Panel structure for Academy of Finland’s winter 2024 call now open for comments

The Academy of Finland has announced a draft panel structure with descriptions of the individual review panels for the upcoming winter 2024 call. The Academy is launching a survey to collect comments on the draft from stakeholders. The survey is based on a forthcoming reform that will affect the Academy’s call schedules and the review of applications.

The next application round for Academy Project Funding, Academy Research Fellowships and Clinical Researcher Funding will open in November 2023, not in September. The call will be branded as the winter 2024 call. Starting with the winter call, the review of applications will be based on a procedure in which the applicant chooses the most relevant panel for their application. The selection is made among the panels announced in advance by the Academy.

Applications for other Academy funding, such as those for funding from the new Academy Programme for sport science, may also be processed in the panels where appropriate. The possibility to choose the panel means that applicants have more influence on the review process, and it also increases the transparency of the review.

The feedback collected through the survey will be used to finalise the panel structure and descriptions. The Academy aims to publish the final list of panels and the panel descriptions for the winter 2024 call by September 2023.

Take the survey by 23 May 2023

In planning the panel structure, the Academy has made extensive use of background information from previous years on the distribution of applications by discipline and theme. In addition, the Academy has carried out an international comparison of panel structures and panel descriptions established by a number of international research funders.

The draft panel structure that has now been opened for comments consists of 41 panels, listed in alphabetical order. The panels have not been categorised by research council; any panel can assess applications to be decided by any of the Academy’s research councils. In other words, the applicant will independently choose

• the research council to which they want to submit the application for decision
• the panel to which they want to submit the application for review.

As a rule, the panel descriptions include a description of the general subject area and a list of the scientific disciplines, keywords and methods that the panel will cover. The panels are often multidisciplinary.

Explore the draft and take the survey:

• Draft panel structure for winter 2024 call (2 May 2023)
• Take the survey by 23 May 2023