Direct comparison
Formas vs Vinnova vs Forte: Sweden Funders
Formas, Vinnova, and Forte are Sweden's other national research funders alongside Vetenskapsrådet. Compare mandates, eligibility, and how each relates to VR.
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How do Formas, Vinnova, Forte compare side by side?
The table below compares Formas, Vinnova, Forte across 9 procurement-relevant dimensions, from full name through relationship to vetenskapsrådet.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | Formas | Vinnova | Forte |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development | Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems | Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare |
| Subject focus | Environment, agricultural sciences, spatial planning/built environment | Applied, needs-driven innovation across technology, transport, communication, labour-market systems | Public health, social welfare/social care, working life, occupational health |
| Type of body | Research council (discipline-based, competitive grants) | Innovation agency (consortium/challenge-based funding) | Research council (discipline-based, competitive grants) |
| Established | 2001 | 2001 | 2013 (successor to FAS, est. 2001) |
| Oversight | Sweden's environment and enterprise policy areas | Sweden's climate-and-enterprise policy area | Ministry of Health and Social Affairs |
| Typical applicant | Academic researchers in environmental/agricultural/planning fields | Companies, public-sector bodies, and universities, usually in consortia | Academic researchers in health, social-work, and welfare fields |
| Main instruments | Open project grants, thematic national research programmes, mobility grants | Planning/feasibility grants, challenge-driven and strategic innovation programmes | Project grants, early-career development grants, thematic programmes |
| Application system | Prisma (shared with VR and Forte) | Vinnova's own online services (not Prisma) | Prisma (shared with VR and Formas) |
| Relationship to Vetenskapsrådet | Independent peer, shares Prisma infrastructure | Independent, structurally distinct, no shared portal | Independent peer, shares Prisma infrastructure |
Common questions
Common questions about Formas vs Vinnova vs Forte
Is Formas part of Vetenskapsrådet?
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No. Formas is an independent government agency with its own board and budget. It shares the Prisma application system with VR and Forte, but that is an administrative convenience, not an organisational relationship.
Why doesn't Vinnova use Prisma like the other three?
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Vinnova is an innovation agency rather than a research council. Its consortium- and challenge-based funding instruments differ enough from the discipline-based project-grant model shared by VR, Formas, and Forte that it runs its own separate application and reporting process outside Prisma.
Which agency funds clinical or biomedical research?
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Clinical and biomedical research most often falls under Vetenskapsrådet's medicine and health panel, not Forte. Forte funds the public-health, social-care, and health-services side of the field rather than clinical/biomedical science itself.
Can I apply to more than one of these agencies for the same project?
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Generally no for the same specific proposal — each agency evaluates applications against its own remit and review criteria, and submitting an identical proposal to two research councils simultaneously is not standard practice and can be treated as a duplicate submission. A single research programme with genuinely distinct sub-projects that fall under different agencies' remits (for example, a basic-research component under VR and an applied-technology component under Vinnova) can sometimes be structured as separate, linked applications — check each agency's guidance before assuming this is permitted.
