Funding criteria and policies

The Scientific Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment decided the funding criteria and policies for the winter call 2025 in its October 2024 meeting. These policies supplement the guidelines in the call texts of the winter call and the Research Council of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions.

Applicants are required to have a close connection to the Finnish scientific community so that the funding will benefit Finnish research and society. This means that the funding will be administered by a Finnish organisation. In addition, the Scientific Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment primarily funds projects where both the PI and the research team mainly work in Finland. If the principal investigator works partly abroad, the application must contain a clear description of the employment relationships and the connections to the team and the project menagement.

Academy Project funding

Primary funding criteria:

• scientific quality and feasibility of the research plan
• evidence of principal investigator’s scientific work and successful management that is significant in relation to the career stage

The Scientific Council requires that the leadership and research tasks of the PI be clearly described in the application.

Secondary funding criteria, applied when deciding between applications of equal merit:

• supporting the career development of new PhDs or doctoral researchers in the project
• impact beyond academia

In the case of consortia, the Scientific Council pays attention to the added value of the collaboration. The added value must be described in the application. Consortium subprojects are required to be of the same scientific quality as the main applicant, or to contribute significantly to the project implementation.

Academy Research Fellowship

Primary funding criteria:

• applicant’s merits, skills and demonstrations of cooperation networks thus far in relation to the career stage
  • the applicant must be on a fast career track and show promise, international competitiveness and capacity for renewal
  • the application shall describe how the project supports the applicant’s increasing competencies and career progress
  • the applicant must have experience of leading a research team
• scientific quality and feasibility of the research plan

Secondary funding criteria, applied when deciding between applications of equal merit:

• international and national mobility, cooperation of research team
• opportunities to develop scientific expertise of researchers to be hired and create cooperation networks that support the careers of researchers
• impact beyond academia

Clinical Researcher funding

The primary funding criterion is the scientific quality of the research plan. Additionally, attention is paid to the applicant’s suitability to the objectives of the clinical researcher funding instrument.

The funding for a research post as clinical researcher is a funding opportunity to support part-time research by physicians and other researchers engaged in clinical practice. The patient work must be linked to the research project.

The funding decisions are based on the scientific quality of the research and the applicant’s competence and suitability. The aim is to promote clinical research careers and to encourage healthcare professionals to engage in research alongside clinical practice.

The Scientific Council’s funding covers a 20–50 per cent salary as well as research costs. A requirement is that clinical practice accounts for at least 50 per cent of the work. The funding period is a maximum of four years.

Those who have received Clinical Researcher funding may have a concurrent Academy Project.