September call 2011: what’s new
The following is a summary of the main new changes in the Academy’s September 2011 call for applications (6–30 September 2011). While the October 2010 call involved a number of substantial reforms, the changes in September 2011 are mostly technical.
Earlier call
The autumn call opens in September.
New classification for publications
The Academy requests that applicants follow a new classification of publications in their lists of publications. The classification is based on the classification by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (2010). For more information, see Appendices on the Academy’s website and the Ministry’s Publication Type Classification Manual. The new classification is also used in reporting on publications produced in Academy-funded projects. The classification is also available in Appendix 6 of the September 2011 call for applications.
Revised guidelines for research plans
The guidelines for writing research plans have been revised following feedback from international reviewers. The Academy requests that applicants follow the new guidelines. Applications shall be written so as to ensure that international reviewers can fully assess the research plan and its feasibility. Applicants should pay attention to both the contents and the language of the research plan. For more information on the review of applications, see Processing and reviewing applications.
The guidelines on the research plan and on other appendices to the application are available under Appendices on the Academy’s website.
New information on funding averages
The September 2011 call for applications includes new information on average funding amounts by Academy Research Councils in recent years. Appendix 2 shows the average funding for Academy Projects in 2009–2010 as well as the Research Council’s funding plans for the September 2011 call. Appendix 3 presents information on the funding for Postdoctoral Researchers.
Salary of principal investigator
Academy funding for research projects is primarily intended for the salaries of full-time researchers (in particular those with doctoral degrees) working on the project and for other project costs.
However, in accordance with previous practices, the Academy can grant a total of twelve months worth of funding towards the salary of a principal investigator of a research project funded with the Academy’s general research grants. The funding towards the salary is granted for purposes of conducting research. The funding is intended to support project implementation and it is granted only for well-substantiated reasons in terms of research. These reasons may include working abroad, returning to Finland, and moving to another research organisation or company in Finland. The well-substantiated reasons shall be presented in the research plan (section 5, Implementation), together with a clear description of the tasks. The salary shall be indicated in the application under Funding plan, Salary costs.
Notwithstanding the above, and in accordance with the full cost model and the research plan, the salary costs of principal investigators can be incorporated into project costs to be funded. These costs must not be significant in relation to the project’s overall costs. As a rule, a four-year Academy Project must not include more than six months of the principal investigator’s effective working hours. This is equivalent to one day a week or 1.5 months a year. The principal investigator’s tasks shall be clearly described in the research plan (section 5, Implementation) and the salary shall be indicated in the application under Funding plan, Salary costs.
Mobility plan included
The application must include a mobility plan. In the application, under Mobility, applicants shall describe how the researcher/s within the research project in question intend to carry out national and international mobility serving the research project during the funding period. Applicants for research posts as Postdoctoral Researcher and Academy Research Fellow shall also give an account of their previous mobility (under Previous mobility). In addition, under Partners, applicants shall describe how foreign researches will participate in the project.
Besides in the application (incl. a detailed description), applicants shall also describe mobility, partners and the use of research infrastructures in the research plan. For detailed guidelines on how to draft a research plan appendix, see Research plan on the Academy’s website.
Updated materials management plan
The Academy requires that applicants give an account of how the project proposes to obtain its research material, how the material produced by the project will be used and stored and how the subsequent use of the material will be facilitated. The account shall further cover the rights of ownership and use pertaining to the materials utilised and generated by the project. This is referred to as a ‘materials management plan’, and it shall be presented in connection with the research plan.
It is recommended that research projects funded by the Academy deliver any social science research data they have gathered to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD), www.fsd.uta.fi. Further, the Academy recommends that any language materials created within the projects be made available for other researchers through the FIN-CLARIN system.
Decisions and reviews only in the online services
Applicants will receive an automatic email message after the funding decision has been made. After receiving this message, applicants can log in to the online services with their user identification, select the application on which the decision has been made and see whether the decision is favourable or not. They can also view the conditions related to the funding decision and read the expert reviews on their applications, if such reviews have been drafted.