Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering

The Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering supports cutting-edge and ethically sustainable scientific research that seeks breakthroughs, novel multidisciplinary research themes and new approaches.

The Scientific Council encourages researchers to engage in scientifically ambitious research, seek new initiatives and take risks, especially where this would result in groundbreaking findings. It also works to promote the development of internationally competitive research environments and researchers, keeping in mind the characteristic strengths of Finnish research as well as the needs of the Finnish research and innovation system.

The Scientific Council also regularly monitors and analyses the impact of its funding decisions and its strategic activities as well as the satisfaction of the researchers it has funded. In addition, it regularly examines the effectiveness of its various funding instruments.

Through an analysis of the state of the field of natural sciences and engineering (sources: Clarivate Analytics Web of Science data, bibliometric calculation CSC 2021; the education administration’s statistics portal Vipunen; applications for Academy Project Funding, Academy Research Fellow Funding and Postdoctoral Researcher Funding submitted to the Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering, decision years 2012–2022), the Scientific Council has identified five stakeholder messages (in order of priority) for the coming years:

  1. Finland must ensure a sufficient number of researchers in natural sciences and engineering on career stages I and II (doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers).
  2. Efforts must be made to increase the proportion of women in natural sciences and engineering, especially on career stage IV (professors and research directors).
  3. The number of talented students applying to the natural sciences and engineering sector as a primary option must be increased.
  4. The mobility of PhDs between academia and industry must be promoted, and a sufficient number of doctoral candidates must be ensured in areas of national importance.
  5. Chemistry research that is of importance to Finland (incl. wood biomass processing) needs to be strengthened.

Inquiries

  • Kati Sulonen, Secretary General, tel. +358 295 335 110

Our email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname(at)aka.fi.

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