Doctoral Programme Grant — Research on Crime

Doctoral Programme Grant — Research on Crime

Funds national crime research doctoral environments in Sweden to build sustained expertise and evidence-driven solutions.

The Doctoral Programme Grant within Research on Crime is administered by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) under a government mandate to build scientific expertise in crime research through national graduate schools. The program funds the establishment or strengthening of graduate schools that conduct research on crime from any academic disciplinary perspective — criminology, law, psychology, sociology, public health, and related fields are all in scope. The total budgetary framework for this call is 84,000,000 SEK distributed across multiple awards.

Swedish higher education institutions with third-cycle (doctoral) degree-awarding powers are the eligible applicants; individual researchers may not apply. The lead HEI must coordinate with at least one additional Swedish HEI — solo applications are disqualified. The graduate school must include a minimum of nine employed doctoral students at the time of application. Annual funding ranges from 1,000,000 SEK to 10,500,000 SEK depending on project scope. The fixed grant term covers exactly four years, running from January 2027 through December 2030, with no renewal option described. The application window runs from 6 May 2026 to 18 August 2026 (14:00 CET), and VR's decision will be issued no later than the end of November 2026.

Applicants should note that the organisation is the formal grantee and a designated coordinator serves as project leader — this is not a principal-investigator model. Applications must be submitted in English (with the exception of the popular science description, which is required in Swedish). Awards cannot overlap with other Swedish Research Council funding. Projects must meet VR's standard requirements on research ethics, open access publication, and data management. Given the government-mandated nature of the topic and the fixed 84 MSEK pool, competition focuses on the quality of the proposed graduate school structure, breadth of disciplinary coverage, and the track record of the coordinating HEI.