Flagship Programme call for 2nd four-year term for Flagships selected in 1st and 2nd Flagship Programme calls

The Academy of Finland’s Flagship Programme is an instrument that supports high-quality research and increases the societal impact emerging from the research. The Finnish Flagships represent an effective mix of close cooperation with business and society, adaptability and a strong commitment from host organisations.

In this call, host organisations of the Flagships selected in the first and second Flagship Programme calls are invited to submit funding applications for the second four-year term. The Flagships are:

• 6G Flagship: 6G-Enabled Wireless Smart Society & Ecosystem
• FinnCERES: Competence Centre for the Materials Bioeconomy
• FCAI: Finnish Centre for Artificial Intelligence
• iCAN: Digital Precision Cancer Medicine Flagship
• INVEST: Inequalities, Interventions and New Welfare State
• PREIN: Flagship on Photonics Research and Innovation.

The applications received in this call will serve as review material in the interim evaluation of the Flagships. The review material will also include interim reports provided to the Academy by the Flagships and results of a stakeholder survey that will be organised by the Academy in spring/summer 2021. The interim evaluation will be carried out by a panel of experts.

Based on the outcome of the interim evaluation, the funding for the second four-year term may increase, decrease, remain at the same level or cease entirely.

The funding can be applied for by host organisations of the Flagships selected in the first and second Flagship Programme calls. Consortium applications are accepted. If you are applying as a consortium, see the guidelines for consortium applications on our website.

The current host organisations may choose to include new partners in the Flagship if such a change is important for the success of the second four-year period of the Flagship. The possible new partners must be either Finnish higher education institutions or government research institutes.

The research organisation names the person responsible for the application. This person must begin filling in the application and submit it in the Academy’s online services. Management representatives of the research organisation issue the commitment of the site of research in the Academy’s online services.

The responsible person can authorise one or several persons to read or edit an incomplete application in the online services (under ‘Authorisation’). Please note that the authorisation is valid only when the call is open.

Special terms and restrictions

Members of the Academy Board and research councils and the Strategic Research Council will not be granted Academy funding during their terms.

Funding cannot be granted to a person who has participated in the planning of the call to an extent likely to give them a comparative advantage over other applicants.

We will not process an application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.

The Academy’s funding budget for this call comes to a maximum of 90 million euros. The funding is granted to be used for the actions described in the research and impact plan.

For the Flagships selected in the first Flagship Programme call (6G, FinnCERES), the funding period is 1 May 2022–31 June 2026.

For the Flagships selected in the second Flagship Programme call (FCAI, iCAN, INVEST, PREIN), the funding period is 1 September 2022–31 December 2026.

There will be a short overlap between the first and second funding periods. Note that funding originating from two funding decisions cannot be used for the same purpose, even if the funding periods overlap.

In analogy with the original budget of the Flagship, host organisations must be prepared to make a significant, steadily increasing investment in establishing and supporting the Flagships also during the second four-year period. Allocating funding not to individual research teams but to organisations that have a strong commitment to the Flagship Programme is a way to support the long-term development of competence clusters and their high-quality research and broad impact.

The resources planned for the Flagship and their development during the Flagship term are described in a separate table to be appended to the application (see ‘Application parts and guidelines’ for more details).

Funding may be granted for economic activity only if it can be granted in keeping with the EU’s state aid rules in the form of de minimis aid.

Funding plan

The call is implemented following the full cost model. The Academy of Finland’s funding contribution comes to 100%, covering the costs in full. The research organisations will not be required to contribute to the Academy’s funding.

Costs related to research infrastructures will be funded only if the infrastructure concerned is a ‘local infrastructure’ primarily operated by the university itself. The key instrument with which the Academy funds national and international research infrastructures is the funding provided by the Finnish Research Infrastructure Committee (FIRI). The Academy will not grant overlapping funding for research infrastructures.

What is required from the site of research?

We require that the site of research (e.g. university) provides the research project with all necessary basic facilities. These are determined based on the nature of the research and are the same as those available to other research staff at the site: office and laboratory premises, equipment (incl. computer equipment), and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services. When accepting the funding, the site of research is responsible for ensuring that necessary statements and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project. The site of research also commits to ensuring that the data management plan can be implemented at the site of research, and that the measures to be taken comply with good data management practice. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by site of research.

The application must also include the overheads percentage, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research. The site of research maintains these percentages in the online services under the site’s details.

When the site of research is a university or a research institute, as a rule, the funding must be applied for VAT included. Consult the financial administration at the site of research for more information. The Academy’s funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see Value added tax and read more in the funding terms and conditions).

Representatives of the applicant organisations will submit the applications in the Academy of Finland’s online services. In the online services, the representatives will also issue a commitment on behalf of the site of research. Applications can be submitted as of 1 April 2021. The call closes on 15 June 2021 at 16.15 Finnish time. The non-negotiable call deadline also applies to consortia.

How to submit and supplement the application

Make sure to submit the application in good time before the deadline. The system will only accept applications that contain all obligatory information. You can edit and supplement the application until the deadline. You can make changes to a submitted application (e.g. change appendices), but you must make them before the deadline. If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline, immediately get in touch with the call’s contact person, so that they can reopen the application for you. Make sure to re-submit the application after you have supplemented it. We will consider the additions insofar as it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process. We may ask you to supplement the application. If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, we may decide not to process it. You must make sure that your contact details (email address) are up to date.

How the application becomes pending

According to section 17 of the Finnish Administrative Procedure Act and section 8 of the Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public Sector, the sender is responsible for the application arriving by the set deadline. An application becomes pending at the Academy when the online application and the obligatory appendices have been submitted in the online services. The system will confirm a successful submission by sending an email to the address you have provided.

Publicity and data protection

Except for the research and impact plan, plan of intent, abstract and interim report, which are primarily confidential, the application and its appendices are public documents. For example, the CV is a public document and as such must not include any confidential information. This publicity is based on the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities. The Academy is committed to following regulations on data protection. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on our website under Data protection.

The application consists of forms completed in the online services and PDF appendices. As an applicant, you have the right to submit your application in Finnish or Swedish, but we ask that you to submit it in English to facilitate the international review.

Most of the links below take you to the A–Z index of application guidelines on our website.

The online application contains the following parts

Personal data

• Personal details of the applicant/the organisation’s responsible person

Consortium parties (if applicable)

• Details on each party (name, email address, organisation and country)
• Read the guidelines for consortium applications.
• If new partners are included in the Flagship, please list them here.

General information

• Details on the site of research
• Title of research project in English and Finnish/Swedish
• Research fields (at least one, no more than five). See the research field classification.
• Keywords in English and Finnish/Swedish

Abstract

• Maximum length 2,500 characters including spaces
• Brief overview of scientific and societal objectives, research methods and data as well as expected research results and impact
• Read more about the abstract.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• Up to ten of your (or the consortium’s) most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of your (or the consortium’s) most important key outputs with justifications
• You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service. Also see our how-to guide for the online services.
• Details on publications may also be entered manually. Obligatory information: author(s), title, year of publication, name of series/journal, type of publication (will not show in the PDF version of the application).

Affiliations

• Research infrastructures: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project plans to use. The menu includes infrastructures included in Finland’s national roadmap and/or ESFRI’s roadmap. Other possible infrastructures are entered in a free-text field. Read more about research infrastructures.
• Centres of Excellence in Research: Read more about Centres of Excellence.
• Finnish Flagships: Read more about the Finnish Flagship Programme.

Research ethics

• Ethical permit for project and/or animal testing permit (yes/no)
• Found guilty of research misconduct (yes/no). We will not process a funding application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Funding for the project – 100% full cost model

• Before you can fill in the cost estimate, you must first select the site of research on the tab ‘General information’.
• The site of research maintains the following percentages: effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT.
• Enter the funding period.
• Enter salaries and other costs. Use only one line for each salary category. For example, salaries for all the professors will be combined together.
• Justify the funding to be applied for. The cost estimate must be realistic.
• Consult the administration at your site of research when filling in budget details. Read more about the funding in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.
• Commitment by site of research. Make sure you have a commitment from your site of research (usually a university or research institute) to supporting the project. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by site of research and in the ‘Appendices’ section below.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters including spaces
• Popular and reader-friendly description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedish
• The public description helps AKA to disseminate information on the research project. The project description is also stored at research.fi, which makes available information on research conducted in Finland.
• Read the guidelines on the public project description.

Research and impact plan

• Maximum length 15 pages
• See the guidelines on the structure of the research and impact plan (PDF).
• See the how-to guides for the online services.

Authorisation

• You can authorise another person to supplement or view your application.
• Start by entering the person’s name in the field.
• The person must have an account in the AKA online services (SARA).
• You cannot authorise more than one person at a time to edit a field in your application, and you cannot edit that same field while the authorisation is active.
• Do not authorise yourself.
• See technical instructions on the authorisation process in the how-to guides for the online services.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices

• Resource table following the structure in given in the template (4 pages + 1 page per partner). Describe the resources of the Flagship for the years 2022–2026. The figures are given with an accuracy of 0.1 million euros. In addition to the table, give a short textual explanation of the intended use of the funding. For each row in the table, briefly explain the principles used in producing the figures. Also briefly explain the monitoring of the resources allocated, together with a risk assessment related to the expected budget growth.

Submit application

• You can submit the application when you have filled in or attached all the necessary information.
• A red warning triangle on the tab tells you that some information is missing.
• You can supplement the application until the four-week limit. Resaving will replace the earlier version.
• If you want to supplement the application after the four-week limit, please get in touch with the contact persons listed in the call text.

Academy of Finland funding is granted based on peer review. We mainly use foreign experts as reviewers. The interim review will be carried out by a panel of experts.

The applications received in this call will serve as review material in the interim evaluation of the Flagships. The review material will also include interim reports provided to the Academy by the Flagships and results of a stakeholder survey that will be organised by the Academy in spring/summer 2021. Considering all of the above, the panel will prepare a written review report on each application.

The review reports by the panel will be forwarded to the host organisation representatives, and the director and vice director of the Flagship, after the panel review and before the possible interview by the Flagship Programme Subcommittee (see section ‘Funding decisions’ for more details).

The applications will be reviewed paying close attention to the Flagship Programme’s objectives concerning internationally top-level research, impact in support of economic growth and/or society, and the role and participation of collaborators. Support provided by the Flagship for the building of internationally competitive competence centres and ecosystems in Finland, together with the principles of responsible science, will also play a role in the review.

Review criteria:

• Demonstrated scientific excellence and impact in support of economic growth and/or society during the first two years of Flagship operation
• Plan for promoting scientific excellence and impact in support of economic growth and/or society for the remaining four-year funding period and beyond
• Evolution of the ecosystem and organisation of the Flagship

Read the review questions that will be used in the review: review form (PDF) and review guidelines for panel (PDF). The Academy’s review guidelines and forms are only available in English.

The funding decisions will be made by the Academy of Finland’s Flagship Programme Subcommittee based on the reports of the review panel and the aims of the Flagship Programme. Based on the outcome of the interim evaluation, the funding for the second four-year term may increase, decrease, remain at the same level or cease entirely.

The Subcommittee will make the funding decisions by the end of 2021. It reserves the possibility to call the Flagship representatives for an interview before funding decisions are made.

You will receive an email notification after the funding decision has been made. After receiving the email, you can log in to the online services with your user ID to view the decision and its justifications. A positive funding decision will be accompanied by the terms and conditions of funding.

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the terms and conditions of funding. Make sure to check the decision and accept the funding and its terms in the online services without delay. This must be done via the Academy’s online services within eight weeks of the decision date, unless otherwise stated in the special conditions of the decision notification.

Before you accept the funding, update the popular project description (if necessary), make changes to the annual instalments (if necessary) and attach the data management plan (drafted according to the guidelines). Once you have accepted the funding, the system will send a notification to the commitment issuer at the site of research. That person must also accept the granted funding.

The funds can be paid only after the person responsible for the application and the representative of the site of research have accepted them. The system will then notify the funding to the finance administration of the site of research, whereupon the funds will be ready to use.

• Resource table template (4 pages + 1 page per partner) to be appended to the application in PDF format.

All inquiries should be sent to flagship@aka.fi.

• Maiju Gyran, Senior Science Adviser
• Sirpa Nuotio, Senior Science Adviser
• Jukka Tanskanen, Senior Science Adviser