How do I find funding for my research?
Finding the right funding opportunities for your research projects can be challenging, especially in the early stages of your career. Here we provide an overview of the different types of funding and tools available.
Research funding sources
• Internal
KI Grants & Awards offer internal financing through approximately 35 calls for proposals a year in various research areas (research grants, travel grants and post-doctoral stipends).
• External
KI researchers receive funding from a wide range of external funders.
How KI activities were funded during 2020
Source: KI Financial Summary for 2020
Research Professional
Research Professional is an extensive database of worldwide funding opportunities to which all KI employees and students have access through the KI subscription.
Setting up a personal account in Research Professional allows you to:
- Perform customised searches of thousands of funding opportunities
- Save the search criteria
- Store selected funding opportunities, add notes, and share information with your colleagues
- Create weekly e-mail alerts to receive customised lists of funding opportunities
- Read the latest news about research policies and politics
Get started with the Research Professional
Other types of funding
Industry funding
Industry funding in the form of sponsored or collaborative research programmes is not only a means of financing your research, but also a way to access to industry-unique expertise, competences and capabilities. Guidelines, rules and regulations for industry funding, different agreement formats and contractual obligations involved, can be found on Collaboration & Innovation web page.
Innovation financing
In addition to securing grants from public organisations such as the European Commission or Vinnova (Sweden’s innovation agency), you can finance your innovation projects in many other ways; e.g., through customer or supplier funding, crowdfunding, bank loans, venture capital or business-angel capital. For more information, please visit the Collaboration & Innovation web page.
Philanthropy
Donations from individuals can also fund your research. Always remember the golden rule: ‘friendraising before fundraising’—it is crucial that you get to know your prospective donor. Also be aware of the rules governing donations.
Contact & Support
Grants Office provides:
- a range of tools to help you identify funding sources that are appropriate to your research area and career stage
- information on many of the major funding programmes that apply to KI researchers
- information on the KI internal prioritisation processes that are required by certain funding agencies