Academy of Finland announces funding for Finnish Flagships, research infrastructures and RDI partnership networks

The Academy of Finland has received a one-off increase of 81 million euros in its budget authority through the Finnish Government’s fourth supplementary budget. In accordance with the supplementary budget, the Academy will target funding to support the National Roadmap for Research, Development and Innovation and its objectives relating to solutions for a sustainable and developing society. These include strengthening, broadening and increasing the effectiveness of the competence spearhead and grouping research and the networks that utilise it into larger competence centres and ecosystems. In line with the roadmap, the objectives focus on supporting partnerships. The Academy will also target funding at research into crisis preparedness and security of supply as well as into strengthening the expertise of the EuroHPC ecosystem.

With a view to supporting the implementation of the RDI roadmap, the Academy will open three calls for applications on 11 August 2020: a third call within the Finnish Flagship Programme, a call to support the use of research infrastructures as collaborative platforms, and a call to fund RDI partnership networks.

Under the Flagship Programme call, funding will be channelled to strong research and competence clusters that actively cooperate with the business sector and possibly other actors. The Flagships to be funded will support the establishment and collaboration of internationally competitive competence centres and ecosystems in Finland. The call’s funding budget is 25 million euros.

The aim of the ‘Research infrastructures as collaborative platforms’ call is to strengthen and develop the wide and versatile usability of research infrastructures and to support the establishment of competence centres. Through the call, the Academy of Finland seeks to support the development of research infrastructures, carried out in cooperation with the business sector, with the aim of creating a platform where research, education and innovation can intersect and evolve. The call’s funding budget is 20 million euros.

The aim of the special funding for RDI partnership networks is to support and promote the networking of higher education institutions and government research institutes with the business sector and other beneficiaries of research in order to boost the societal impact of high-quality research. The call’s funding budget is 10 million euros.

In all three calls, the funding is applied for by a research organisation. The detailed application guidelines are available in the call texts.

As the funding provided by the supplementary budget concerns the Academy’s 2020 budget authority, the funding decisions must be made during 2020. The calls open on 11 August and close on 2 September 2020. This will enable the peer review of applications to be completed and the funding decisions to be made in 2020.

Upcoming calls

At the end of August, the Academy of Finland will also open a special call for applications focusing on research into crisis preparedness and security of supply. The call’s funding budget is 20 million euros. In addition to high-quality research, the projects should promote the wider societal impact of the topic. The decisions will be made based on international peer review and the call’s objectives.

In September, the Academy will again open its annual main call, the September call. Applications are invited for, for instance, funding for research posts as Postdoctoral Research and Academy Research Fellow and Academy Project funding. The September call texts have been posted on the Academy’s website.

• Read more on Riitta Maijala’s blog post: Fast-track funding calls open after exceptional spring – but basic principles remain unchanged