Grants

The 2025 grant application opens on 3rd March and closes on 1st May 2025. All applications will be evaluated equally after 1st May and decisions sent during the later part of May.

The Nordic Society Oikos offers grants to support networking and education in ecology and evolution between the Nordic countries and beyond, such as workshops, courses or smaller meetings. Grants can be used to organise events and activities which are open to join for the whole research community and benefit a wide range of scientists. Two types of grants are available: larger grants for networking and education events and activities and smaller grants for events supporting early-career researchers in their career development. The grant applications will be evaluated the NSO board.

Application eligibility

Applicants must be a member of one of the national societies when the application is submitted.
ECR grants must demonstrate a focus on early-career researchers.
The grant must support an event or activity which is relevant to NSO members and our key research themes in ecology and/or evolution.
The grant cannot be used to cover personal travel expenses to a conference you wish to attend.
The grant cannot be used to cover by-invitation-only events, individual travel expenses, research expenses for individual projects or salaries. If you are in doubt about specific expenses, please contact us before submitting your application.
The event should be open and accessible to members from all Nordic countries (and beyond) and encourage collaboration and networking between scientists from Nordic countries.
Apply in good time! You cannot receive a grant for costs already paid for. If your application is urgent, you can make a note of this in your motivation statement.

Networking and Education Grants

Larger grants up to approximately 200.000 SEK.
Can be used to fund for example workshops, seminars, meetings or courses.
Cannot be used to cover personal travel expenses to a conference you wish to attend.
You cannot apply for individual room or boarding costs, however, some common costs for all participants can be applied for. This can include, for example, costs for common coffee and lunch breaks or (reasonable) accommodation costs for all participants of a workshop/retreat.
Examples of possible events are: special skills courses, collaboration meetings on specific topics, smaller conferences/meetings.
Example of a previously funded event: Open, Reproducible and Transparent Science in Ecology

Early-Career Researcher Grants

Smaller grants of up to approximately 20.000 SEK.
Can be used to support events specifically aimed at early-career researchers.
Cannot be used to cover personal travel expenses to a conference you wish to attend.
The event can be, but does not have to be, organised by early-career researchers, and the content must promote ECR career development or education.
Examples of possible activities include: career development workshops (e.g. conference presentation, publishing, network building), conference/meeting for ECRs to present their research, networking events for ECRs.
Examples of previously funded events: ECR seminar on arctic-alpine plant traits, Training graduate students on the impact of social media channels for biodiversity data collection

How To Apply

Fill out and send the application form with the following attachments:

(required) Motivation statement

Maximum length 1 page.
Describe your event/activity in detail, for example, what is the content, who are the participants, how will you inform about it, what is the aim?
You must describe how your event or activitiy promotes interaction of scientists in ecology and evolution in the Nordic countries and beyond.
If you are applying for the ECR grant, you must describe how your event supports early-career researchers.

(required) Budget

Use the budget template provided.
The budget may be calculated in a currency of your choice, but you must convert each cost item to SEK and provide an exchange rate.
Look up prices or get quotes in order to estimate costs as realistically as possible. We cross-check whether expenses are realistic and reasonable and unrealistic estimates may result in your application being denied!
If an individual cost item is exceptionally high, write an explanation in the “notes” column.

(optional) Supporting material

This could be any documentation from people or institutions supporting your event, for example a lecturer for a workshop, university support for a meeting room etc.

Evaluation criteria

Relevance of your event to the research themes of the Nordic Society Oikos.
Opportunities for networking between Nordic and international researchers.
Accessibility of the event to Nordic researchers.
Likelihood of the event taking place.
Rationality of budget.
For the ECR grant: value of the event for ECRs.

Info for grant recipients

All applicants will be notified by email, even if the decision is negative.
Your event must take place within 12 months after you received the grant decision. If there is a change to the schedule for example due to extenuating circumstances, you must contact us and ask for an extensions.
Keep all receipts of the costs you wish to cover with the grant.
You are first and foresmost responsible yourself for sticking to the budget. Contact us if any of the expenses have changed since your original application, for example due to higher travel costs or changes in the planning. You may need to wait for approval to cover these changes.
Please note that the grant transfer to international bank accounts may take longer and incur extra fees which will be subtracted from your grant amount.
During your event/activity, we ask you to mention us as sponsors for example by adding the NSO logo to presentation slides.
Latest two weeks after your event, please send us a summary or report with a few photos if possible which we can use on social media and our NSO Events page.
At the latest 6 months after the event, you must send in a grant report. This should include a summary of your event, the actual costs covered by the grant and a copy of all receipts.
Unused money should be returned to us after all covered costs have been paid. Please contact us to organise this.