Blue Sky Grant for Innovative Cancer Research & Technology 2025

About the grant

The project should be of Blue Sky-nature, meaning that it should be characterized by-high risk and high reward-, not yet able to attract funding from conventional funding agencies, but likely to attract substantial support if successful. The explicit aim should be to obtain proof-of-principle/feasibility within the duration of the project. The project should not be a continuation or expansion of already funded projects. However, a general thematic alignment to the applicant’s previous research is possible.

The Blue Sky grant call welcomes all types of research projects relevant to the cancer field.

The call is open for researchers at Karolinska Institutet (including post-docs), and the research must be conducted at KI. All employees and affiliated staff holding a Ph.D., working at least 50% at any KI department or  at least 50% at the Karolinska University Hospital with an affiliation to a KI department, are eligible to apply for funding. If you received a Blue Sky grant last year, you should wait one call period before  reapplying.

The grant is awarded for one year, amounts to SEK 500 000 + 25 % INDI, and can cover all types of project-related costs, except stipends.

Applications will be reviewed by external reviewers who will assess five aspects ; (1) the scientific quality, (2) the novelty, (3) the potential to acquire subsequent funding after the funding period, and (4) the merits of the applicant in relation to career stage, each with a score from one to five (1= Weak, 2= Good, 3 = Very good, 4 = Excellent, 5 = Outstanding). The Blue Sky nature of the project (5) is scored from 1 to 10, because special emphasis is given to the Blue Sky character of the proposal.

Application instructions

The application should be written in English and include:

• Research program (five pages maximum, including references). It should be explicitly described what makes this a Blue Sky Grant project
• 2-page CV of the principal investigator (including current funding)
• Publication list for the last eight years (2017-2025) in reverse chronological order. Please mark your five most important publications with an asterisk and emphasize your own name in bold. Please categorize your publications (1. peer-reviewed original articles in international journals, 2. peer-reviewed conference contributions, 3. review articles/ book chapters, 4. Patents, 5. other publications including preprints). Indicate equal contributions of first and last authorships
• Project budget (simple project budget for the Blue Sky grant sum)

Please submit your application on the PRISMA platform: https://prisma.research.se, no later than August 29 2025.