Applying for funding

When you apply for research funding or other funding that is to be placed in full or in part at the CEC, in most cases you must get an approval from the CEC's director before the application is submitted. 

This applies for:

•  all projects that include salary costs
• applications for running costs over 40.000 SEK 

Example of applications that do not require approval from the Director: travel grants or consumables up to 40.000 SEK excl. OH.
(However, bear in mind that you still need to cover the OH, so in your proposal to the funder you have to include OH if they allow that. Year 2024 the OH is 45%, so if you apply for 40 kSEK running costs you add 16 kSEK OH.)

To get approval from the Director, you need to contact the CEC finance team, primarily Louise Berglund. Please do this early in the application process. This is 1) to make sure that CEC can host your project and to address questions that in some cases may arise, for example funders not covering full overhead or require other kinds of co-funding, and 2) as a starting point for your full cost application. 

If you are a postdoc or a researcher it is very important that you contact the CEC finance team early, since we have to make sure your planned project is compatible with your employment contract and Swedish employment laws and regulations ("LAS-regler").

Documents needed are:

• A completed "checklist" (bullet points) which is sent to CECs financial team (Louise Berglund) 1 month before call deadline if possible, see details in the link:
  Link to CEC Checklist on lu.se
• A full-cost application which ideally is finalized 2 weeks before the call deadline. The full cost calculation is prepared together with one of CECs finance officers. Information and spread sheet templates are available on our Full cost application page.
  Full cost application on cec.lu.se

Support to funding applications

CEC provides support before, during and after the application phase:

• In the page Funding opportunities we have collected links to funders, and a News-section where we post open calls and opportunities. The page is found in the left margin or via this link:
  Link to Funding opportunities on cec.lu.se
• CEC provides general assistance to researchers applying for external grants which contribute to integrated environmental and climate research. The support can be in kind and financial, and is provided within the network CEC Fellows. More information in this link:
  Link to Support to research applications on cec.lu.se
• In the Horizon Europe Support page you find General information and a compilation of support available for researchers connected to CEC, CEC Fellows, BECC, MERGE and LU Land, Checklists for the CEC internal process, and a News-section with information on call drafts and and events connected to HEU applications. The page is found in the left margin or via this link, NOTE that HEU applications now have separate Checklists:
  Link to HEU General information - cec.lu.se

Additional help and information

The portal ”The researcher's guide to compliance” is a little gold-mine of info and links to everything you need when you write larger applications and set up your project: info regarding data management plans and FAIR data, open access, who signs what, overhead costs – why and for what, copy right and patents, and so on.
Link here to staff.lu.se/compliance