2024 NSF program: Global Centers (GC) Use-Inspired Research Address-ing Global Challenges through the Bioeconomy

The Global Centers program is an NSF-led effort, implemented in partnership with other international funding agencies, to encourage and support large-scale collaborative use-inspired research to address global challenges through the bioeconomy and may include research from any combination of scientific disciplines supported by NSF. The program will expect proposals for holistic, multidisciplinary projects that demonstrate integration of all international teams as well as the relevant scientific disciplines, including educational and social sciences necessary to achieve use-inspired outcomes.

The Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) welcomes submission of proposals to this funding opportunity that includes participation of the full spectrum of diverse talent in STEM (e.g., as PI, co-PI, senior personnel, postdoctoral scholars, graduate or undergraduate students, or trainees).  This includes historically under-represented or underserved populations, diverse institutions including Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), and two-year colleges, as well as major research institutions. Proposals from EPSCoR jurisdictions are especially encouraged.

The specific subtopics within the solicitation are based on NSF’s areas of strength and unique contributions to the Bioeconomy Executive Order and the Bold Goals For U.S. Biotechnology And Biomanufacturing. Priority bold goals for NSF include, but are not limited to, Leveraging Biodiversity Across the Tree of Life to Power the Bioeconomy, and Biofoundries (also called the Design-Build-Test-Learn process). All proposals are expected to integrate two crosscutting themes into their plans for a center: public engagement and cogeneration of research activities to strengthen the global science and technology enterprise, and workforce development and education, including clear statements regarding the impact on the communities that the research serves.

The use-inspired nature of the research (project outcomes leading to foreseeable benefits to society) requires early involvement and integration of stakeholder groups. Bioeconomy research resulting from funded proposals should produce actionable and/or policy-relevant outcomes that address one or more global challenges as identified by the scientific community. NSF partner countries in this second Global Centers competition are Canada, Finland, Japan, Republic of Korea, and United Kingdom. International funding organizations, hereafter called funding partner agencies, are as follows:

Partner Agencies

United States

• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

Canada

• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Finland

• Research Council of Finland
• Innovation Funding Agency Business Finland

Japan

• Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST)

Republic of Korea

• Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (MSIT)
• National Research Foundation (NRF)

United Kingdom

• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Synopsis of program

This solicitation describes an ambitious new program to fund international, interdisciplinary collaborative research centers that will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired bioeconomy research to address one or more global challenges identified by the scientific community. This program will prioritize research collaborations that foster team science and community-engaged research, use knowledge-to-action frameworks (Graham et al. 2006. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof.), and indicate how research will be co-generated with communities and stakeholders identified in the proposal. The proposed research should maximize the benefits of international, interdisciplinary collaborations, and describe the roles and responsibilities of each national team in achieving the goals of the proposed Global Center. Global Centers projects involving partnership between the U.S. and two or more partner countries are strongly encouraged. Global challenges must be addressed through international collaboration and researchers are encouraged to develop international teams to address research questions that can only be addressed through multilateral efforts.

The topic for the 2024 competition of the Global Centers program is Addressing Global Challenges through the Bioeconomy and may include research from any combination of research disciplines supported by NSF. The Bioeconomy is the share of the economy based on products, services, and processes derived from living systems. Research investments to advance the bioeconomy serve to accelerate scientific discovery and to enable the harnessing, engineering, and rational modulation of biological systems to create goods and services that contribute to the agriculture, health, security, manufacturing, energy, and environmental sectors of the global economy; or that provide access to unique systems that help us understand the processes and issues that we can use biotechnology to solve. Bioeconomy is built on the foundation of biotechnology and biomanufacturing, and in addition to biological science and engineering includes contributions from fields such as chemistry, materials science, geosciences, mathematics, data sciences, humanities, and the social sciences.

The world is facing many serious challenges, including, but not limited to, adapting to or mitigating the effect of climate change, developing clean energy approaches, identifying and advancing sustainable food systems, addressing water insecurity, exploring solutions to emerging infectious diseases, creating resource efficiency, sustaining biodiversity, addressing inequalities in access to biotechnologies, and developing a circular bioeconomy. For example bio-based materials offer heightened biodegradability and biosafety as compared to reusable plastic materials that shed microplastics during use and washing and affect water security and human health.

This Global Centers solicitation in Bioeconomy offers a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of scientists, educators, and practitioners to use knowledge of the bioeconomy to co-develop and execute a research plan for an international center that will address a global challenge facing humanity. The Global Centers program is meant to support multidisciplinary research that can only be achieved through international partnerships uniting complementary areas of expertise, and/or facilitating access to unique expertise or resources of the participating countries. The proposal should explain how the center will maximize the benefits of international collaborations and describe the unique contributions and the roles and responsibilities of each national team in achieving the goals of the proposed Global Center. Successful proposals will describe how the center will tackle a global challenge that can only be addressed through the diversity of knowledge, skills, and resources united in this Center.

Addressing global challenges requires international engagement and must go beyond production of data to demonstrate how co-generation and co-production of research with stakeholder groups can maximize the chances of research outcomes being taken up by target groups and applied to address the global challenge. Because change requires human involvement, this process, described as the Knowledge to Action framework explicitly recognizes the need to involve appropriate scientific experts and practitioners who study and work with humans in implementing the human action aspect of the framework. Examples of human action include (but are not limited to) studies in human and societal behavior, in policy, economics, psychology, anthropology, or education. Proposals are expected to describe a center that fully integrates human action elements with the knowledge generation portions of the center to produce a holistic, multi-disciplinary center that is greater than the sum of its parts. The center should offer a plan of research in which disciplines are integrated and complement and support each other to produce world class research, train the next generation of workforce, and use best practices to ensure that participant communities and stakeholder groups are involved in all stages of the research process so that outcomes are aligned with their needs and readily adoptable.

Within the general theme of Bioeconomy, proposals submitted in the framework of this call must be centered on either or both of the two subtopics. All proposals must integrate both of the two crosscutting themes into the proposed work.

Subtopic 1: Leveraging Biodiversity Across the Tree of Life to Power the Bioeconomy

Unleashing the promise of the bioeconomy relies on using the diverse capabilities found in living organisms to produce new products and processes with the potential to diagnose and treat disease, develop resilient crops, create clean forms of energy, inspire novel materials and more. For example, many of the antibiotics and anticancer drugs we use today were found by exploring the chemicals produced by different microbes and plants. Many enzymes found in laundry detergents came from organisms that live at high temperatures. We are discovering how to make strong glues and even stronger fibers by mimicking processes in barnacles and spiders. We are identifying organisms capable of capturing greenhouse gases and leveraging the power of biotechnology to develop bio-based processes for fossil fuel replacements in the manufacture of textiles. These innovations and others like them have sprung out of knowledge of only a tiny fraction of the ways that life on Earth has evolved. Imagine what more could be revealed from the estimated millions of species of plants, animals, fungi, and potentially one trillion species of microbes on the planet.

Tapping into this huge reservoir of undiscovered and uncharacterized species will provide knowledge of new genes and how those genes create different physical and physiological traits, a connection known as genotype-to-phenotype. Moreover, research on all manner of organisms and how they interact—from microbes to plants to animals—and application of comparative genomics to identify similarities and differences can be harnessed in novel biotechnologies and biomanufacturing processes. Achieving the bold goals of characterizing diverse species and learning the functions of their genes will rely on new tools and methods of understanding gene function to accelerate the process, while accounting for a broad range of inherent uncertainties. Storing and analyzing huge amounts of genome and phenotype data will require innovations in computing, including artificial intelligence (AI) and mathematical foundations behind these AI approaches. Using those data to create new products for the bioeconomy will require innovations in bioengineering and biodesign as well as sustained support for needed infrastructure. Areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Put biodiversity to use in new applications for the bioeconomy. Use biodiversity with the express purpose of identifying uses in translation within bioeconomy research in reconstructing pathways, regulation, and scale-up. Create new and improved technologies to move genes from one organism to another. Use outcomes of functional discovery to expand the number of organisms that can be used as hosts (chassis) in engineered biological systems. Combine innovations from chemistry and materials science with outcomes of sequencing and functional analyses to expand the repository of “parts” for so-called “plug-and-play” design-build capabilities that incorporate biotic-abiotic interfaces as control elements. Leverage biodiversity to develop holistic approaches using clean technology to mitigate pathogens and diseases and provide more integrated solutions to promote greater biodiversity. Leverage learnings from biodiversity studies for bioinspired design of new materials, devices, and products for the bioeconomy using novel mathematical and AI tools. Tailoring of biomass to biorefining pathways, developing catalytic, thermochemical, and biochemical conversion processes. Promote the use of natural products in the food, biotechnology, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries.
• Research to enhance discovery of novel function from diverse organisms across the tree of life. Accelerate development of computational and experimental tools to enhance comparative discovery of sequence and functional elements (e.g., regulatory networks, metabolic pathways, and traits) that define genotype-to-phenotype relationships. Connect genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics data gathering capabilities with new and existing capacity to accelerate the transformation of data into knowledge, as well as reduce time and costs. Enable a robust ecosystem of secured data infrastructure for the bioeconomy. Collaborate to enhance capacity for data handling and analysis, including cyberinfrastructure and bioinformatics, to enable equitable, wide-spread access to data from biodiversity studies and to ensure reproducibility of the proposed research approaches. Applicants should align their efforts in this area with existing open initiatives (e.g.,Building the Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN)) to ensure biological data (and biological parts) are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR), and to ensure sustained support for the data infrastructure. This alignment will also ensure that the proposed data infrastructure complies with current Data/AI ethics, standards, and guidelines. Moreover, it will support synthesis activities through substantial center-scale investments, enabling community-driven utilization and analysis of data, thereby catalyzing innovations in discovery across the tree of life. Proposals should balance the need for open data with respect for intellectual property rights to maintain innovation incentives and appropriate data protection and security measures for sensitive data and should follow CARE principles as described by the Global Indigenous data alliance (gida-global.org) when applicable. Proposals should address ethics of data infrastructure and management as pertains to bioeconomy and biodiversity, particularly relating to genomic data. Projects should sustain and enhance living and digitized collections to ensure they remain a resource for diverse downstream applications, and support synthesis activities that enable community-driven use and analysis of data.
• Prepare for the bioeconomy’s next digital leap in which data provides added value (e.g., as part of services or modeling tools. Produce open data that respects the ownership of data, based on which new products and services can be designed based on digital modelling. Develop digital platforms suitable for bioeconomy cooperation networks to improve efficiency. Strengthen the connection to development programs and experiments in the digitalization of the circular economy. Build an operating method for linking data on carbon footprint and other sustainability aspects of food products and raw materials, which already have highly transparent monitoring. Need for digitalization of the bioeconomy at different levels. Systematically integrate bioinformatics with other data types, including multi-modal and multi-resolution information sources, to improve modelling and predictive capabilities under uncertainties to increase robustness of the developed digital solutions with respect to threats, missing/irregular data records and latent biases, and to increase productivity in the agriculture and other sectors.
• Socio-Economic Impact Assessment, Indigenous Knowledge, Historical and Cultural Ecology. Social scientists and humanities scholars can conduct research into the bioeconomy. For example, social scientists can conduct studies to assess the socio-economic impacts of leveraging biodiversity for the bioeconomy, and examine factors such as job creation, economic inequalities, and community well-being to support societal benefit of the research. Projects that collaborate with indigenous communities to document and understand traditional knowledge related to biodiversity will contribute to developing a bioeconomy that respects and incorporates local practices. When research analyzes the effectiveness of existing policies and governance frameworks, it will contribute to regulating the sustainable use of biodiversity in the bioeconomy. Social scientists can study the impact of changing cultural attitudes toward biodiversity on contemporary bioeconomic practices, informing sustainable approaches. Humanities scholars can, for example, contribute by exploring historical and cultural perspectives on the use of biodiversity in economic activities, providing context for contemporary practices. They can explore the cultural narratives and values associated with biodiversity, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between communities and the diverse life forms they leverage. In addition, projects that examine ethical and cultural considerations have a greater chance to inform policy decisions related to biodiversity for fostering a holistic and inclusive approach to governance. These examples are non-exhaustive and demonstrate the broad range of possibilities and opportunities of projects to be submitted.

Subtopic 2: Biofoundries, using the Design-Build-Test-Learn process in biology

Biofoundries play a crucial role in advancing biomanufacturing processes by promoting and enabling the beneficial use of automation and high-throughput equipment. This includes process scale-up, computer-aided design software, methods of optimal experimental design, and other innovative workflows and tools. Operating within the 'design-build-test-learn' cycle, biofoundries facilitate iterative biological engineering, allowing researchers to test large-scale genetic designs and incorporate the state-of-the-art approaches at the interface of artificial intelligence/machine learning, and statistical sciences to enhance the design process. Recognized as a critical emerging technology, synthetic biology is driving innovation in biomanufacturing. The biofoundry ecosystem involves translating engineered biological systems from conceptualization to reality, constructing systems from parts, and testing their performance. The challenge lies in the substantial bottleneck in testing, given the rapid pace of designing and building new systems. Addressing this requires integrating advances from various fields to develop platforms for manipulating and assembling novel systems, ensuring both designed functions and efficient performance testing. Examples include expediting the rate of building and testing and creating engineered organisms like synthetic plant chassis for various applications in food, feedstock, chemicals, or pharmaceutical production. Areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Expand capabilities for building novel forms and functions. Develop advanced technologies for precisely manipulating genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes, and metabolomes of organisms—from microbes to animals and plants—to enable highly predictable, spatial, and temporal control of complex phenotypes. This area could also include expanding biomaterial design by developing and deploying multi-faceted capabilities, including non-natural biopolymers and their building blocks, chemical functionality across the periodic table, living materials (e.g., combined biotic-abiotic systems) that can sense and respond to the environment, and biocompatible materials for biomedical components. Build platforms for precise high-throughput chemical modification of biomolecules and cells by leveraging knowledge of diverse regulatory pathways and on-off controllers. Develop novel modalities for precise assembly of cells into organs, organisms, or ecosystems that incorporate abiotic components as key control or sensing elements.
• Expand capabilities for measuring, sensing, actuating, and controlling biological systems. Develop biological and non-biological sensors and transducers that do not interfere with cellular function and that take advantage of quantum, optical, magnetic, chemical and other sensing modalities which can receive exogenous signals and interface with biological systems. Develop platform technologies to read the expressed genome, proteome, and metabolome fully and rapidly, enabling high-throughput precision phenotyping of any organism. Develop platforms and tools for rapid, multimodal measurement of complex signals from cellular and multicellular systems in the context of their interconnected natural and in silico environments. Develop sensor/transducer systems which can both measure and transmit signals that actuate a calculated response, thus enabling open or closed loop control of biological systems. Develop new sensors for feedstock characterization, bioprocess monitoring and control, using AI, machine learning and mathematical approaches to integrate characterization and process data into adaptive control strategies. Examples include conversion of undifferentiated cells into mature, functional cells or organoids; assembly of natural or synthetic communities of cells for environmental remediation; and engineering of whole organisms to signal and control a change in nutrient conditions at multiple scales.
• Ethical Considerations, Governance, and Social Impact. Social scientists and humanities scholars can explore the ethical, cultural, and philosophical impacts of Biofoundries. For example, social scientists and humanities scholars can study the ethical implications of using Biofoundries, such as the potential for unintended consequences, environmental impact, and societal concerns. They can study the development of policies and governance frameworks surrounding Biofoundries, assessing their effectiveness and addressing potential gaps. The dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration within Biofoundries can also be studied, exploring how teams with diverse expertise can effectively work together. Humanities scholars can investigate the cultural and philosophical aspects of synthetic biology, examining how perceptions of nature, life, and design influence public attitudes. They can also contribute by analyzing how narratives, storytelling, and media representation shape public understanding and attitudes toward synthetic biology. Finally, they can contribute by exploring the historical and philosophical foundations of bioengineering regulations, shedding light on the cultural and societal dimensions of policy decisions. These examples are non-exhaustive.

Crosscutting Theme A: Public engagement and co-generation of research activities to strengthen the global science and technology enterprise

New discoveries from across the tree of life and advancements throughout the design-build-test-learn cycle, will provide a wealth of foundational, technical, and practical know-how for advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing. The promise of these advances to impact the bioeconomy positively will depend on public willingness to adopt and use these new innovations. Research suggests that many people and nations doubt the safety of genetically modified foods. To help ensure that biotechnology advances that emerge from this program will be embraced and will reach underserved communities we must engage stakeholders and end users early and often as the technology is designed, implemented, and deployed. To engage the public in the Bioeconomy from the beginning will require adopting evidence-based, collaborative approaches and innovative engagement methods. Changes across the product lifecycle—from discovery, through design, to use and disposal—will need to be based on the science of team science, social and behavioral research, and economics. This integration can then inform best practices, ensuring the ethical, safe, and equitable translation of biotechnology products. Areas of particular interest include (but are not limited to):

• Develop social, behavioral and economic drivers of a strong, sustainable and inclusive bioeconomy sector. Understand and address drivers of biodiversity decline through insights from psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics. Utilize knowledge to expand protected areas, incorporating traditional and Indigenous knowledge. Explore multi-directional human-ecology interactions, communicate the importance of biodiversity, and mainstream sustainable practices to support ecosystems. Enhance public awareness and engagement on issues like invasion of alien species through initiatives such as citizen science and circular economy innovation. Interconnect biodiversity research with policies supporting the bioeconomy, considering transition management and societally driven transitions. Improve territorial governance, explore tailored policy responses to place-based needs, and address economic, environmental, and social risks. Evaluate the economic impacts and financial models of ecosystem services. Develop biodiversityfriendly practices in agriculture, forestry, and aquaculture, integrating environmental, economic, and social outcomes. Promote social innovation for eco-friendly consumer products; enhance industrial sustainability, competitiveness, and resource independence. Develop innovative and sustainable value-chains in the bio-based sectors. Develop biotechnology foci within the social sciences. Develop new research within the social sciences with a focus on biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Advance the science of public engagement and public participation, as applied to biotechnology and biomanufacturing, to develop an evidentiary basis for meaningful public involvement in considerations of biotechnology. Invest in programs and efforts that incorporate social scientists within research teams working in fields related to biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Conduct research on ethical issues related to biotechnology and biomanufacturing to develop new understanding of how ethical concerns can inform public policies around biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Develop new methods and processes to incorporate ethical, societal, behavioral, decision-making, and economic research into decisions at all phases of biotechnology development.
• Enhance the evidentiary basis of ensuring the safety of products and processes of the bioeconomy. Develop new capabilities, including novel risk analytics tools, to assess the health and environmental risks of products and processes of the bioeconomy. Expand investments in research to enable science-based regulation of products and processes.

Crosscutting Theme B: Workforce Development and Education

The Bioeconomy represents an enormous sector of opportunity for well-paid employment. It will be important to develop a skilled workforce to support the scaleup of biomanufacturing processes. Global Centers should provide training for this workforce, both for those requiring formal education and those needing specialized training. Successful Global Center proposals will include a well-developed research and education plan to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, increase capacity to perform STEM research and development, enhance innovation, and create new technologies that benefit a competitive society. Areas of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Broaden participation in research and engage stakeholders in innovative and meaningful ways that benefit individuals, communities, society, and STEM disciplines by fostering participation of the full spectrum of diverse talent in STEM. Successful proposals will embrace both broadening participation and stakeholder engagement as key values that are integrated into the design of the Centers and the choice of science priorities to explore. Broadening participation, in this context, includes rethinking how one identifies, approaches, and prioritizes scientific questions to involve a diversity of individuals in the scientific enterprise. Diversifying the research workforce through a variety of approaches that support sustainable inclusion and retention in the workplace is an important component of broadening participation. It acknowledges that diversity is key to unleashing creativity and building a fully joined up system where problems can rapidly find solutions and solutions can rapidly find markets and informs the goal of advancing team science.
• Enhance diversity and equity within biotechnology and biomanufacturing R&D. Research equity-focused science, including social justice, environmental justice, and equity-advancing efforts, to advance better, more equitable outcomes domestically and globally. Develop educational and training pathways to broaden participation of underrepresented groups to ensure diverse perspectives are included in future biotechnology and biomanufacturing R&D. Research accessibility to enable all individuals to participate in the bioeconomy and benefit from biotechnology and the bioeconomy regardless of disability. Stakeholder engagement through citizen science, partnerships, community engagement and many more types of activities that help drive research priorities will also support and facilitate broadening participation in STEM.
• Developing educational and training materials and curricula. Developing a range of training methodologies and techniques to develop appropriate bioeconomy education and training programs to support a transition towards a circular bioeconomy. Investigating effective methods of communicating complex biological concepts to diverse audiences, including policymakers, students, and the public.

Applicants are recommended to contact the RCF early on to check national eligibility requirements.

The funding from the RCF can be applied for by consortia composed of two or more research teams from Finnish research organisations. The consortium parties may represent one or several research organisations. A consortium application is an application built around a joint research plan, where each party to the consortium applies for funding. The RCF treats the consortium application as a single application, although the funding is granted to each subproject separately. Consortium compositions cannot be changed after the call deadline. Read the guidelines for consortium applications.

In addition to a doctoral degree, the PI of the proposed consortium must also have other significant scientific merits. Usually, the PI is a researcher at the professor or docent (adjunct professor) level. These criteria also apply to subproject PIs in consortia. In addition, the applicant must have a close connection with Finland to support the implementation of a multi-year project. This connection must be evident from the application.

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

Special terms and restrictions

To be eligible for consideration by the RCF, each proposal must have a minimum of one applicant from Finland and the US, and significant research participation by both countries. The collaborative projects must add significant added value that is not achievable by the PI working alone, and the topics proposed must link to the thematic areas of the Finnish Research Flagships.

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

Members of the Board, research councils and the Strategic Research Council of the Research Council of Finland will not be granted RCF 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.

Maximum project duration is five years. The funding period must be within the funding period identified in the NSF grant mechanism to which the full proposal is submitted for. The recommended project start date is, e.g., 1 January 2025.

The RCF is prepared to fund the Finnish components of the collaborative projects with a maximum of 3 million euros in total.

The site of research is a Finnish organisation (usually a university or research institute) via which the funding is paid. The maximum funding granted for a five-year project is 3,000,000 euros.

Funding from the RCF is primarily intended towards the salaries of researchers who work full-time on the project and for other project costs. The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs. Read more about the salary of the research project’s PI on the RCF website.

The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to RCF in its budget for 2024.  In case of delays in the processing of the applications resulting in the need to commit the RCF’s budget for 2025 to this call, the funding to be distributed will depend on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the RCF in its budget for 2025.

If the project is selected for funding by the NSF, the RCF invites the applicant from Finland to submit an application to the RCF via an invitation-only call following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the RCF. The application must contain a funding plan drafted in line with the full cost model, including the funding to be applied for from the RCF (up to 70% of the total project costs). Read more about the full cost model.

In general, the funding comes under the conditions and restrictions applicable to RCF projects. For more details, see the latest version of the funding terms.

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

Research team salaries

As a rule, staff hired with RCF research funding must have an employment relationship. We recommend that they be hired for a period of employment no shorter than the funding period, unless a shorter contract is necessary for special reasons dictated by the implementation of the research project. Short-term research, studies, or other assignments (max. duration six months) may also be carried out in the form of outsourced services.

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 RCF 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. After a positive funding decision, the site of research will also approve the data management plan of the project. 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 RCF’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 (for proposals submitted to the RCF after NSF recommendations)

In the application (applies to the PIs of the Finnish sub-projects recommended for funding by the NSF), 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 RCF must not exceed 70% of the total project costs. The cost estimate must be realistic.

The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs. Read more about the salary of the research project’s PI on the RCF website.

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

How to submit and supplement the application

In this call, applicants from Finland can participate in the NSF funding opportunity ‘Global Centers (GC) Use-Inspired Research Addressing Global Challenges through the Bioeconomy’ via proposals submitted to the NSF between 13 March and 11 June 2024. The Finnish PI(s) must send a mandatory Intention to Submit form to the RCF as early as possible to the RCF at flagship@aka.fi

The PIs of the Finnish subprojects recommended for funding by the NSF will be invited to submit applications to the RCF following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the RCF.

Make sure to submit the application in good time before the deadline. The system will only accept applications that contain all obligatory information. The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI. The PI can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete.

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. The RCF will consider the supplemented information insofar as it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.

The RCF may ask you to supplement the application. If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, the RCF 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 RCF 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 RCF-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 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 us not to process 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 Research Council 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 RCF website under Data protection

The PIs of the Finnish sub-projects recommended for funding by the NSF will be invited to submit proposals to the RCF via an invitation-only call following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the RCF.

The following guidelines apply only to the PIs of the Finnish sub-projects recommended for funding by the NSF.

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
• CV following the template

Consortium parties (if applicable)

• Note that the US collaborator is not listed as a consortium party here, but on the ‘Collaborators’ tab
• Details on each party (name, email address, organisation and country)
• Read the guidelines for consortium applications.

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
• Provide here the appropriate NSF programme and submission deadline.
• Provide brief description of 1) the distribution of work between the PI(s) from Finland and the US collaborator(s), 2) how the topic links to the thematic areas of the Finnish Research Flagships, and 3) how the project advances the goals of the Flagship Program.
• See guidelines on the abstract.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• The PI/consortium PI enters up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own research outputs, with justifications.
• You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service. Also see our how-to guide 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 or consortium to carry out the project.

Mobility

• Describe planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person.
• See more information on mobility.

Collaborators

• Project collaborators, itemised by collaborator (name, organisation, country). Note that the US collaborator should be listed here.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application only from possible non-US collaborators. 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 Program.

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

Funding for the project

• The project’s funding follows the full cost model. The RCF 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 RCF has been submitted.
• Justify the funding to be applied for. The cost estimate must be realistic.
• Only under certain limitations and on justifiable grounds may the project PI’s salary for project management and/or research included in the application. The justifications are entered on the tab ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services. Read more in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.
• 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’.
• The commitment of the site of research is a requirement for the granting of funding. 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.

Salary of principal investigator

• Justifications, if salary costs for the PI are included in the funding plan
• The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs: for project management and/or research.
• If the PI does not have a permanent employment relationship, include a salary plan for the PI for the entire funding period.
• Read more in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.

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. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. 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 RCF 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 or to applicants who are subproject PIs in consortia.
• 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.
• Free-form commitment by site of research in which the site commits to administering and funding the project. Make sure you have a commitment from your site of research (usually a university or research institute) to supporting the project. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by site of research.

Case-specific appendices:

• Letter of collaboration. Read more about the letter.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application only from possible non-US collaborators.

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 RCF’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.
• The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI. The PI can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete.
• A red warning triangle on the tab tells you that information is missing.
• You can supplement the application until the six-week limit. Resaving will replace the earlier version.

If you want to supplement the application after the six-week limit, please get in touch with the RCF’s contact persons listed in the call text.

The collaborative projects will be reviewed in accordance with the standard NSF review criteria, along with any additional solicitation-specific review criteria. More details on NSF peer review and review criteria are available online. Accordingly, the scientific review will not be carried out by RCF.

If a collaborative project is selected for funding by the NSF, the RCF aims to provide funding for the Finnish component of the project. If the NSF does not select a project for funding, the RCF will not fund the Finnish subproject alone.

The selections will be made based on:

• availability of RCF budget authority
• results of the NSF review and recommendation by the NSF for projects to be funded
• negotiations between the NSF and the RCF of projects to be selected

If the project is selected for funding by the NSF, the RCF first invites the applicant from Finland to submit an application to the RCF via an invitation-only call and then decides following the criteria above whether it will support the Finnish sub-project. When preparing the proposal to be submitted to the RCF, the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the RCF should be followed.

Funding decisions at RCF will be made by the Flagship Program Subcommittee

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 RCF 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. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. Make changes to the annual instalments, if necessary (see the instructions in the RCF’s funding terms and conditions), and append the full data management plan (in consortium applications only consortium PIs do this). 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.

• Risto Vilkko, Senior Science Adviser

flagship(at)aka.fi

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