RJ Research Initiation 2026: Rolling Grants From SEK 50,000 for Scholarly Meetings in the Humanities and Social Sciences, With a Final Deadline of 30 October 2026

RJ Research Initiation 2026: Rolling Grants From SEK 50,000 for Scholarly Meetings in the Humanities and Social Sciences, With a Final Deadline of 30 October 2026

Most research funders will pay for a project once it exists. Very few will pay for the meeting where the project gets invented. RJ Research Initiation — RJ Forskningsinitiering in Swedish — is one of the exceptions. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the independent Swedish foundation that has been funding humanities and social science research since the Riksbank’s 300th anniversary donation, keeps a standing pot for scholarly meetings whose purpose is to produce new research rather than to report on research already finished.

The mechanics are unusually forgiving. There is no annual call window to miss: applications are accepted continuously, and the RJ board decides on them six times a year. The floor is SEK 50,000 and the foundation does not advertise a ceiling on the call page. The applicant is a person, not an institution.

There is one detail that changes the calculus for 2026, and it is stated plainly on the official call page: 30 October 2026 is the final application deadline for RJ Research Initiation. RJ will evaluate the programme during 2027, after which its board will decide the programme’s future. That does not necessarily mean the scheme is being abolished — an evaluation can end in renewal — but it does mean the rolling door closes at the end of October 2026 and does not reopen on a published date. If you have been treating this grant as something perpetually available, that assumption expires this autumn.

Key details

What RJ Research Initiation actually pays for

The programme description is one sentence, and every word in it is doing work: support for scholarly meetings that will result in new research in the humanities and social sciences.

“Scholarly meeting” is the object of the funding. This is not a project grant, a salary grant, or a publication subsidy — RJ runs separate instruments for those, including RJ Projects, RJ Programmes, RJ Sabbatical and RJ Flexit. Research Initiation covers the gathering itself: the workshop, the symposium, the exploratory conference, the meeting that brings a set of researchers into the same room to find out whether there is a shared research problem worth pursuing.

“Will result in new research” is the test that separates a fundable meeting from an unfundable one. A meeting whose output is a record of what participants have already done is a dissemination event. A meeting whose output is a research agenda, a consortium, a joint application, or a defined problem that nobody has yet worked on is an initiation event. RJ’s own name for the programme tells you which side it funds. When you write the application, the strongest available framing is a forward-looking one: here is the research that does not exist yet, here is why it needs these particular people in a room, and here is what will be on the table when they leave.

“Humanities and social sciences” is the boundary of RJ’s entire mandate as a foundation. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond exists to promote and support research in those fields, and it describes its aim as promoting fundamental research of the highest scientific quality. Interdisciplinary meetings that reach into the natural sciences or medicine are not automatically excluded, but the intellectual centre of gravity has to sit inside RJ’s remit. A proposal whose humanities framing is decorative will read as one.

RJ does not publish a line-item schedule of allowable costs for this programme on the call page. In practice, the cost base for a scholarly meeting is travel, accommodation, venue, interpretation or technical support, and the modest administrative work of running the event. If your budget contains something less obvious — a commissioned piece of preparatory work, a data licence, participant compensation — ask a research manager before you submit rather than after.

Why the 30 October 2026 deadline changes how you should plan

Rolling deadlines create a specific failure mode: they get postponed indefinitely because there is never a forcing date. This year there is one.

Read the wording on the official page carefully. It does not say that applications received after 30 October 2026 will be considered in the next round. It says 30 October 2026 is the final application deadline, that RJ will evaluate the programme during 2027, and that the board will then decide on its future. So there are two practical consequences.

First, if your meeting is planned for any point in 2027 or later, the application still has to reach RJ by 30 October 2026. Work backwards from that date, not from the date of your event.

Second, the last decision round before the deadline is the one that matters, and RJ publishes six decision occasions a year rather than a rolling weekly approval. Submitting on 30 October means your application is decided at whatever round follows, which is later than the submission date — sometimes considerably later. If your meeting depends on booking a venue, holding travel dates, or confirming keynote speakers, build the gap between submission and decision into your planning and do not commit money you do not yet have.

Third — and this is the part applicants most often get wrong with rolling schemes — an early submission is not a worse submission. There is no advantage to waiting. If the proposal is ready in September, submit it in September and get an earlier decision round.

Who counts as a researcher “with a Swedish connection”

RJ’s stated applicant category is individual researchers with a Swedish connection. Two things follow.

The applicant is a named person. RJ’s system builds the application around a project leader, and the requisition and final reporting steps are both addressed to the project leader specifically. You are not applying as a department, a network, or a conference organising committee, even if all three exist behind you.

The “Swedish connection” phrasing is deliberately broader than “employed at a Swedish higher education institution”, and RJ does not reduce it to a checklist on the call page. Researchers based at Swedish universities and research institutes are the obvious core case. Researchers with a Swedish institutional affiliation, a Swedish host for the meeting, or a documented and substantive tie to Swedish research environments have a claim worth making explicitly in the application. If your connection is not self-evident from your affiliation line, state what it is rather than leaving a reviewer to guess.

Note also that RJ’s final reporting for this programme requires the report to be co-signed by the project leader and the grant administrator — the institutional signatory. That is a strong hint that RJ expects a host organisation to stand behind the grant even though the applicant is an individual. Identify who that administrator will be before you apply, not at reporting time.

RJ does not state a career-stage restriction for Research Initiation. Unlike RJ Pro Futura, which is nomination-only and aimed at particularly promising early-career researchers, Research Initiation is open to direct application.

How much to ask for, and how the money actually reaches you

The published figure is a floor: applications must be for at least SEK 50,000. RJ does not publish a maximum for this programme on the call page, and you should be sceptical of third-party listing sites that assert one. If your meeting genuinely requires more than a typical workshop budget, the honest approach is to build the budget from real quotes and let the review panel judge proportionality.

The disbursement model matters more than most applicants expect. RJ issues grant funds after receiving a requisition from the project leader, and for Research Initiation the project leader requisitions funds for claimed expenses when completing the final report. In other words, this behaves as a reimbursement grant rather than an up-front cash transfer. Your host institution or department will in most cases need to carry the costs first and be made whole afterwards.

Two planning implications follow. Confirm with your department’s finance office, before you apply, that they can front the outlay. And keep documentation quality high throughout — an expense you cannot evidence at reporting time is an expense you may end up absorbing.

One operational note for 2026: RJ closed its system for requisitions and final reports until 31 August 2026, with final reports accepted again from 1 September. New applications through the portal are unaffected — RJ Research Initiation 2026 is listed as open in the ResearchWeb portal with no start or end date, consistent with its continuous application period.

How to apply through RJ’s ResearchWeb portal

Applications go through RJ’s application system at researchweb.org/rj/en. RJ migrated to this portal and has told applicants with pending applications or outstanding final reports that they were issued temporary passwords by email; existing account holders who cannot log in are directed to use the “Forgot password” link to receive a new one. If you have never applied to RJ, create the account well before you intend to submit — portal registration problems on the day of a deadline are self-inflicted and unforgiving.

Two distinct support channels exist and they are not interchangeable. Login and technical problems go to [email protected]. Questions about the content of an application go to RJ at [email protected], or to the research managers named for this programme.

Alongside the call page, RJ maintains guidance that applies across its instruments and is worth reading before you write: the foundation’s frequently asked questions, its review panel structure, its data management plan requirements, its open access guidelines, and its ethical guidelines, which point to the Swedish Research Council’s ethics resources. For a meeting grant, the open access and data management guidance may look peripheral — but if your workshop will produce recorded material, transcripts, or a survey of participants, it is not.

Timeline and decision rhythm

RJ states that decisions on Research Initiation are made six times a year, and directs applicants to its published application period and decision dates. The call page itself does not enumerate those six dates, so check the current schedule in the portal or with a research manager before you plan around a specific board meeting.

A workable timeline for an autumn 2026 application looks like this:

• August 2026 — settle the meeting’s research question, confirm the core participants, identify your host and grant administrator, and open or recover your ResearchWeb account.
• Early September 2026 — collect real cost estimates: travel, accommodation, venue, technical support. Confirm with your finance office that the institution can carry costs pending reimbursement.
• Mid September 2026 — draft the application around the research that the meeting will initiate, not around the meeting’s programme.
• Late September to mid October 2026 — internal read-through by a colleague outside your subfield, then submit. Submitting ahead of the final date puts you in an earlier decision round.
• 30 October 2026 — absolute final deadline for the programme.
• During 2027 — RJ evaluates the programme; the board subsequently decides its future.

What reviewers are looking for, and how to write for them

RJ assesses applications through review panels and uses external reviewers, with published guidelines on conflicts of interest. Panels of that kind read many applications in a sitting, so clarity is not a stylistic preference — it is the difference between being understood and being skimmed.

Three things carry most of the weight in a meeting-initiation proposal.

A research question that does not yet have an answer or a community. State the gap directly. The most persuasive version names what is currently missing from the field and why existing venues — the standard conference, the existing journal, the existing network — have not closed it.

A participant list that is a designed instrument, not a guest list. Explain why these researchers. A meeting that assembles complementary methods, or bridges two literatures that do not currently cite each other, has a reason to exist. A meeting that assembles people who already collaborate has a harder case.

A concrete, checkable outcome. “New research” is the funder’s phrase; your job is to make it specific. A joint application to a named funder, a co-authored agenda-setting paper, a formal network with a defined membership, a shared dataset design — anything a reviewer could later verify. RJ’s own final report for this programme asks the project leader to present the purpose and outcomes of the meeting, so the outcomes you promise are the outcomes you will be asked about.

Budget realism is its own signal. A budget assembled from actual quotes reads differently from one built out of round numbers, and reviewers who fund meetings for a living can tell.

Required materials and reporting obligations

For the application itself, RJ does not publish a public checklist of attachments on the call page; the authoritative list is the form in the ResearchWeb portal, which you should open early to see what it asks for. Expect to need, at minimum, a description of the meeting and its scientific purpose, a participant plan, a budget, and applicant details.

The reporting side is documented and refreshingly light:

• The final report is due no later than the date specified when the project was granted — that date is set at award, so read your decision letter.
• The report is completed by the project leader through RJ’s application system and must be co-signed by the project leader and the grant administrator.
• The scientific final report presents the purpose and outcomes of the meeting and may be at most 2,000 characters including spaces. That is roughly 300 words. It can be written in Swedish or English, and RJ states its purpose is to give the foundation feedback.
• The financial final report is submitted at the same time, and this is the step at which the project leader requisitions funds for claimed expenses.

A 2,000-character scientific report is a small obligation by research-funding standards. It is also a reminder of what RJ is buying: not a deliverable-heavy project, but a well-chosen conversation.

Common mistakes

Treating a rolling call as an infinite one. This is the mistake with the highest cost in 2026. The programme’s final deadline is 30 October 2026 and there is no announced successor call.

Pitching a dissemination event. A conference to present completed work is a good thing that this grant does not fund. Reframe around what the meeting will start.

Leaving the “Swedish connection” implicit. If it is not obvious from your affiliation, spell it out.

Assuming the money arrives before the event. Funds are requisitioned for claimed expenses at final reporting. Confirm your institution can pre-finance.

Asking below the floor. Applications must be for at least SEK 50,000. A carefully trimmed SEK 40,000 budget is not modest, it is ineligible.

Adopting an amount ceiling you read on an aggregator. RJ’s own call page states only the minimum. Build your budget from your costs and be prepared to justify it.

Leaving portal registration to the last week. Account and password problems are common after a system migration and are not an accepted reason for a late submission.

Frequently asked questions

Is RJ Research Initiation 2026 open right now? Yes. The application period is continuous and the 2026 call is listed as open in RJ’s ResearchWeb portal with no start or end date shown, unlike RJ’s fixed-window calls.

Can a non-Swedish researcher apply? The stated applicant category is individual researchers with a Swedish connection. RJ does not define that phrase exhaustively on the call page, so if your connection is real but not visible from your affiliation, describe it in the application and, if in doubt, ask a research manager before submitting.

What is the maximum grant? RJ publishes a minimum of SEK 50,000 and does not state a maximum on the call page. Treat any specific ceiling quoted elsewhere as unconfirmed.

When exactly are the six decision rounds? The call page refers to a published schedule of application periods and decision dates but does not list them inline. Check the portal or contact a research manager for the current dates.

Does the meeting have to take place in Sweden? RJ does not state a location restriction for the meeting on the call page. What it states is that the applicant must be a researcher with a Swedish connection.

Will there be an RJ Research Initiation 2027? Unconfirmed. RJ says it will evaluate the programme during 2027 and that the board will then decide its future. Plan on 30 October 2026 as the last opportunity under the current scheme.

Can I apply for a meeting that has already happened? Nothing on the call page suggests retrospective funding, and the programme’s stated purpose — meetings that will result in new research — points firmly forward. Apply before the event.

Official links and contacts

• Call page: RJ Research Initiation 2026
• Application portal: ResearchWeb — Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
• Final reporting requirements: RJ Research Initiation final reports
• Requisition of funds: RJ Research Initiation requisition
• General guidance: RJ frequently asked questions

Research managers for the programme, as listed on the official call page:

• Dr Fredrik Lundmark — +46 8 506 264 21, [email protected]
• Dr Anders Sundin — +46 8 506 264 05, [email protected]

For portal login problems, contact [email protected]. For questions about application content, contact RJ at [email protected].

The bottom line

RJ Research Initiation is a small, unusually well-targeted grant: enough money to convene the right people, light enough reporting that the administrative overhead does not eat the value, and a rolling window that has historically let researchers apply when an idea was ready rather than when a calendar said so.

That flexibility ends on 30 October 2026. If you have a meeting in mind that would start a line of humanities or social science research which does not yet exist — and you have a Swedish connection to anchor it — this autumn is the window. Build the budget from real costs, write the application around the research the meeting will produce rather than the research it will report, confirm your institution can pre-finance, and submit early enough to land in a decision round with time to spare.