Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship (IPD)
Funds industrial postdoc roles in Sweden by embedding researchers in company settings for applied projects.
SSF's Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship (IPD) 2026 is a grant program administered by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), an independent Swedish foundation established in 1994 with an endowment from former wage-earner funds. SSF distributes approximately SEK 600 million per year across roughly 300 ongoing projects and is not a Swedish government agency — it operates autonomously. The IPD call supports postdoctoral researchers who split their time between a Swedish university and an industry partner, with the explicit aim of building bridges between academic excellence and industry-relevant applied research in natural sciences, technology, and medicine.
The 2026 call allocates a total of SEK 15 million across up to 10 positions, with each award capped at SEK 1.5 million including indirect costs. Project durations range from one to three years. Project start must fall between 1 January and 30 June 2027. The doctoral degree must have been completed no more than five years before the application date and must be complete by the project start date. The researcher must maintain at least 50% employment at a Swedish university throughout the fellowship and is expected to spend approximately half of their time at the industry partner. Industry co-financing of at least 30% of total project costs is mandatory. Applications are submitted via the SSF portal at ssf.3ddata.se; the call document (ipd26_en.pdf) is available on strategiska.se.
The submission deadline is 8 September 2026 at 14:00 CET. Applications are assessed on the research quality, the strategic relevance to SSF's priority areas, and the quality of the proposed industry-academia collaboration. Contact for program questions is Research Secretary Johan Nilsson (johan.nilsson@strategiska.se, +46 8-505 81 674) or Program Manager Joakim Amorim (joakim.amorim@strategiska.se).
Postdoctoral research positions jointly embedded between a Swedish university and an industry partner, covering natural sciences, technology, and medicine within SSF's strategic research areas, with mandatory 30% industry co-financing.
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