Academy of Finland general conditions for funding decisions

(18 Feb 2008 decision by the Academy's Administration Office)

• Research projects
• Research grants to Academy research post holders
• Research programmes
• Development research grants
• FiDiPro
• Centre of Excellence programmes

Research funding awarded by the Academy of Finland may only be used for the purpose specified in the funding decision. Funding is awarded as a total amount that must not be exceeded. The funding may only be used for costs arising during the funding period. The responsible leader and the site of research are responsible for that the funds are used in accordance with the decision as well as with the provisions and regulations in force.

The Act and Decree regarding the State Budget, the Act regarding Public Acquisitions and the Decree regarding State Acquisitions, the State Budget, regulations regarding its application and other general provisions and regulations regarding the use of state funds shall be complied with in the use, payment and control of research grants. The general conditions specified here and the regulations in force at the site of research shall also be adhered to.

In case the research grant has been allocated to a private law legal person or a municipality, the provisions of the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers (688/2001) as well as the general conditions specified here and the regulations in force at the site of research shall be complied with, provided that they do not contradict the conditions set by the Academy. 

If the Academy has set a condition, specified in the decision notification, for the awarding of funding, it must be adhered to. The calculation grounds possibly appended to the decision notification are not binding.

The Academy funds research only if the site of research guarantees the basic facilities for the implementation of the research. These depend on the nature of the research, but the usual basic facilities are the same that are available to the other researchers of the institute, i.e. working and laboratory facilities, equipment (incl. computer equipment), access to telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying, and library services.

An overheads share of 12.5 per cent is incorporated into Academy research funding, intended for funding of the basic facilities of research.

Salaries and fees related to the research plan as well as social charges and increases due to the new salary system (however, not salary costs of an Academy Professor or Academy Research Fellow), travel costs, equipment costs, expenses of arranging seminars, expenses associated with inviting a foreign researcher, and other direct costs arising from the implementation of the research plan may be covered with a research grant awarded by the Academy. Value added tax is also paid with the funding awarded.

A personal grant for research work may be paid from Academy research grants in general only for work or studies abroad or for inviting a foreign researcher to Finland for a research visit not exceeding one year. The Academy's decision may include personal grants on these conditions. In case there is no mention of a personal grant, the researcher's site of research (accounting office or other organisation) can decide on the awarding of a grant for the abovementioned purposes. In this case the responsible leader, who is the recipient of the Academy research grant, shall make a well-grounded presentation on the payment of the personal grant to the researcher to the competent authority at his or her own organisation (e.g. personnel, financial or administration dept). Based on a positive decision the site of research may then pay a personal grant from the research grant in accordance with Academy policy. The personal grant amounts shall follow the Academy's grant levels.

Academy funding must not be used to cover indirect research costs, such as patenting costs and additional salaries.

Starting to use funding/granting state subsidies

The Academy confirms for state administration organisations (universities and research institutes), without separate request, the research grant and budget account to be used; the organisation, i.e. the accounting office, enters the budget account in its own bookkeeping.

Other than state administration organisations invoice the funding from the Academy at least on a quarterly basis. A specification for the basis for invoicing shall be appended to the invoice. The last instalment of the calendar year shall be invoiced by 10 January the following year.

Annual instalments

The Academy requires that the responsible leader comply with the annual instalments mentioned in the decision, so that the maximum annual deviation from the funding plan is no more than +/-15 per cent. If the responsible leader cannot commit him/herself to the presented division into annual instalments, taking into account the possible +/-15 per cent deviation, he/she must submit to the Academy a proposal for the annual instalments of the research funding. The proposal must be made in writing and submitted within four weeks of the decision date to the Academy Registrar's Office, and it must not exceed the total amount awarded for the implementation of the research plan.

This item does not apply to the funding for development research, nor to the research grants to Academy research post holders (Academy Professors and Academy Research Fellows).

Hiring staff

Staff hired with Academy research grants shall be in employment relationships. The duration of an employment relationship shall be at least the same as the funding period, unless a special reason related to the implementation of the research plan requires a shorter employment relationship.

See also the Academy of Finland Equality Plan.

The collective agreements in force at the site of research as well as other regulations regarding the terms of the employment relationship shall be observed in the hiring and other employment relationships of any staff to be hired with Academy funding.

Academy research grants may be used to cover a responsible leader's own salary only if the funding has been specifically granted for this purpose and there is a mention of it in the decision.

The Academy recommends that teaching related to research be included in the duties of researchers with a doctorate who have been hired with Academy funding at universities. A maximum of 5 per cent of the researcher's annual working hours may be used for teaching, and no separate compensation is paid for it.

Acquisitions

Any supplies, equipment and literature acquired with Academy funding will remain in the ownership and possession of the site of research.

Reporting

The responsible leader shall draft and submit a research report to the Academy no later than 15 June of the year following the termination of the funding period. Further, regarding development research, the responsible leader shall submit a copy of any publications produced with Academy funding to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs upon the termination of the funding period. For separate guidelines on reporting, see Reporting.

Accounting offices shall report on the use of funds, indicating the income and expenses of the activity funded by the Academy in the budget year, accrued from the beginning of the year, on a quarterly basis. For the first three quarters, the income and expenses shall be reported no later than the 20th of the month following the quarter. For the fourth quarter, the income and expenses shall be reported no later than 31 January of the year following the reporting year.

Other than state administration organisations shall submit to the Academy an account report within three months of the termination of the funding period.

Accounting offices and other organisations shall annually report the person-years of those who have worked on Academy funding. This report shall be submitted via the Academy's online services and no later than 15 January of the year following the reporting year.

Control and discontinuation and recovery of funds

The Academy has the right to monitor and control the use of funds it has granted as well as to carry out any inspections of the recipient's finances and activities that may be necessary for the control of the use of the funds. The Academy further has the right to carry out inspections of the implementation, accounting and observance of the conditions set in the funding decision. The site of research and the responsible leader are obliged to submit all necessary accounting and other documents and data for the use of the inspector and to assist in the inspection. Both the site of research and the responsible leader shall also otherwise if requested to do so provide the Academy with information on the research and the use of the funds.

The responsible leader and the site of research must without delay notify the Academy of any changes affecting the use of the funds such as other funding or income received for the implementation of the set research plan. If other funding or income exceed the amount presented in the cost estimate included in the application submitted to the Academy, the Academy may oblige the site of research to return the portion of Academy funding that corresponds to the amount exceeding the cost estimate.

The Academy may interrupt or order the payment of the funds to be terminated or recover the funds or part of them, if the responsible leader or the site of research has used the funds for a purpose other than the purpose for which they were granted; or presented erroneous or misleading information regarding a fact which might have affected the granting of the funding, its amount, or its conditions; or otherwise violated the regulations concerning the use of the funds or the conditions incorporated into the funding decision.

The recipient of the state subsidy shall without delay repay to the Academy of Finland's bank account 166030-112337 any funding, or any portion of funding, received erroneously, in excess or evidently without grounds. If the amount to be returned does not exceed ten euros, it need not be returned.

Repayment and claw-back of discretionary government transfers has been stipulated in Chapter 5 of the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers.

Research ethics

The Academy requires that the guidelines of the National Advisory Board on Research Ethics, "Good scientific practice and procedures for handling misconduct and fraud in science", as well as the complementary research-ethical guidelines of the Academy of Finland be observed in all Academy-funded research, see Ethical guidelines. The site of research shall bind itself to notify the Academy Registrar's Office if an investigation is started concerning violation of good scientific practice by the responsible leader or a researcher who has received Academy funding.

Scientific publications

The scientific publications of Academy-funded research projects shall always indicate that the research has been conducted with funding from the Academy of Finland. It is recommended that Academy-funded researchers publish their research articles in open-access electronic scientific journals in cases where there are electronic journals available that meet at least the same quality standards as traditional subscription-based journals. Likewise, it is recommended that parallel copies of all published research articles be saved in Finnish open electronic publication archives.

Social science research data collected for the project

It is recommended that Academy-funded social science research data be delivered to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD), based at the University of Tampere, see www.fsd.uta.fi. The delivery shall take place as soon as possible after the termination of the funding from the Academy.

Intellectual property rights

This item will be applied to research receiving funding from the calls for applications open as from 1 January 2007.

Those involved in the research shall before the beginning of the funding period agree with each other and with the site of research on the rights of possession and use of research results.

At sites of research where the Act on the Right to University Inventions (369/2006) is applied, Academy-funded research is defined as commissioned research referred to in the Act; in these cases a university has the primary right to inventions produced by research (3 § 3). At other sites of research, the Act on the Right to Employee Inventions is applied (656/1967).

Inventions made by Academy research post holders to whose site of research the Act on the Right to University Inventions is applied are seen to be produced in commissioned research referred to in the Right to University Inventions Act. A copy of the invention notification shall be submitted to the Academy Registrar's Office.

To inventions made by Academy research post holders during their employment relationship working at other sites of research, the Right to Employee Inventions Act is applied. The Academy will transfer all its employer rights and obligations, referred to in the Act on the Right to Employee Inventions, to the site of research. This means that the site of research may assume the rights to an invention in the same extent and in the same order as an employer. Consequently, the employer obligations referred to in this Act, including liability to compensate, are also transferred to the site of research. The site of research will commit itself to employer obligations, referred to in the Right to Employee Inventions Act, at the application phase when signing the commitment of the site of research. The Academy research post holder shall submit the original invention notification to the site of research. In case the site of research does not want to assume the right to the invention, the Academy research post holder has the right to the invention. A copy of the invention notification shall be submitted to the Academy Registrar's Office.

See also the Academy of Finland IPR Handbook.

Appealing against the funding decision

An appeal and the Academy's decision is needed for:

• changing the condition or purpose of the use of funding, for example in cases where substantial changes are made to the research plan or if a personal grant is to be paid to a researcher from the research grant
• extending the funding period
• changing the responsible leader
• transferring the research grant to another organisation.

The funding period may be extended only on application and for a special reason, such as on the basis of maternity, parental or childcare leave, military or non-military service, or a chronic disease of an Academy-funded researcher in cases when no substitute is hired for the researcher and when the person returns to work with funding from the Academy. The funding period may be extended on the basis of a childcare leave for a maximum of one year. The funding period cannot be extended on the grounds that the money has not been used. Issues concerning funding can only be appealed during the term of the funding period.
 

Applying for additional research grant

Additional research grants are generally awarded only if the need for an additional research grant is due to maternity leave, sick leave or other changes in the collective agreement or legislation or changes in the exchange rate.

Application of conditions

These conditions are to be applied as from 1 January 2008, also regarding previous funding decisions, unless these conditions state otherwise. 

Accounting offices and other organisations shall report on their activities and person-years in 2006 in accordance with the conditions in force in 2006.

The conditions regarding intellectual property rights are applied to research that receives funding from the calls for applications open as from 1 January 2007.

The general conditions for funding are revised annually. The valid, revised general conditions and more information on the application of the conditions.

More information

If you have any questions about funding decisions and the conditions for funding, please use the Questions and feedback page on the Academy's website.