Funding for sport science research projects from Ministry of Education, Science and Culture 2022

The Finnish Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is keen to fund research that is highly applicable. It supports research into themes defined in its policy document on sport science.

Detailed descriptions of the current themes and policies are available in the Ministry’s call text.

The scientific review of applications follows the Academy of Finland’s review practices and criteria. The Ministry will make the final funding decisions.

The applicant is a research organisation. You should enter as the applicant the organisation where the research is mainly carried out or where it is coordinated (site of research). The project should name a PI who is responsible for carrying out the project and coordinating the funding. The PI must have a doctoral degree.

The PI of the application cannot be changed while the application is being processed at the Academy (after the call has closed but before the decision). The only exception to this is if the PI dies.

Special terms and restrictions

In accordance with the Finnish Act on Discretionary Government Transfers, a research project cannot receive simultaneous Ministry and Academy funding for the same purpose. Nevertheless, if applying for funding for different parts of a large-scale project simultaneously from both the Ministry and the Academy, you must address the applications to both agencies and with different research plans.

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.

If the application includes cooperation with Russia or Belarus, you must take into account the Ministry's policies on the matter.

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 decision may be made 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 us not to process or review an application.

The funding period may begin on 1 April 2023 at the earliest. You may use the funding until the end of the year following the funding decision. The Ministry will make the funding decisions in spring 2023. The Ministry will fund an individual project for no more than three years.

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 2023 state budget.

Government grants may only be used for the purpose for which they have been awarded. Government grants awarded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture may cover at most the share specified in the government grant decision of the total costs incurred from the activities for which the government grant was disbursed or of the actual total costs of the project. The eligible costs are determined in the government grant decision and its appendices.

The salaries to be covered with the grant must be determined according to the usual salary level of the site of research.

A maximum of 15% of the Ministry grant can be used for the project’s overheads, which cover the necessary basic facilities for the project receiving research funding. Though determined based on the nature of the research, they are usually the same as those available to other research staff at the institution: office and laboratory premises, equipment (including computer equipment) and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services.

The grant can cover, for example, the following direct research costs:

• research team salaries, including the PI’s salary
• essential implementation costs (materials, supplies, goods)
• participation in conferences and meetings (up to 5,000 euros per year)
• other expenses.

The Ministry’s current policies as well as the eligible costs are presented in more detail in the Ministry’s application guidelines.

Only for compelling reasons can government grants be awarded to cover salary costs in cases where the applicant has obstacles related to illegal employment, as referred to in section 7(2) of the Finnish Act on Discretionary Government Transfers.

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 ethical reviews 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 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 the detailed guidelines for using funding in the Ministry's application guidelines.

Funding plan

The project’s cost estimate is presented on a separate appendix (Ministry’s appendix form 14 for the 2023 call). An estimate of the annual need for funding by type of expenditure is entered on the form. 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. Government grants may only be used for the purpose for which they have been awarded. Government grants awarded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture may cover at most the share specified in the government grant decision of the total costs incurred from the activities for which the government grant was disbursed or of the actual total costs of the project. The eligible costs are determined in the government grant decision and its appendices.

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable. The deadline for applications is 5 October 2022 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 at the Academy of Finland, 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 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.

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 decision may be made 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 us not to process or review an application.

Publicity and data protection

Except for the research plan, plan of intent and abstract, which are primarily subject to professional secrecy, 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 of Finland is committed to following regulations on data protection. The applicant is responsible for the disclosure of the personal data contained in the application and, where appropriate, for requesting the consent of the parties concerned. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on the Academy 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

• Maximum length three pages
• The CV must follow the structure provided in the template.

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
• See guidelines on the abstract.

Research plan

• Maximum length twelve pages
• Submit the research plan as a PDF appendix on a separate tab in the online services.
• See the guidelines on the structure of the research plan. The research plan for sport science research projects applying for funding from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture follows the structure of a research plan for an Academy Project. You must follow the given structure. Please use the headings provided.
• The application cannot be submitted if the system detects an error in the page configuration or the structure.
• See the how-to guides for the online services.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• The PI enters up to ten of the most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of the most important other outputs, with justifications.
• You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service. Also see the How-to guides for the online services.
• There are separate fields for selected publications and other research outputs. If the desired output type is not listed, select ‘Other, what?’ and enter the name of the output.
• 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

• Describe planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person.
• See more information on mobility.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Collaborators

• Project collaborators, itemised by collaborator (name, organisation, country)
• Describe the collaborators’ roles and project-relevant key merits and provide 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.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

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.
• Guilty of illegal employment within the meaning referred to in section 7(2) of the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers (yes/no)
• The research ethics description is entered under section 4 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

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 project description helps the funder to disseminate information on the research project. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. The project description is also stored at fi, a service that makes available information on research conducted in Finland.
• Read the guidelines on the public project description.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files. See the necessary forms in the Ministry’s application guidelines.

Obligatory appendices:

• Complete list of publications for the PI. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• Sport science research funded by Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, appendix form 14 for 2023 call

Case-specific appendices:

• Letter of collaboration. Read more about the letter. As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.
• Form accounting for the use of discretionary government grant awarded for sport science research

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 some information is missing.
• You can edit and 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.

The review of applications follows the Academy’s practices and criteria. The Academy of Finland takes care of the scientific review of the applications in peer-review panels. We mainly use foreign experts as reviewers.

The applications are primarily reviewed in 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.

In addition to scientific quality, the review will focus on how the applications meet the policy lines indicated in the Ministry’s application guidelines. This aspect will be assessed by the National Sports Council, which will submit its statement to the Ministry.

Review criteria

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

See the rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: sport science review form and review guidelines. The Academy’s review guidelines and forms are only available in English. The panel drafts one review report on each application. The review report is subject to professional secrecy.

After the peer review, in accordance with section 6 of the Act on the Promotion of Sports and Physical Activity and section 2 of the Decree on the Promotion of Sports and Physical Activity, the National Sport Council will give the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture a statement on the government grants. The Ministry will then decide the grants based on the statement and inform the applicants of the decisions.

In its decisions, the Ministry will take into account the application's scientific review by the Academy of Finland and the statement of the project’s relevance for sports policy by the National Sport Council.

The Ministry will evaluate the project’s scientific review, its relation to the chosen themes based on the Sport Council’s statement, the available appropriation, and the project’s necessity to filling in research gaps.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is not bound by the reviews by the Academy of Finland and the National Sport Council.

You will find detailed descriptions of the valid criteria in the Ministry’s call text.

The aim is to make the funding decisions concerning new sport science research projects by the end of March 2023.

After the funding decisions have been made, the Ministry will inform the applicants of their decision. Applicants will also receive an email notification of the decision. After receiving the email, you can log in to the online services with your user ID to view the expert review on your application.

Funding recipients are requested to submit a data management plan in accordance with the instructions to the Academy’s Registrar’s Office (kirjaamo@aka.fi) within eight weeks of the decision date.

Questions about the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture’s call (call objective, eligibility, restrictions, decisions, payment):

• Samuli Rasila, Senior Specialist, tel. +358 29 533 0057, firstname.lastname(at)gov.fi

Questions about the Academy’s online services, simultaneous application in the Ministry’s and the Academy’s calls, review of applications:

• Rita Rinnankoski-Tuikka, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 096, firstname.lastname(at)aka.fi