Academy of Finland decides on distribution of research funding for 2019

The Board of the Academy of Finland yesterday decided on the allocation of funds between its research councils and funding schemes for next year.

The 25 million euros in additional funds earmarked for the Academy of Finland in the state budget will be allocated to the Academy Project funding scheme to support the younger generation of researchers. In addition, the Board decided on an increase of 11 million euros to the Academy’s research councils’ funding budgets compared to last year. In total, the research councils will have 36 million euros more to distribute than in 2018.

The Board also decided on a one-off allocation of 10 million euros to increase the funding for research infrastructures and on an increase to the funding of research programmes. These non-recurring increases were made possible by the long-term funding plan for Centres of Excellence, which states that the 2019 budget authority will not be used for the current CoE programmes.

Project-based funding is the Academy of Finland’s key tool to promote high-quality, responsible and high-impact research and to promote the internationalisation, renewal and interdisciplinarity of research. The Academy Project funding scheme makes it possible for researchers to carry out extensive consortium projects that span several fields.

The Academy’s research councils will be reformed as of 2019: the Research Council for Biosciences and Environment and the Research Council for Health will merge to form the Research Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment. There will thus be three research councils as of 1 January 2019: the Research Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment, the Research Council for Culture and Society, and the Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering. The research councils’ funding proportions in 2019 will correspond to the 2018 levels, taking into account the change in the research council structure.