Academy of Finland funds new Postdoctoral Researchers in social sciences and humanities

The Academy of Finland’s Research Council for Culture and Society today granted funding for 30 new posts as Postdoctoral Researcher.

Postdoctoral Researcher funding supports the most talented researchers who have recently completed their doctoral degree in gaining competence for demanding researcher or expert positions. It is also aimed at assisting the transition towards an independent research career. The Research Council made the decisions emphasising the high scientific quality of the application, the qualifications of the applicant, the objectives concerning international collaboration, the academic and societal impact, and the renewal of science.

Sami Pihlström, the Chair of the Research Council for Culture and Society, commented that the competition was again tough. “In addition to the high quality and impact of research, the Research Council aims in particular to renew science through the Postdoctoral Researcher funding scheme. If they are successful in the rigorous peer review, the early-career researchers will get a chance to start their independent scientific work. In our funding decisions, we also paid attention to the diversity of the disciplines the Research Council represents.”

As in the Academy of Finland’s other funding schemes, Postdoctoral Researchers are required to be closely connected to the Finnish scientific community so that the funding benefits Finnish research and society. The funding is intended for the Postdoctoral Researcher’s salary, personal research costs as well as international and national mobility.

The Research Council’s funding for new Postdoctoral Researchers totals around 7.2 million euros. The funding is granted for three years. The success rate was 11 per cent. Around 53 per cent of the funded Postdoctoral Researchers are women.

Examples of funded Postdoctoral Researchers

Jenni Sipilä (LUT University) studies consumer awareness and perceived importance of sustainability. A positive attitude towards sustainable development does not always lead to sustainable consumption behaviour. Sipilä’s project will address this discrepancy by generating new theoretical insights on consumers’ conflicting reactions to sustainable consumption. The project will shed new light on sustainability communication and consequently promote more sustainable ways of consumption, ultimately leading to a more sustainable society.

Jari Pirhonen (University of Helsinki) examines death as a social process. When an old person in long-term care dies, it is not only a physiological phenomenon, but also a social process. Older people may, in fact, die socially even before the physiological death, when they slip out of engaging in everyday interactions and thus are not encountered as individuals. The aim of Pirhonen’s study is to understand how the dying process is socially negotiated between older persons, their relatives and the nursing staff, and how the negotiations affect a dying person’s care and everyday life.

Antti Paakkari (Tampere university) will analyse the growing significance of educational technologies in public education and its connection to the increasing influence of commercial actors. Paakkari will examine edtech policy documents, interview teachers, school administrators and edtech marketers and use digital ethnography to investigate the use of edtech in public secondary schools. The project will produce new knowledge on an issue that is topical but not widely researched.