On June 22, 2023, the Swedish Government made an amendment to the regulatory letter of the Swedish Research Council. This amendment terminated the longstanding funding program for development research in Sweden effective immediately. This program, notabene, was renewed last summer and was supposed to run at least until 2028.
While research projects that have already received funding through this program will not be affected, the current review process has been terminated, with this year’s applicants having received the information that their application will not be reviewed and thus has been rejected. Eurodoc deems the decision and the precedence this sets highly problematic, particularly for how it affects both academic freedom as well as the academic future of early career researchers.
Since the release of this statement (July 2nd), a number of critical voices have been raised in Sweden, including statements from the Nordic Young Academies, several universities’ rectors, the Swedish Development Research Network and international organisations, such as TheGuild. Furthermore, the academic community has started a petition to continue funding vital development research and education.
You find Eurodoc’s full statement on Zenondo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8105645
List of authors
This piece was written by:
Pil Maria Saugmann: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3548-0134
Sebastian Dahle: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7568-0483
Hannah Schoch: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3987-4106
Editor:
This piece was edited by:
Anna Pavelieva: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2306-1928