Funding criteria and policies

The funding available to the Scientific Council is not enough to fund all top-rated applications (overall ratings 6 and 5). Therefore, the Scientific Council has outlined a set of policies and criteria that it will systematically apply in making its selection between applications of outstanding scientific quality.

The policies and criteria applied in the winter 2025 call are presented below. Please contact us if you want to access the criteria and policies used in other calls.

Policies and criteria for winter 2025 call

General policies

1. The Scientific Council supports in Finland a wide range of responsible natural sciences and engineering research of a high international standard. The specific characteristics of different disciplines, such as research and publishing traditions in the fields of engineering, are taken into account in decision-making. The Scientific Council requires that ethical and dual-use issues and how they are taken into account in the research are described in sufficient detail in the application.
2. As a rule, the Scientific Council’s funding decisions are based on review reports.
3. The Scientific Council supports scientific renewal by funding new initiatives, such as high-risk, high-gain research, and the development of new methods and tools. It supports researchers who are on a rising career trajectory, grants Academy Project Funding to PIs at different career stages and considers equality and nondiscrimination issues in the case of applications of equal merit. It primarily funds projects where both the PI and the research team mainly work in Finland.
4. The Scientific Council supports the utilisation of research results. When making funding decisions, it considers the relevance of the research for business and industry or other societal sectors in Finland. It also considers applicants’ previous merits in the scientific, economic and other utilisation of research as well as their networks with end-users and beneficiaries of research.
5. The Scientific Council supports high-quality national and international research cooperation and the researcher mobility therein. The supported collaboration may occur between universities, between universities and research institutes or with business and industry or other societal actors. The support for collaboration is researcher-driven and implemented through the funding of Academy Projects and Academy Research Fellows and through participation in strategically selected international funding calls. Consortium-based Academy Projects that include parties from different research organisations are an important tool for promoting national collaboration.
6. The Scientific Council supports research that makes good use of both Finnish and international research infrastructures.

Criteria and policies for Academy Projects

The Scientific Council will use the criteria below (in order of priority) to make its selection between applications of outstanding scientific quality.

Decision criteria (in order of priority):

1. Quality of research, new initiatives, breakthrough potential, relevance and feasibility
2. Competence of researcher/research team, particularly recent achievements, and research cooperation
3. Societal impact of research

The Scientific Council also makes use of general policies when selecting the projects to be funded.

Criteria and policies for Academy Research Fellows

The Scientific Council supports promising researchers with capacity for renewal and independent research. They are on a rising career trajectory and can make significant career progress during the funding period in carrying out scientifically high-quality, high-impact and regenerative research. The Scientific Council pays particular attention to the applicant’s competence and to their merits and collaborative networks in relation to the career stage. The Scientific Council expects Academy Research Fellows to increase their supervision experience and increase their qualifications for academic leadership during the funding period.

As a rule, the decision-making is based on the review reports, with emphasis on the review items in the following order:

1. Applicant’s personal competence in relation to the career stage
2. Quality of research, novelty value and relevance
3. Feasibility and collaborative networks.

The Scientific Council also makes use of general policies when selecting the researchers to be funded.

The Scientific Council accepts reasonable research costs at its discretion. As the purpose of the funding is to promote the academic leadership of the Academy Research Fellows, the Scientific Council will not grant funding to team members at the same or a higher career stage without good cause.