More than 4,000 applications submitted to Academy of Finland’s September 2020 calls

The Academy of Finland received a total of 4,234 applications to the funding calls that were open in September 2020. The total number includes consortium subprojects as separate applications. If each consortium is counted as a single application, the total number of applications comes to 3,393.

This year, the total number of applications rose in particular because of applications submitted for the calls launched based on the Finnish Government’s fourth supplementary budget and the General Government Fiscal Plan for 2021–2014. In 2019, the September call attracted 3,508 applications, counting consortium subprojects as separate applications.

Academy Project funding was the most popular funding opportunity with 1,408 applications (1,392 applications in 2019). 602 researchers applied for funding for a research post as Academy Research Fellow (550 in 2019) and 827 researchers applied for funding for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher (744 in 2019).

The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering received the most applications, 1,281 in total (1,230 in 2019). The Research Council for Culture and Society received 910 applications (970 in 2019) and the Research Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment received 909 applications (925 in 2019). In addition, the Academy received 34 applications for funding for sport science research projects; these applications will be reviewed in panels organised by the Research Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment.

The special calls launched based on the Government’s supplementary budget and the General Government Fiscal Plan attracted applications as follows:

• Special funding for RDI partnership networks: 71 applications
• Special funding for research into crisis preparedness and security of supply: 65 applications
• FIRI – research infrastructures as collaborative platforms: 54 applications
• Flagship Programme call 2020: 18 applications
• Special funding for system-level research into climate change mitigation and adaptation: 51 applications.

See the attached table for the other scheme-specific figures.

The funding decisions on the special calls will be made in late 2020 and January 2021. The funding decisions on the other calls included in the September call will be made in April–June 2021.