Academy of Finland grants funding to 10 clinical researchers

The Academy of Finland’s Research Council for Health today decided to fund ten new clinical research positions based on applications submitted in the September 2017 call. The funding totals around 2.4 million euros.

The Academy received 39 applications for clinical researcher funding. This puts the applicant success rate at just over 25 per cent.

The funding is granted towards salary and research costs to support part-time research by clinical researchers. The applicant may be a medical doctor with a doctoral degree working in clinical practice or some other healthcare professional with a doctoral degree engaged in clinical practice. Clinical researchers have an essential role to play in reconciling clinical patient care and research.

Clinical work with patients can contribute to identifying key questions in patient care. Secondly, the time available for research can be used to find solutions by means of research for the benefit of patients. The Research Council for Health is keen to emphasise the importance of supporting clinical researchers and aims to improve the preconditions for clinical research in Finland.

Professor Mika Rämet, Chair of the Research Council for Health, said: “The best applications are of a high quality, even in international comparison, but the low number of new applicants is worrying.”

The most important criteria for the selection of clinical researchers are the scientific quality of the research plan, clinical impact and the career development of the researchers.