Utlysning forskningsprojekt 2024-2025

To be eligible for funding, the following conditions must be met:

• All proposals must be written in Swedish or English.
• The proposed research project must include partners from two or more research environments at HLK. These partners are the ones eligible to share the budget that must consist of research time and, if it is the case, indispensable costs such as ethical approval or proofreading. Participation in conferences and other travel costs are not allowed in this call.
• The main applicant must be a qualified researcher (PhD or equivalent).
• Professors can participate but not be funded in the proposed projects. In this case, professors can be part of the application using their own research time. The percentage of time that professors would dedicate to the project must be specified in the application.
• A researcher may only serve as project leader for one application under this call.
• Docents, lectors, and adjuncts with a licentiate degree who have an employment contract at HLK can receive funding.
• PhD students and adjuncts without a licentiate degree cannot apply for this call.

Activities and costs for the establishment of the EduCom profile area at HLK. The overall purpose of the EduCom profile area is to develop and implement the concept of educommunication as a process permeating various action competences able to potentialize the achievement of social justice and consequent social sustainability.

The specific research goals are:

• to develop theoretical frameworks that involve the phenomena/concepts of educommunication, action competence, social justice, and/or social sustainability.
• to develop empirical research that implements the concepts of action competence, social justice, and/or social sustainability in the context of educommunication.
• to develop empirical research on educommunication in collaboration with external partners.
• to propose policy formulations and standards for best practices based on the research results.

One or more of these specific goals should be contemplated by the proposed project.

In addition to the objectives set out above, the call will strive to stimulate the following in the research that is funded:

• Interdisciplinarity,where relevant research questions are addressed by combining and integrating skills from multiple environments.
• Cross-sectorial perspectives,where the research integrates perspectives from education and communication or more.

The EduCom research profile proposes an educommunication dynamic model, departing from Ketschau’s (2015) framework combining social sustainability, social justice, and education. The normative link between social sustainability and education is described as social justice: education can address social justice issues by discussing inequalities in the educational context as a way of promoting opportunities for socially disadvantaged groups. The process is also described by Hytten and Bettez (2011). Drawing from Ketschau (2015), EduCom proposed framework model expands this perspective, focusing on the concept of educommunication (Tárcia et al., 2023) with the support of research and development (R&D) and the notion of action competence as the path to achieve social justice and social sustainability across borders (see Figure 1).

Check the EduCom webpage here.

Gender balance and ethical considerations need to be addressed and justified in the application.

Use the budget excel template available here. Excel, 22.5 kB. We offer here a simulation of budget Excel, 22.8 kB. as an example to facilitate understanding. Only complete applications including the budget are going to be considered.

Include a table showing the distribution of time spent in the project for each applicant and what their function in the project is.

The projects shall participate in meetings, conferences and other events arranged by HLK within the framework of this EduCom call.

The applicants must submit a complete proposal no later than 13.00 on 31.08.2023. The application should be sent to Karolina Hyckenberg (karolina.hyckenberg@ju.se) with “EduCom research application” as the email subject. The full application must contain all supporting documents as requested below as pdf:

• Application documents should use the font Times New Roman, size 12, single spacing.
• Research plan (max five pages, including references).
  • Include the following headings: abstract, purpose and aim, relevance and novelty, state-of-the-art, project description (theory, method, project organization with the distribution of tasks among participants and deliverables), references.
• Gender balance and ethical considerations (max one page).
• Budget template with the distribution of research time per participant for the duration of the project and indispensable costs if applicable.
• Project leader CV, including a short list of max ten publications (max three pages).
• Project member CV (max one page).

Assessment criteria

All eligible proposals will be rated using a scale 1-7 (1=poor; 2= weak, 3= fair 4= good, 5= very good, 6= excellent, 7= outstanding) based on the criteria described below, and a written statement will be provided.

A peer review panel composed by HLK professors will assess the proposals according to the following criteria:

• Contribution to the call aims

• The extent to which the proposed research is relevant to the aims of the call.

• Scientific quality
  • Clarity and pertinence of project description.
  • Soundness and credibility of concept and methodology.
  • Potential to develop new knowledge beyond current state-of-the-art.
  • Ethical considerations and how these will be handled.
  • Consideration and integration of gender perspectives, when relevant.
  • Expected deliverables and societal relevance.
• Quality of the research team
  • Experience, expertise and merits in relation to the proposed research.
  • Complementarity of the participants and extent to which they offer together the necessary expertise.
• Feasibility
  • Quality and effectiveness of the research plan, including extent to which resources are assigned in line with the objectives and deliverables. Deliverables should include traditional outcomes (journal articles, book chapters, conference papers) but could be combined with alternative outcomes, such as audiovisual productions, teaching materials, etc.
  • Appropriateness of the allocation of tasks.

The peer review assessment will determine which projects to be awarded funding. The funding decision will be announced in October 2023. All applicants will receive written feedback from the peer review panel.