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Purpose
The Foundation Blanceflor aims to promote international exchange for Italian or Swedish citizens within scientific research and education granting individual scholarships for studies or research abroad.
The Foundation grants yearly a total of approximately 2 million SEK. The stipend is given in SEK. Two kinds of stipends are granted: Long-Term and Short-Term Scholarships.
Two different Scholarship categories
- Long-Term Scholarships for which we will provide full financing (up to 400.000 SEK/year) for up to two years. The Long-Term scholarships may only in well motivated exceptional cases be combined with other financing.
- Short-Term Scholarships, a smaller grant that will contribute to a study/ research séjour of typically 2–6 months abroad, it may be combined with other financing.
The Short-Term Scholarships will have two Application windows per year with deadlines 1 February and 1 September. The Long-Term Scholarship will be available once per year with deadline 1 February, at which date application for a 2nd year extension within the same project will be possible. A third year is not given.
The stipend aims to cover for personal expenses in connexion to studies or research. Institutional costs are not allowed. The stipends are individual and not granted to groups or associations.
The scholarships are by law exonerated from taxes in Sweden. The fellows are responsible for inform themselves regarding the legislation in the country where the studies or research are taking place.
Higher academic studies
The stipend is by preference given to PhD candidates and younger post-docs (within five years of disputation), but master students may also apply, although scholarships are not given for basic academic education. The applicants should not be older than 33 years, but exceptions are made when justified, including for example childcare or illness.
Countries and subject matters
Studies or research should be made abroad in one or more of the following countries: Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom or USA. An invitation letter from the receiving institution is required.
The subject matters for the scholarship are physics, chemistry, odontology, medicine, life-science, engineering and computer science, geophysics, geochemistry, astrophysics and close by areas of special value regarding international scientific exchange. We usually resume as: Medicine, Natural Sciences and Technique, although aware that many investigations today are interdisciplinary.
The Foundation does not give stipends form studies or research within other areas, like for example economy, law studies, marketing, advertising, design, architecture, history, theatre, dance, psychology, astronomy, zoology, archeology or geology, etc.
Application and decision
The application is made in English through a web form and uploaded documentation. Academic exams does not have to be translated. The deadline for Long Term Scholarships is 1 February each year (or the following weekday in case that falling on a weekend), the same deadline is valid for a Second year extension. The Short Term Scholarship has two application deadlines per year: 1 February and 1 September.
The Long term scholarship covers a maximum of 12 months with start earliest on 1 May of the application year. The start date may be delayed but not later than May the year following the application year. Stipends are not given retroactively, which means that the grant does not come into effect before 1 May the application year, even if the study/research period may have started before. The Short Term Scholarship grants come into effect 1 May and 1 December, respectively.
The qualified applications are being revised and evaluated to the Board meetings in April and November. Decisions on scholarships are taken by the Board.
The applicants are informed by e-mail about the outcome before the end of April and November, respectively. The Board does not provide motivations and the decision cannot be appealed.
The Fellow
Upon acceptance of the grant, the grantees are presented on The Foundation web site. The fellows should upon request and in accordance with instructions given by The Foundation also provide a short video and a photo with a personal presentation to be posted on the The Foundation web site.
The fellow should keep The Foundation informed of any relevant change of plans, e.g. time of start/ end of the fellowship, receiving institution, research focus and economical situation. The Foundation will assess these changes from case to case in order to decide upon changes to the fellowship.
Report
At the latest six months after finishing the studies or research The Foundation Blanceflor should receive a report together with the documented results, that could be a dissertation, a paper, a publication or similar, at best also with a personal remark on the experience. The Report should be uploaded through the correspondent web form with the required documents attached.
The Foundation should be acknowledged in dissertations and publications fully or partially supported by the grant.
Before the Application
We suggest a thorough reading of this text, the web form for the Application and the Checklist we supply as a preparation, thus avoiding questions on what is already stated. On the web site there is also a FAQ section. If any information is still unclear or missing, we welcome all suggestions for improvement!