29 high-level infrastructures selected to Finland’s national research infrastructure roadmap

The Finnish Research Infrastructure Committee (FIRI Committee) yesterday granted roadmap status to 29 research infrastructures. The selected infrastructures will be included in the national roadmap for research infrastructures covering the years 2021–2024. The roadmap for national research infrastructures in Finland is a list of strategically significant research infrastructure services needed over the next 10–15 years in the Finnish research, development and innovation system.

The present roadmap update also supports the implementation of Finland’s National Roadmap for Research, Development and Innovation and its new partnership model. The previous national roadmap of research infrastructures was published in 2014.

The 2020 roadmap call was opened based on the Strategy for National Research Infrastructures in Finland 2020–2030 (PDF). The vision stated in the strategy is that high-class research infrastructure services increase the impact and international attraction of the Finnish research, education and innovation system. According to the national RDI roadmap, one of the goals for the development package of research infrastructures and experimental environments is to bring a larger share of national research infrastructures than at present within the scope of centralised funding in order to strengthen the openness, quality and effectiveness of research.

The research infrastructures selected by the FIRI Committee to the 2021–2024 roadmap offer services to support, for instance, internationally high-quality medical and biological imaging technologies and high-performance computing. The roadmap update also includes projects that can help produce diverse and effective data for the needs of both the scientific and higher education community and the public and private sectors, for example in the fields of quantum technology, remote sensing and biological imaging. In addition, among the selected research infrastructures are projects that offer significant additional opportunities for utilising, for example, measurement data collected on the interaction between the atmosphere and various ecosystems as well as data collected for studying Finnish society, people and cultural phenomena.

See the list of all new roadmap research infrastructures (PDF).

Riitta Maijala, Vice President for Research at the Academy of Finland, said: “The roadmap is a key tool for supporting both the joint long-term planning of the research, education and innovation system and the development of dynamic technological and financial solutions.”

The FIRI Committee has outlined that most of the funding in FIRI calls to be opened based on the roadmap will be earmarked for research infrastructures included in the roadmap. The next FIRI funding call opens in spring 2021.