Mobility invitation from Taiwan or Russia to Finland

The Academy of Finland’s mobility funding is based on bilateral agreements and supports the Academy’s general science policy objectives. The funding promotes the international interactions of Finnish researchers as well as the internationalisation of Finnish research environments.

The funding is intended for a researcher’s or a research team’s mobility costs (necessary travel and living expenses).

This mobility invitation call concerns Taiwan and Russia.

The funding is applied for by a researcher based in Finland. The applicant must have at least a higher academic degree, but preference is given to researchers with a doctoral degree.

Special terms and restrictions

The funding is grant in the form of an appropriation. As a rule, funding may be allocated to an invitee for a maximum period of 12 months. More information on the appropriation is available under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’ in the call text.

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. 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.

Members of the Academy Board, 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 earliest start date for the funding period is 1 February 2022. The funding period (the period during which the funding may be used) is usually two 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 2022 state budget.

The funding may be granted for a period of 7–360 days for a two-year funding period. As a rule, the funding may be allocated to one person for a maximum period of up to 12 months. The months may consist of funding decisions from several different years. If funding is applied for for a total period of more than 12 months, this must be separately justified in section 1.3 of the research plan. The justification may relate, for example, to the quality of research cooperation or the special impact and renewal of long-term cooperation. The funding granted under a single call may not, however, exceed twelve months per invitee.

The mobility funding is granted to a Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute). The applicant must have a close connection with Finland.

The funding is intended for a researcher’s or a research team’s mobility costs (necessary travel and living expenses).

The mobility funding is granted in the form of an appropriation, which is paid via a Finnish site of research. The funding does not cover insurances, so applicants must take out appropriate insurance for the grant period.

The funding to applied for must be itemised on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ in the online services as well as in the research plan under item 1.4. The funding must also be justified. The funding may be calculated based on the table of personal grant amounts. In the case of long visits of more than four months, applicants should take into account the guidelines of the Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution of Finland. The full cost model does not apply to the Academy’s mobility funding.

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 preliminary ethical reviews and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project.

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).

Funding plan

In the application, provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure (travel expenses, other costs).

All funding to be applied for must be justified in the free-text field on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ as well as under item 1.4 of the research plan.

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, abstract and progress report, 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 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 mobility funding to Taiwan is based on a bilateral agreement between the Academy of Finland and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan.

From Taiwan to Finland

The name of the call is ‘Mobility invitation from Taiwan or Russia to Finland’. Finnish researchers acting as hosts may apply for a grant to invite Taiwanese researchers to Finland to conduct research. The Academy of Finland covers reasonable round-trip travel expenses from Taiwan to Finland and living expenses in Finland. The duration of the visit may be at least one week and at most 360 days during the 24-month funding period.

There may be several visits during the funding period, if this is appropriate for the implementation of the plan. The invitee must have a clear affiliation with a Taiwanese university or research institute from where they will visit the applicant’s site of research in Finland.

The funding is granted in the form of an appropriation managed by the applicant’s Finnish site of research. The funding is intended for reasonable round-trip travel expenses, for travel expenses related to the scientific programme in Finland and for living expenses, including costs of accommodation. The funding does not includes overheads. The funding may be used in accordance with the rules of the site of research either as grants, expenses reimbursements or as a combination thereof.

From Russia to Finland

The name of the call is ‘Mobility invitation from Taiwan or Russia to Finland’. Finnish researchers (i.e. the hosts of the visit) can apply for an appropriation to invite Russian researchers to Finland to do research. The Academy of Finland covers reasonable round-trip travel expenses from Russia to Finland and living expenses in Finland. The duration of the visit may be at least one week and at most 360 days during the 24-month funding period.

There may be several visits during the funding period, if this is appropriate for the implementation of the plan. The invitee must have a clear affiliation with a Russian university or research institute from where they will visit the applicant’s site of research in Finland.

The funding is granted in the form of an appropriation managed by the applicant’s Finnish site of research. The funding is intended for reasonable round-trip travel expenses, for travel expenses related to the scientific programme in Finland and for living expenses, including costs of accommodation. The funding does not includes overheads. The funding may be used in accordance with the rules of the site of research either as grants, expenses reimbursements or as a combination thereof.

The funding is primarily granted to invitees with at least a Candidate of Sciences degree (“kandidat nauk”, according to the Russian degree structure). If funding is available, Candidate of Sciences students (aspirant) may also be funded. The invitee’s research career stage must be clearly indicated in the research plan under item 2.1.

The same application can be used to apply for funding for more than one invitee at the same time if the scientific part of the visit is related to the same project. The requested information must be provided on all invitees.

The application cannot be used by a PI to apply for funding for their own mobility from Finland to Russia. Funding for the PI’s mobility is applied for with a separate application (see the call ‘Mobility grant from Finland to Japan, Taiwan or Russia’).

The application consists of a form completed in the online services and its PDF appendices. As an applicant, you have the right to submit your application in Finnish or Swedish, but we ask you to submit it in English.

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
• 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 Finnish 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 5 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 (will not show in the PDF version of the application)
• The information is used to assess the competence of the applicant or consortium to carry out the project.

Mobility

• International mobility for which funding is applied
• Read more about the Academy’s aims concerning mobility.

Collaborators

• Project’s foreign collaborator (invitee’s/invitees’ name/s, organisation/s and country/countries)
• Describe the collaborators’ project-relevant key merits and provide justifications for choosing them in section 2.1 of the research plan.

Affiliations

• Research infrastructures: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project will 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.
• If necessary, the research ethics description is entered under section 1.2 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Funding for the project

• Enter the funding period. The funding period is usually a two-year period when the funding is available. In the research plan, enter the planned dates of the visit (7–360 days).
• Enter the travel expenses.
• Enter other costs.
• 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.
• The cost estimate must be realistic.

• Commitment by site of research. Make sure that the Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute) is committed 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.
• Maximum length per project is 1,500 characters including spaces.
• Describe the progress 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 by the applicant. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• CV for the invitee, clearly indicating highest academic degree, date of birth and previous visits to Finland on grants or other funding
• List of publications by the invitee

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 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 mobility applications will focus on the following aspects, for example:

• How does the applicant justify why and for what purposes the funding is applied for?
• How does the application address the objective of the funding as regards promoting the international interaction of Finnish researchers and increasing the internationalisation of Finnish research environments?
• What is the quality, impact and renewal potential of the research cooperation described in the application?

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

In the review of the applications, focus will be placed on the following:

• scientific quality of project
• invitee’s scientific merits
• applicant’s scientific merits
• added value of research cooperation
• increasing international collaboration
• participation of early-career researchers.

Read the rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: review form and review guidelines. The review guidelines and forms are only available in English.

The research councils will make the funding decisions in early 2022.

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. There you can also read the review report on your application.

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.

If necessary, update the popular project description before you accept the funding. 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 for the online services.

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.

Ulla Ellmén, Science Adviser (Taiwan), tel. +358 295 335 011

Siru Oksa, Science Adviser (Russia), tel. +358 295 335 125

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

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