Academy of Finland’s €50m call for proposals to support university profiling to open soon – call text available now

The Academy of Finland has today published the call text for PROFI 5, the fifth round of the Academy’s funding scheme to strengthen university research profiles. Applications can be submitted in the Academy’s online services as of Thursday 20 September. The call closes on Thursday 15 November at 16.15 local Finnish time.

What’s new?

• New authorisation feature in the online services
• Description of level of research and measures taken
• Tables with key university figures

New authorisation feature in the online services

The PROFI 5 call comes with a new authorisation feature. The aim of the feature is to facilitate the preparations for strategic collaboration and distribution of work between universities.

The Academy’s online services now allow universities to authorise each other to view their draft applications. Each university may decide on the authorisation at its own discretion. The authorisation feature can also be used to support universities internally; a university may, for example, authorise specific staff members to access the application’s budget section.

In other words, there are two types of authorisation: read-only and edit mode. Read-only authorisation may be issued to any number of people at the same time. The authorisation is valid for a fixed period, as defined by the person issuing it.

Description of level of research in the profiling area, support for at-risk researchers

The PROFI 5 application must include a description of measures that have been implemented since 2015 to raise the level of research and that have had a substantial impact on the current level of research in the profiling area.

Another new feature of the fifth round of PROFI funding is that the Academy of Finland encourages and invites universities to include in their action plans measures to support at-risk researchers (read more at Scholars at Risk, SaR). For example, universities can support researchers whose freedom and security are threatened in their home countries by offering them a position as a researcher or visiting scholar or by funding their research costs at a Finnish university.

Any at-risk researchers working in a university’s chosen profiling area may be supported with previous PROFI funding or funding granted through the upcoming PROFI 5 call.

Tables with key university figures

The Academy of Finland will deliver key university figures from 2017 to the review panel. In PROFI 5, applicant universities will not need to supply their key figures.