justified the various choices made in the application.

For more information, visit Forte.