Funding for mobility cooperation with Japan, Germany or Mainland China 2024

At the core of the Research Council of Finland’s activities is to provide funding for excellent scientific research. The research we fund is also expected to have high scientific and societal impact and follow the principles of responsible science.

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

The funding is intended for mobility from Finland to Japan, Germany or Mainland China (necessary travel and living expenses) within joint projects with Japan, Germany or Mainland China.

The Finnish and foreign/local research teams will draft a joint research plan. However, the research plans submitted to the Research Council of Finland and the foreign/local funder need not be identical.

Visits may be planned for several periods, from one week up to a few months. The mobility cooperation must be balanced so that researchers from both parties engage in roughly the same amount of mobility, unless there are special reasons for clearly more mobility in one direction. These special reasons must be indicated in the research plan under item 1.3.

The Research Council of Finland and the foreign funders jointly agree on the projects to be funded, but pay for the travel and living expenses of the researchers in their own country in accordance with their own funding terms. The Research Council of Finland will cover reasonable travel and living expenses.

The applicant is a researcher with a doctoral degree who is based in Finland and has close connections to Finland. Consortium applications are not accepted.

Special terms and restrictions

You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after you have submitted your application to us.

We will not consider (process) an application by 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 consider (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 the application includes cooperation with Russia or Belarus, you must take into account our policies on the matter.

Please also take note of the guidelines on dual-use products in our funding terms and conditions.

If you have not submitted a final report on a completed or ongoing Research Council of Finland-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to consider (process) your application.

An application will not be considered (processed) if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements set for the call, or if there are otherwise no conditions for processing the case.

A scientific council or another decision-making body may decide 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 consider or process an application.

We will not consider (process) an application if the applicant is a member of the Research Council of Finland’s Board or scientific councils or the Strategic Research Council.

According to preliminary information, the JSPS deadline for applications by Japanese parties is 3 September 2024.

The project duration must be at least one and no more than two years. The project must start between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026.

The granted funding is no more than 30,000 euros per project for two years. Funding will not be granted for research costs or seminars. Two projects will be selected for funding.

The next call for applications has been scheduled for 2026.

According to preliminary information, the DAAD deadline for applications by German parties is 10 September 2024. The name of the German funding programme is PPP Program.

The funding can cover the mobility costs of research team members who are at least at the postgraduate level. The amount is no more than 20,000 euros per project for two years. Funding will not be granted for research costs or seminars.

The earliest start date for the funding period is 1 March 2025.

Collaborators whose previous two-year funding period ends by 1 March 2025 may apply for another two-year funding period if they adopt a new approach to the topic or take on a completely new topic.

The collaborators may apply for an extension of the two-year project for a third year if the extension can easily contribute to achieving additional research results or other additional research benefits. This third-year extension must be justified in the research plan under item 1.1.

The funding period is 1 May 2025–30 April 2027.

Funding will be granted for mobility of research team members. If necessary, you may also apply for funding for project-related seminars in Finland. Funding is not available for research costs or for mobility costs of NSFC-funded researchers to attend seminars.

The funding comes to no more than 30,000 euros per project for two years.

The funding period is 1 March 2025–29 February 2028.

Funding will be granted for mobility of research team members. If necessary, you may also apply for funding for project-related seminars in Finland. Funding is not available for research costs or for mobility costs of CAS-funded researchers to attend seminars.

The funding comes to no more than 30,000 euros per project for three years.

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 that you to submit it in English to facilitate the international review.

Before the call opens

Check your eligibility

• Read the section Who can apply? to see whether you meet the eligibility criteria.

Plan the contents of your application

• Start drafting your research plan and CV.
• Draft the above appendices on our templates (see Application parts in the online services). Read the instructions on using the templates. You have access to the templates even before the call opens.
• Read the review guidelines and review form. Write your research plan in such a way that reviewers can easily find the answer to the review questions.

Plan the funding of your project

• Draft the budget in line with the guidelines of your organisation. Read more about the amount of funding and the terms and conditions in the call text under Funding to be applied for and funding period.
• Contact your organisation’s support services now if you have any budget-related questions.
• Also read our funding terms and conditions. If you are granted funding, you are also bound by the terms and conditions.

When the call opens

• Sign up or log in to our online services. Check and update your personal details. Your up-to-date email address is important when we are in contact with you.
• Detailed instructions on filling in the application form are available in the online services.

Application parts in the online services

The different parts of the application are listed below. A comprehensive A–Z index of application guidelines is available on our website. Instructions for filling in the application form are also on the tabs of the form.

• Personal details
• CV: Draft the CV following the template (no more than three pages).
• General information: topic, keywords and scientific disciplines of the project, details on the site of research
• Abstract
• Most relevant publications and other outputs: the ten most project-relevant publications or other research outputs. Detailed instructions available on the application form.
• Mobility: International mobility for which funding is applied. Please indicate on the form only the planned mobility (names, organisations, destinations, length of visits) of the Finnish research team (those for whom funding is applied for).
• Collaborators: Project’s foreign collaborator (foreign person responsible for the mobility cooperation, their name, organisation and country). Describe the collaborator’s project-relevant key merits and provide justifications for choosing the collaborator in section 2.1 of the research plan.
• Affiliation to research infrastructures, Centres of Excellence and Finnish Flagships
• Research ethics
• Project’s funding and commitment by site of research. See section ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’ in the call text.
• Public project description
• Progress report on all Research Council of Finland-funded projects that have not yet submitted final reports

Obligatory appendices

• Research plan, maximum length six pages. See the guidelines on the structure of the research plan.
• Complete list of publications by the applicant. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• CV and list of publications for foreign PI. These may be drafted following the instructions of the foreign funder.
• CVs for the Finnish researchers for whom Research Council of Finland mobility funding is applied for. The CVs must be combined into the same file with the foreign PI’s CV. The Finnish PI’s CV is filled in on the CV tab.

Submitting the application in the online services

You can submit the application when you have filled in or attached all the necessary information. A red warning triangle tells you that there is an error or information missing.

You can authorise a person to edit or view the application on the tab ‘Authorisation’.

Submit your application in good time. You can supplement and edit the application and change appendices until the call deadline.

The earliest start date for the funding period is 1 March 2025. 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 in the 2024 state budget.

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

The mobility funding is granted in the form of an appropriation, which is paid via the applicant’s Finnish site of research. The funding does not cover insurances, so the applicant and the other researchers supported by the mobility funding must take out appropriate insurance and prepare for tax consequences.

The funding to be applied for must be itemised and specified in section 1.5 of the research plan. It is recommended that the funding amount be determined in line with standard practice at the site of research. Short-term visits (up to two weeks) may also be carried out following the state travel regulations.

The researcher should take into account the guidelines of the Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution Mela, in particular with regard to visits of more than four (4) months. The full cost model does not apply to the Research Council of Finland’s mobility funding.

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 is justified in the research plan under item 1.5.

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

On the tab ‘Funding for the project’, provide the following information:

• Enter the funding period. The funding period is usually a two-year period when the funding is available. Please note that the planned dates of the visits are entered under item 1.3 of the research plan.
• Enter the travel expenses for which funding is applied.
• Enter the amount of other costs (only travel and living expenses and costs of organising a seminar with NSFC and CAS in Finland are eligible for funding).
• The cost estimate must be realistic.
• You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after you have submitted your application to us.
• The commitment of the site of research is a requirement for the granting of funding. Make sure that your Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute) is committed to supporting the project. Read more: commitment by site of research.

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

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?

The site of research is a Finnish research organisation such as a university or a research institute.

We require that the site of research 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.

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. Our funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see VAT and read more in our funding terms and conditions).

Read more in the guidelines for sites of research.

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable. We will not consider (process) an application that has not been submitted by deadline. The deadline for applications is 25 September 2024 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. The applicant is responsible for ensuring that the content of the application appendices is correct.

You can edit and supplement the application until the deadline. For example, you can change the appendices to the application.

If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline, immediately get in touch with us via our helpdesk, so that the application can be reopened for supplementation. We will consider the supplemented information only if it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.

We may ask you to supplement the application. In that case, you will receive a supplementation request by email. If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, or if the application is substantially incomplete even after a request for supplementary information, we may declare it inadmissible (i.e. it will not be processed). Make sure that your email address is 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.

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 secret information. This publicity is based on the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

We are 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 notice concerning the research funding process is available on our website under Data protection.

The review of mobility applications will focus on the following aspects, among others:

• 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
• scientific merits of the research groups
• how the teams complement each other
• increasing international collaboration
• participation of early-career researchers
• added value of research cooperation.

The JSPS, NSFC, CAS and DAAD will review the mobility applications they receive.

See the Research Council of Finland’s rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: review form. The Research Council of Finland’s review forms are only available in English.

The Research Council of Finland’s Subcommittee for Mobility Funding will make the funding decisions in early 2025.

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(s), 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. If the funding is subject to conditions that differ from or specify the Research Council’s funding terms and conditions, these are indicated in the specific conditions of the decision notification.

This must be done within eight weeks of the decision date, unless otherwise stated in the special conditions of the decision notice.

Before you accept the funding:

• If necessary, update the popular project description. If a project is granted funding, we will publish a description of the project on our website. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience.

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.

• Ulla Ellmén, Science Adviser (Germany, Japan), tel. +358 295 335 011
• Siru Oksa, Senior Science Adviser (Mainland China), tel. +358 295 335 125

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

Questions and feedback (helpdesk)