Wallenberg Academy Fellows is a unique career programme that provides long-term funding for the most promising young researchers of all disciplines to develop their projects. The programme was initiated by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in close collaboration with five royal academies and sixteen universities.
The purpose of the new career programme and long-term funding is to give the most promising young researchers a work situation that enables them to focus on their projects and address difficult, long-term research questions.
As part of the initiative the Foundation has, in cooperation with five Swedish learned academies, created a mentor programme to provide support for the researchers’ scientific development and for innovation. This will offers a framework for developing the skills and contact networks they need to head successful research environments.
Swedish seats of learning are invited to nominate candidates to Wallenberg Academy Fellows. The nominations are sent to evaluation groups with members from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and the Swedish Academy. The evaluation groups present the most promising candidates to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, which select 25–30 researchers.
The program started 2012 and since 2017 research grants have been awarded every second year. The grants range in amount from 5 to 15 million SEK for each researcher during a five year period, depending on academic discipline. In the end of the first period the Wallenberg Academy Fellow can be nominated for another five years of funding.
The program is open to researchers in all academic disciplines: medicine, engineering and technology, natural sciences, social sciences and humanities/religion, and also in the interfaces between them.