Call for Strategic Recruitment of Associate Senior Lecturers 2026–2027, Swedish Research Council

Read more about VR’s upcoming calls within Strategic Recruitment on their webpage.

Information and Conditions of the VR Call

The Swedish Research Council plans to announce career support for associate senior lecturers on four occasions: twice in 2026 and twice in 2027. Each call is expected to fund 20–25 grants.

Applications will be assessed by three international review panels in the following areas:

• Medicine and Health, Pharmacy
• Natural Sciences, Engineering Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences
• Humanities, Social Sciences, Educational Sciences, and Artistic Research
   

The support targets early-career researchers, where:

• Positions are at the associate senior lecturer level for 5 years, with the possibility of extension at lecturer level for another 5 years.
• Each grant from the Swedish Research Council amounts to 3 million SEK per year.
• The associate senior lecturer position must be at least 70 percent, of which at least 50 percent of a full-time position must be funded by the higher education institution (HEI)

 

The following conditions apply for nominating researchers within the call:

• The nominee may have previously been employed as an associate senior lecturer, but for no more than 6 months, and may only be nominated by one HEI per call.
• At least half of the researchers nominated by an HEI must have an international background – meaning they have had their main employment and research activities outside of Sweden during the past four years.
• Nominations from an HEI must be gender-balanced, meaning at least 40 percent of the candidates must be men and 40 percent women.
• Örebro University may nominate up to 2 researchers per call.

 

How to suggest a candidate to be nominated from Örebro University

The candidate together with the candidate’s researcher contact at the School send in the internal nomination documents before the internal deadlines:

VR Call “Strategic recruitment of Associate Senior Lecturer”	Internal nomination documents submitted to grantsoffice@oru.se by:
Call 1 – opening January 2026	10 November 2025
Call 2 – opening August 2026 (preliminary)	4 May 2026
Call 3 – opening January 2027  (preliminary)	10 November 2026
Call 4 – opening August 2027  (preliminary)	4 May 2027

The internal nomination proposal consists of the following documents:

1. Short research plan
2. Description of international experience and qualifications
3. CV
4. Publication list
5. Internal nomination letter signed by the Head of School at Örebro University.

Further instructions for each document is described in this PDF.

Örebro University’s internal selection criteria are based on the following:

• Scientific quality, Novelty and originality, Feasibility
  In line with the Swedish Research Council’s evaluation criteria and guiding questions

 

• Merits of the applicant 
  In line with the Swedish Research Council’s evaluation criteria and guiding questions

 

• Strategic Relevance
  Contribution to strengthening a specific research area or profile
  Alignment with the university’s research priorities

More information and details are available for ORU-staff via Inforum. Potential candidates are encouraged to contact and discuss possibilities for nomination with suitable researcher leader at ORU if they want to know more.

 

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