From application to The Stim Scholarship – how it works when scholarship recipients are selected

An important part of Stim’s work is to promote renewal and diversity on Sweden’s music scene. We do this daily through our primary mission – paying royalties – but we also allocate funds through The Stim Forward Fund. This includes, among other things, scholarships, project grants, sheet music publishing support, travel grants, counseling and advocacy work.

Stim began awarding scholarships to promote music development as early as 1925. To provide conditions for creativity, Stim supports individual songwriters, lyricists and composers who maintain high artistic quality.

But who decides what constitutes “high artistic quality”? And how does the selection of scholarship recipients work? The whole process is preceded by a rigorous procedure to achieve the best possible results. The assignment from Stim’s board is to select recipients who demonstrate high artistic quality and thereby inspire new creative work. Here we explain how this is done.

The scholarship panel's assignment

The scholarship panel consists of members nominated by FST, Musikförläggarna and Skap, and is appointed by Stim’s CEO. The six members serve three-year terms, with the possibility of extension up to a maximum of six years, on a continuous schedule. The panel is made up of experts who all work professionally in various parts of the music and lyrical/text fields.

Stim’s board tasks the scholarship panel with assessing the following factors for the received applications:

• Stim's scholarships should promote new Swedish music of high artistic quality regardless of musical expression.
• Stim's scholarships may be awarded to both unestablished and established individuals.
• The awarding of scholarships should, as far as possible, strive for musical diversity, be balanced from a gender equality perspective and have variation in terms of artistic form, age and place of activity.
• No consideration should be given to the applicants' financial situation, the quality of the music should take priority.

Applications are submitted via My Pages

The scholarship is applied for via My Pages, where there is a special section for scholarships that is only open during the application period. To have the application approved, at least 15 minutes of music must be attached.

Kick-off meeting for everyone working with The Stim Scholarship

The scholarship panel meets with the chair, the scholarship team and IT technicians to go through the work process, schedule, technology and more. Members sign confidentiality agreements and are informed of their individual responsibility throughout the process to declare any conflicts of interest.

First screening

Before the first screening, the applications are divided among the group's members based on expertise. In the application form the applicant specifies a genre. Genres are used only as a sorting tool during the group's work, so that lyrics are assessed with lyrics and not compared to, for example, film music.

In the first screening, the applications are anonymized so that the group does not see the name of the applicant, for as fair and objective an assessment as possible. If a member, despite anonymization, believes they may have a conflict of interest, the member is obliged to report it and forward that application to another member for assessment. A note is made in the relevant application about this.

The aim of the first screening is to find applications that are of sufficiently high quality to qualify for a second screening, that is, the assessment week when the entire group jointly reviews the applications that have advanced.

The proportion of applications that advance to the second screening varies year for year, but it can be about one quarter that move on at this stage.

Second screening

After the first screening is complete, the second screening begins. For a week, the group's members gather to collectively listen to and assess the applications that have advanced. The scholarship applications are no longer anonymous at this stage, and the members therefore know who the creators are. This is done, among other things, to be able to promote gender equality.

The scholarship panel's chair and an additional person from Svensk Musik's scholarship team are on site every day during the second screening to facilitate the work. They also take notes on questions and identify improvements for coming years, as well as monitor that everything is conducted properly and ensure that routines are followed in the process.

At this stage the entire group agrees on who should be awarded a scholarship or not. On the last day of the assessment week, the award amounts for the different applications are decided.

The proportion of applications that receive a scholarship of those who advanced to the second screening varies year for year, in a typical year about one third are awarded scholarships.

Decision and awarding scholarships

After the scholarship panel's work is finished, the materials are handed over to Stim’s CEO, who approves the proposal of recipients. This is a formality – Stim’s CEO does not delve into the material but approves the whole.

Stim notifies applicants of the outcome, and for those fortunate enough to receive a scholarship a payment and a special celebration to honor the creators follows. In connection with this, Stim publishes the names of the year's Stim scholarship recipients.

Discussion afterwards about the scholarships

Many see Stim's scholarships as an honor and a recognition of their work. At the same time, it also means that other creators can be disappointed not to have been awarded a scholarship. Our message to everyone who went without a scholarship is not to give up, but to apply again.

Sometimes questions and criticism regarding conflicts of interest in the scholarship process are also raised, which are important to take seriously. Svensk Musik has a rigorous process to minimize the risk that conflicts of interest occur. It is a position of trust to be appointed as a member of the scholarship panel and it comes with a great responsibility to handle all applications professionally. All members of the group have an individual responsibility to declare conflicts of interest, and therefore not participate in assessment and decision in those cases. The scholarship panel's chair has no voting rights and focuses exclusively on ensuring that the process is conducted correctly.

Work for gender equality

The total number of Stim Scholarship applicants has increased in recent years. Increasing the number of applicants has been important – with a large number of applicants the scholarship panel can award scholarships in a more balanced way from a gender equality perspective, without compromising artistic quality.

During 2016 to 2024 the proportion of women who received the Stim scholarship has varied between 43 and 53 percent. This despite the proportion of women among applicants during the same period being between 29 and 33 percent.

This is the result of the members' decision that musical diversity – and a spread in terms of artistic form, age, gender and place of activity – should be considered in decisions about who is to be awarded scholarships.