Research Council of Finland to open new call to support university research profiling

In May 2024, the Research Council of Finland will launch a funding call to strengthen the research profiles of Finnish universities. The Profi 8 call has a total budget of 100 million euros, which will be granted to support research-related profiling measures taken at universities.

The aim of the competitive funding to strengthen university research profiles (Profi) is to support and speed up the strategic profiling of Finnish universities in order to improve the quality of research.

The funding is fixed-term and may be granted to support profiling areas chosen by Finnish universities based on their strategy. The funding aims to speed up the development of these areas.

Based on their own strategies, the universities will set out concrete plans for how they intend to improve the quality and impact of their research. In the plans, the universities describe how they intend to promote strengths, thematic research programmes or emerging research fields, and provide a clear schedule for these measures.

Funding can be applied for in one or several profiling areas. The university can choose the desired profiling area freely. The area can continue a previously planned development of a profiling area, be completely new or combine different profiling areas.

The Profi 8 call text will be published on 2 May 2024. The call opens on 15 May 2024 at the earliest and closes by 12 June 2024.

The General Subcommittee of the Research Council of Finland will make the funding decisions in December 2024 and January 2025. The funding period starts on 1 January 2025 and ends no later than 31 December 2030. Research Council of Finland funding is granted based on peer review. Profi 8 applications will be reviewed by an international review panel in September 2024.