Direction
The donor, Bengt Sjöberg's, desire to "make a difference" for Swedish cancer research is the basis for the development of the Sjöberg Foundation's activities that have been driven by the Board.
During the foundation's first year, 2016, the views of cancer researchers were gathered about requests for funding from the Sjöberg Foundation. The need for a network for joint initiatives in cancer research was highlighted as the most urgent. Against this background, the 2017 Partnership for Precision Cancer Medicine project, PPCM, was created to create standardized collection of samples and data for cancer patients for treatment and research, as well as standardized presentation forms, so-called patient reviews, for follow-up and presentation of disease processes and treatments.
The network comprises seven nodes, one for each major university, where each node consists of representatives for researchers, university clinics and the Regional Cancer Center. The aim is to standardize and raise the quality of both patient treatment and research. This is initially the foundation's most important project.
Since 2017, the foundation has had an annual routine for distributing research grants to cancer research.
The borders for the recipients of the foundation's contributions are set out in the statutes:
“Grants and support are mainly made to scientists at universities, colleges or similar institutions in Sweden or
abroad. Grants can also to some extent be granted to individuals or organizations operating within the purpose of
the foundation.,,
The Board decides which universities / colleges should be invited to submit project proposals for the current year. The selection is based on an assessment of which research should be supported and which universities / colleges do corresponding research of sufficient scope and quality.
The donor, Bengt Sjöberg's, stated desire was to "make a difference" for the cancer patients. This would be done in the form of investments in disadvantaged areas where the patients were particularly vulnerable due to lack of effective medication or the costs were too high. One possible solution that was suggested was research in the field of alternative medicine, but also to use medicines already approved for other diseases, in cases where they are also were effective against cancer (repurposing).
Both preventive measures and mitigating care were areas that Bengt Sjöberg also wanted to support.