Apply Now: Ekhaga Foundation Funding Program

A central idea is to focus more on preventive active health care than on reactive symptom-fighting healthcare. The same applies to the agricultural and food sector, where the focus should be on finding methods that can prevent various problems from arising instead of targeting their manifestations. The focus should not be on combating problems but on finding methods to prevent their occurrence.

Focus Areas

• Better and healthier foods
  • For Gösta Videgårds, improving the quality of agricultural products through farming without artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides was an important goal. The foundation therefore supports research and development based on the principles of organic farming and food production or other methods and directions that work towards this goal. Research should focus on organic production that is carried out in accordance with the principles defined by IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements).
  • Examples of research that can be supported are how crops that currently require pesticides can be grown organically in a quality and efficient manner to provide better and healthier food.
  • Within this area, research regarding the preparation and storage of foods and the analysis of their quality can also receive support from the Ekhaga Foundation.
• Nutritional physiology and lifestyle
  • Gösta Videgård was very interested in the importance of diet for humans. The foundation therefore supports research into the role of diet in treating diseases and strengthening the body’s resistance.
  • Examples of research could be what nutrition the body needs, what impact different dietary choices have on the body’s functions, and similar nutritional and physiological issues.
  • Healthier lifestyles, a cleaner environment and a more active outdoor life were also important to Gösta Videgård and he wanted the foundation to work to promote such developments. The foundation can therefore also support scientific research in this area.
• Naturopathy and natural medicines
  • Gösta Videgårds had a great interest in naturopathy and its goal of curing diseases by using the body’s own inherent healing ability and utilizing nature’s health-giving powers. He also appreciated and practiced naturopathy’s basic idea of ​​avoiding artificial chemical preparations as much as possible.
  • The foundation sees that support for this area of ​​research today can be expanded to include other medical research where the mindset is to utilize natural methods and medicines, and which can, for example, be called complementary, biological or alternative medicine.
  • There are mental and psychological aspects to naturopathy and research in this field can also be supported. However, the assessment is that research on physical effects and bodily functions has a higher priority than research on mental health and psychology.

Assessment Criteria

• The relevance of the project idea with regard to the foundation’s purpose
• The project’s question
• The scientific quality of the method and execution, including the applicant’s competence for the project and the time and cost plan presented

Application Requirements

• The application can be written in Swedish or English. There may be a marginal advantage to writing the application in Swedish since most of their Scientific Council members are native speakers of Swedish.
• An application to the Ekhagastiftelsen consists of:
  • Basic application information
  • Project description (uploaded in the application system)
• There is no template/form for the project description. The following applicable points should be described in the project description:
  • What problem or issue is intended to be solved? What idea or vision is intended to be tested or further developed?
  • What is the hypothesis?
  • Goal or purpose
  • How is the project relevant with regard to the foundation’s purpose?
  • Description of the current situation, the current international knowledge front (including references) and conclusions.
  • Materials and methods
  • Expected results and their significance. How is the result intended to be evaluated? How will it be documented and disseminated?
  • Timetable
  • Cost plan/budget with information about other funders
  • At the end of the project description, applicants must present their own and co-applicants’ qualifications and references. This is usually done in the form of a CV.

For more information, visit Ekhaga Foundation.