Funding for research post as Postdoctoral Researcher 2021, all research fields

When applying for funding for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher, you apply for funding for your own salary for three years. You use the same application to apply for funding for your own research costs.

The aim of the funding for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher is to support the most talented researchers who have recently completed their doctoral degree in gaining competence for demanding researcher or expert positions. In the review of applications, particular attention will be paid to the international dimension of the research plan. Applicants are encouraged to take part in international mobility and cooperation.

We recommend that Postdoctoral Researchers provide (without separate compensation) supervision of thesis and dissertation writers in their own field and teaching associated with their field of expertise, covering 5% of annual working hours. However, no more than 10% of the annual working hours should be spent on teaching and other work not immediately associated with the researcher’s own research.

Researchers need a wide range of experience from working in different research and work environments to be able to increase their independence. By working in different kinds of research groups or in other research-related positions, researchers can further strengthen their personal networks and improve their chances of securing research positions or other expert tasks. For today’s researchers, it is also important to be able to acquire new methodological skills and adopt new means of communicating with people with different backgrounds.

The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering invites Postdoctoral Research applications from all fields it represents. The Research Council has reserved six additional posts to increase the number of Postdoctoral Researchers in the following fields of engineering: energy engineering, mechanical engineering and manufacturing technology, medical engineering, process engineering (incl. chemical engineering and biomass processing technology), electrical engineering and electronics, construction and municipal engineering, and environmental engineering.

The applicant is an individual researcher with the first doctoral certificate dated between 30 September 2017 and 22 September 2021. If the doctoral degree has been obtained simultaneously with medical specialist training, the doctoral certificate must be dated between 20 September 2013 and 22 September 2021.

Applicants who have completed their doctoral degree longer ago than the period mentioned above can be considered only for special reasons (maternity, paternity, parental or childcare leave, military service or nonmilitary service, or long-term illness). If you plead these special reasons, justify them in the application under ‘Personal data’, ‘Degrees’, ‘Additional information’. If these reasons are confidential, get in touch with the call’s contact person named in the call text (see Contacts).

Mobility requirement in September 2021 call

To be eligible to apply for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher, you must have changed or will be required to change research environments in Finland or abroad after PhD completion.

This change refers to physically moving from one research environment to another or to research-supporting working in another sector, for example in another field’s research team, institute, administration, hospital, organisation, business or occupation that is legitimately linked to the proposed research or that contributes to the research career. The mobility requirement can be met in two ways:

1. The mobility requirement is met if you are applying for Postdoctoral Researcher funding to a research environment other than the one where you completed your doctoral thesis.
2. If you are applying for Postdoctoral Researcher funding to the same research environment where you completed your doctoral thesis, you need to have at least six months of post-dissertation experience from another research environment or from research-supporting work in another sector. The experience may have been gained over several periods, but the two longest periods must equal at least six months. Statutory family leave or partial work ability will be taken into account. Part-time work must account for at least 50%.

Exceptions to the mobility requirement may be made only for special reasons and for individual applicants.

Examples of such reasons are:

1. Severe illness (either your own or a close relative’s) that significantly impedes mobility. The illness must be documented. Contact us at mobility@aka.fi.
2. Interruption of mobility period or cancellation of agreed mobility period due to Covid-19. If you have been unable to meet the mobility requirement due to Covid-19 (e.g. a foreign organisation has not been able to commit to acting as host), you must describe the reasons and be able to provide proof. Enter the justifications under ‘Mobility’ in the application form. Attach the relevant documents (e.g. invitation and airline tickets) on the tab ‘Appendices’ under ‘Mobility requirement, documents’. Name the attachment as follows: yoursurname_mobility.
3. Covid-19 has prevented you from meeting the mobility requirement of the September 2021 call, and it is not due to an interruption or a cancellation as described above. You must describe what you have done since PhD completion in order to meet the requirement of changing research environments. This may include co-publishing and/or data sharing and applying for co-funding with researchers other than those in your own research environment. Append to the application (tab ‘Appendices under ‘Mobility requirement, documents’) a letter of cooperation received from the other research environment describing the activity. Name the attachment as follows: yoursurname_mobility. Based on your description and documents, the Academy will decide whether you can be granted an exemption from the mobility requirement whether you are eligible to apply.

If you refer the above mentioned factors as reasons why you do not meet the mobility requirement, you must contact the Academy by email at mobility@aka.fi before you apply.

Read more about mobility in the Academy’s application guidelines: Mobility: Academy Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher.

Special terms and restrictions

In the September call, we will consider only one application per researcher if the application concerns Academy Project Funding (incl. a consortium subproject), Academy Research Fellow Funding, Postdoctoral Researcher Funding or Clinical Researcher Funding. If you do submit more than one application for any of these funding opportunities or apply for funding from more than one of them, we will only review the first application to arrive. Applications that are not reviewed will not be eligible for funding. An applicant for Postdoctoral Researcher funding may be named as a researcher in a concurrent application of another applicant.

If the applicant has ongoing Academy funding or completed projects for which a final report has not yet been submitted, they must prepare a progress report. This does not apply to applicants acting as the responsible person in funding schemes where the funding recipient is an organisation. Read more about drafting the report. If you have not submitted a final report on a completed, Academy-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

A person applying for post as a Postdoctoral Researcher may be granted funding for one three-year term only.

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.

An application will not be processed if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements, or if the application otherwise does not qualify for processing. A research council or another decision-making body may decide not to process and not to fund an application based on science policy objectives or if it is apparent for some other reason that the applicant cannot receive funding with the submitted application. Read more about the circumstances that may cause the Academy not to process or review an application.

The research councils will update their science policies in May‒June. The funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies will be updated on our website before the call opens. Read the research council policies before submitting your application.

A research post as Postdoctoral Researcher is intended for full-time research during a period of three years. The funding period is 1 September 2022–31 August 2025.

The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy in the 2022 state budget.

The funding granted for a Postdoctoral Researcher post is intended for the researcher’s salary for 36 months. The salary costs are determined in accordance with the pay system of the site of research. Postdoctoral Researchers may be granted funding for personal costs arising from research and mobility. Read more about the research councils’ policies concerning research costs.

The Postdoctoral Researcher’s site of research is an organisation based in Finland through which the funding is paid. During the funding period, the Postdoctoral Researcher may work abroad for periods of varying durations, for example at foreign universities.

The salary of a Postdoctoral Researcher may also be co-funded, where appropriate in terms of supporting the researcher’s career advancement. Read more about the co-funding in the funding terms and conditions.

The application must contain a funding plan drafted in line with the full cost model, including the funding to be applied for from the Academy (up to 70% of the total project costs). Read more about the full cost model.

You can apply for Academy funding to cover, for example, the following direct research costs:

• essential implementation costs
• applicant’s travel expenses
• cooperation in Finland and applicant’s own mobility
• international collaboration and applicant’s own mobility

Academy funding cannot be used for economic activity. Read more about the eligibility of economic operators.

Research team salaries

Funding will not be granted for hiring staff.

What is required from the site of research?

We require that the site of research (i.e. the applicant’s host organisation, e.g. a university, research institute or other research organisation) 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 costs of ensuring immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles are included in the overheads of the site of research and are thus part of the basic facilities provided by the site. The costs associated with storing and sharing research data are regarded as overheads for the project’s site of research. Only exceptionally and for justified reasons can they be accepted as research costs to be covered by Academy research funding. 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 the 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 will see to that this information is kept up to date in the online services. The information is provided as percentages.

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).

After a positive funding decision, the site of research will also approve the data management plan of the project.

Funding plan

In the application, provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure. Also include a funding plan that shows all funding granted for the project as well as funding that will be provided by the site of research if the project is launched. Before submitting the application, applicants must agree with the administration at their own organisation on the contribution of the site of research to the funding of the project. Only costs that pass through the books of the site of the research must be included in the total costs. You must check with your own organisation whether the funding planned as the own funding contribution suits this purpose. The funding applied for from the Academy must not exceed 70% of the total project costs. The cost estimate must be realistic.

When drafting the cost estimate, you must consider the research council policies that concern the granted funding (the policies will be updated in May–June).

The applicant and the site of research must agree on the Postdoctoral Researcher’s salary in advance. The monthly salary applied for from the Academy is primarily determined according to job grade 5 of the pay scale of teaching and research staff, which means about 3,200–4,500 euros/month. depending on the researcher’s experience and the pay level at the site of research.

All research costs must be justified in the free-text field in the online services under ‘Funding for the project’.

Mobility aid in research projects

The mobility aid is applied for as research costs related to the implementation of the research plan. The aid is applied for in accordance with the practices of the site of research. In order to obtain further information, you should contact the personnel and financial administration of the site of research.

The Academy grants mobility aid to cover a researcher’s costs of working abroad. In the online services, fill in the aid applied for on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ under ‘Travel costs’. The mobility aid must be justified. The aid may also be granted for family travel expenses, if this is in accordance with the practices of the site of research.

Research at EUI or IIASA 

If you apply for Postdoctoral Researcher funding, you can also apply to do research at the European University Institute (EUI) in Italy as part of the Postdoctoral Researcher term. The EUI can receive up to two Academy-funded Postdoctoral Researchers at a time to carry out research at the EUI for 1–2 years. You need not append a separate invitation from the EUI to your application or contact the EUI. However, please read about EUI research before applying and contact the Academy’s EUI contact person (see Contacts) when drafting your application.

During the Academy funding period, Postdoctoral Researchers can also visit the multidisciplinary International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. which focuses on global issues that require broad-based, multidisciplinary research cooperation. IIASA develops and utilises methods of systems analysis, but the applicant is not required to have knowledge of these methods. If your research is linked to one of IIASA’s research projects, you can agree on the visit with IIASA and append IIASA’s invitation to your application. You should also contact the Academy’s IIASA contact person for more details (see ‘Contacts’).

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable. The deadline for applications is 22 September 2021 at 16.15 Finnish time.

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 supplemented information 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.

If you have not submitted a final report on a completed or ongoing Academy-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

An application will not be processed if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements, or if the application otherwise does not qualify for processing. A research council or another decision-making body may decide not to process and not to fund an application based on science policy objectives or if it is apparent for some other reason that the applicant cannot receive funding with the submitted application. Read more about the circumstances that may cause the Academy not to process or review an application.

Publicity and data protection

Except for the research plan, plan of intent, abstract and progress 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.

The online application contains the following parts

Personal data

• Personal details
• Degrees (most recent one first); parental leaves etc. may be filled in under ‘Additional information’
• Titles of docent and professorships

CV

• CV following the template, no more than two pages

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.

Research plan

• Maximum length 12 pages
• See the guidelines on the structure of the research plan.
• See the how-to guides for the online services.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• Up to ten of your most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of your most important other 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 (the type will not show in the PDF version of the application).
• The information is used to assess the competence of the applicant to carry out the project.

Mobility

• Mobility requirement: If you apply for Postdoctoral Researcher funding, you must have completed a national or international mobility period of at least six months since PhD completion, or you must apply for the Postdoctoral Researcher post to a research environment other than where you completed your doctoral thesis. Read more about the mobility requirement.
• Justifications if you should be exempted from the mobility requirement due to the Covid-19 pandemic Attach the relevant documents to the application on the tab ‘Appendices’ under ‘Mobility requirement, documents’. More instructions are available under ‘Who can apply’ in the call text.
• Other period of mobility after doctorate
• Applicant’s planned national and/or international mobility period(s).
• See more information on mobility.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.

Collaborators

• Project collaborators, itemised by collaborator (name, organisation, country)
• Describe the collaborators’ project-relevant merits and the justifications for choosing them in section 3.2 of the research plan.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.

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

• Preliminary ethical review 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.
• The research ethics description is entered under section 4.1 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Funding for the project

• The project’s funding follows the full cost model. The Academy’s funding contribution to the research costs comes to no more than 70%.
• 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. The information is provided as percentages.
• Enter the funding period.
• Enter salaries and other costs.
• Enter other funding sources and their funding contributions. You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after your application to the Academy has been submitted.
• 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 the site of research.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters including spaces
• Popular and reader-friendly description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedish
• We will use the project description in our communications on the funded research project. The project description is also stored at Research.fi, a service that makes available information on research conducted in Finland.
• Read the guidelines on the public project description.

Progress report

• If you have ongoing Academy funding or completed projects for which no final report has yet been submitted, the projects to be reported are available on a separate tab in the online services. This does not apply to applicants acting as the responsible person in funding schemes where the funding recipient is an organisation.
• Maximum length per project is 1,500 characters including spaces.
• Describe the progress and/or key achievements of the project and how the project is related to the funding being applied for.
• Read more about drafting the report.
• Also see the How-to guides for the online services.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices:

• Complete list of publications. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• Finnish doctoral degree certificate or English-language doctoral degree certificate of a degree obtained abroad; please do not append any transcripts

Case-specific appendices:

• Letter of collaboration. Read more about the letter.
• Mobility requirement documents: If you argue that you should be exempted from the mobility requirement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, append the necessary documents. Read more under ‘Who can apply’ in the call text.

Authorisation

• You can authorise another person to supplement or view your application.
• Start by entering the person’s name in the field. If the person has an account in the online services (SARA), they can be selected from the list.
• The person must have an account in the Academy’s 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.

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 information is missing.
• You can supplement the application until the deadline. Resaving will replace the earlier version.
• If you want to supplement the application after the deadline, please get in touch with the Academy’s 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 applications are primarily reviewed by international panels. At least two individual reviews are requested for applications with a subject that does not fit into any of the panels.

The fundamental principles of the review are transparency, integrity, equity, competence and diversity. Read more about responsible researcher evaluation.

Review criteria

• scientific quality, innovativeness and novelty value of the research as well as its impact within the scientific community
• competence of applicant in terms of project implementation
• feasibility of research plan (incl. responsible science)
• quality of research environment and collaborative networks
• researcher mobility and researcher training.

Read the rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: Postdoctoral Researcher review form and review guidelines. The review guidelines and form are only available in English. The panel drafts one review report on each application. The review report is subject to professional secrecy. Applications that receive a final rating below 5 receive a brief panel summary on the application. The panel will also rank the applications that have received a rating of 5 or 6.

The funding decisions are based on the review reports and panel rankings. Additionally, the decisions are prepared considering the Academy of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions and other policies that guide the Academy’s activities. Read about how funding decisions are made.

The research councils will update their science policies in May‒June. The funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies will be updated on our website before the call opens. Read the research council policies before submitting your application.

The research councils will make the funding decisions in two stages in spring 2022. At the first stage, applications that have received rating below 5 in the review will receive a negative decision at the discretion of the research council concerned. The rest of the applications will be processed at the second stage (mainly applications that received a rating of 5–6). The second-stage funding decisions may be either positive or negative. Applicants receive an email notification of the funding decision after either the first or the second stage of decision-making.

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. In the online services, you will also have access to the review report, which may include the panel ranking (panels rank the best applications).

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the funding terms and conditions. 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. See the how-to guide: Decision notification, review reports and accepting funding.

The funds can be paid only after the applicant 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.

Biosciences, health and the environment

• Laura Forsström, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 041
• Outi Ala-Honkola, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 029
• Harri Hautala, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 019
• Päivi Lindfors, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 028
• Rita Rinnankoski-Tuikka, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 096
• Marko Uutela, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 113
• Vesa Yli-Pelkonen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 095

Natural sciences and engineering

• postdocs-nse@aka.fi
• Minna Räisänen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 072
• Hanna Pikkarainen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 155
• Maaria Lehtinen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 061
• Kati Sulonen,  Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 110

Culture and society

• Siru Oksa, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 125
• Päivi Pihlaja, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 016 
• Sampsa Kaataja, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 167
• Suvi Kansikas, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 047

EUI

• Päivi Pihlaja, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 016

IIASA

• Jaana Roos, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 151

Our email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname(at)aka.fi.

Feedback and questions

Questions about the mobility requirement:

• mobility@aka.fi