Background

The Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) research community has been actively engaged in national and international COVID-19 research efforts since early 2020. Access to the wide-ranging expertise within that community, and to previously established SciLifeLab infrastructure, expedited COVID-19 research at the molecular, cellular, patient, population, and environmental levels.

SciLifeLab was quick to respond to the pandemic, and established multiple efforts to accelerate and support research throughout. The first program established to support research efforts was the The SciLifeLab/KAW National COVID-19 Research Program, which was established in April 2020 and co-funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW). When the focus of the global research community started to shift towards pandemic preparedness, SciLifeLab was commissioned to establish a program to support pandemic preparedness in general. This resulted in SciLifeLab's Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness (PLP) program.

Timeline of the program

Date	Milestone	Description	Status
2025-06-01	PLPTDP25 Call	Launch of new TDP funding to drive diagnostics and host response innovation that will support during outbreaks.	Call open (as of Jun 2025)
2024-02-01	PM TDP Call	Call for clinical tech development in collaboration with Precision Medicine to address healthcare needs.	Call closed (Apr 2024)
2023-09-01	PLP-Test Call	Support up to 9 projects to test and improve PLP capabilities.	Ongoing
2023-02-01	REPLPCM Call	Extend funding for TDP projects until 2025.	Ongoing (until 2025)
2022-09-01	REPLP-1 Call	Extend funding for PLP1 projects until 2025.	Ongoing (until 2025)
2022-04-01	PLP2 Call	To create nationally significant infrastructure capabilities with a functional expectation within a year.	Completed
2021-12-01	TDP Funding Call	The intention with this call was to build closer connections between clinical microbiology laboratories in Sweden and to develop capabilities in major clinical microbiology labs in Sweden.	Completed
2021-07-01	PLP1: First 8 Capabilities Selected	Focused on BSL3, biobanking, environmental detection, immunomonitoring, serology, sequencing.	Completed
2021-02-01	PLP National Open Call	Call for letters of intent to detect/monitor COVID-19 and future pandemics.	Completed
2020-12-01	Swedish government commissioned SciLifeLab	The assignment broadly involved supporting research related to infectious diseases (e.g. in diagnostics, analysis of infection, immunity, and the development of resistance to therapies in pathogens), and developing competence and technologies related to pandemic research (e.g. in sequencing, genetic analysis, immunology, and big data).	Completed

To view any current funding available from PLP, view our funding page.

Pandemic Preparedness Capabilities

The COVID-19 pandemic placed enormous strain on society and healthcare systems worldwide, but rapid action and unprecedented scientific collaboration helped reduce its impact. To ensure an even faster and more effective response to future pandemics, the scientific community emphasises the need for proactive investment in preparedness. This includes maintaining and updating the resources developed during COVID-19 so they can be quickly deployed again. The Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness (PLP) program at SciLifeLab contributes to this effort by establishing a national network of laboratory capabilities.

This section lists the capabilities related to pandemic preparedness (i.e. services or resources that can be used in current and future pandemics). The pages for each capability are regularly updated with new information as it becomes available.

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