Application guidelines for all calls

Information on open calls is posted on our website at Apply now. Please check the deadline separately for each call. Applications that have not arrived by the deadline can only be considered if the delay is due to causes not attributable to the applicant.

Detailed guidelines on how to submit applications are available on our website:

1)    Calls for applications published twice a year, describing all funding opportunities open for application at that particular time

2)    Detailed guidelines on how to submit applications

3)    Detailed guidelines on appendices (structure and length)

4)    Programme memoranda of research programmes to be launched.

We require that applicants read and comply with the call for applications and the other guidelines mentioned above before submitting their applications.

Who is eligible to apply?

Academy of Finland research funding is allocated on the basis of peer review to the best researchers and research teams and to the most promising young researchers for carrying out scientifically ambitious projects. Funding for Academy Projects is primarily granted to teams composed of researchers who have already earned their doctorate. In principle, a project to be funded shall serve Finnish research and society or international collaboration.

The applicant, that is, the principal investigator (PI) of a research project, must have the qualifications of a professor or an adjunct professor (docent) or be a researcher with a doctorate, unless the call indicates otherwise. In some funding opportunities, the applicant is a university or a research institute.

Within the same application round, the Academy will review only one application from one and the same researcher in one of the following funding opportunities:

• Academy Project (PI of a project)

• Academy Project (PI of a consortium or consortium sub-project)

• Postdoctoral Researcher

• Academy Research Fellow

• Clinical researcher (targeted funding).

If you do submit more than one application to one or several of the above mentioned funding opportunities, only the first application to arrive will be reviewed. In the case of targeted Academy Projects, decisions on this limitation will be made separately for each call.

Joint funding and full cost model

Academy of Finland research funding is a joint venture in which the funds to finance the costs of each project come from at least two sources. In applying for Academy funding, universities, research institutes and other research organisations commit to contributing their percentage of the costs.

In calls where cost calculation is based on the full cost model, the Academy’s funding contribution to the project normally comes to no more than 80% of the total project costs. This maximum percentage is applied both to the calculation of estimated total costs at the application and decision-making stage, and to the calculation of real total costs during the course of the project (payment procedure) and upon completion of the project (reporting stage). The percentage is applied to all project costs, that is, to both direct and indirect costs, including the overheads share.

In your application for research funding to the Academy, you shall include a funding plan in accordance with the full cost model, including the amount of funding applied for from the Academy. At the application and decision-making stage, only funding that is confirmed (e.g. through a decision by the body that has granted the funding) is taken into account in the calculation of total project costs. Costs that do not pass through the books of the site of research shall not be included in total project costs.

The section “How to apply” in the call for applications indicates separately for each funding opportunity whether the full cost model or the model for additional costs previously applied by the Academy (an overheads share of 12.5%) is applied to the cost calculation. When the full cost model is applied, applications shall be written so as to ensure that the Academy’s contribution to the funding comes to no more than   the percentage indicated in the call for applications.

Before submitting your application, you shall contact the administration at your own organisation concerning the contribution of the site of research to the funding of your project. After the application deadline, the Academy will request a commitment by the site of research from the person you have indicated.

Guidelines on the full cost model are available on our website under Full cost model.

What is funded?

The Academy will provide funding for research projects only insofar as the institution (e.g. university department) serving as the site of research undertakes to provide the research project with the necessary basic facilities. These are determined on the basis of the nature of the research, but the usual basic facilities are the same as those available to other research staff at the institution, such as office and laboratory premises, equipment (incl. computer equipment), and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services.

Academy funding granted towards the direct costs of a research project are intended to cover expenses arising from the research team’s working hours, research costs, travel, domestic and international collaboration and mobility, and the preparation of international projects.

The Academy may provide funding for the VAT costs included in the project costs only insofar as the funding recipient (usually the PI’s host organisation) is not entitled to deduct the VAT costs incurred in its operation. For example, universities are not entitled to deduct the VAT costs, and consequently, these costs can be paid from funding granted by the Academy. For this reason, researchers working at universities enter their research costs in their applications with VAT costs. For more information on how to enter VAT in the application, see Value Added Tax on our website.

Academy funding can be used to cover both direct project costs (e.g. direct salaries) and indirect project costs (e.g. costs for premises). Both types of costs are covered with the same percentage.

Personal grants are normally awarded only for work or studies abroad and for a re-search visit by a foreign researcher to Finland for a maximum of 12 months (with the exception of funding referred to as mobility grants). A research visit exceeding 12 months requires an employment relationship in Finland. Grants are not paid to EU citizens working in Finland. While working in Finland, EU citizens shall have an employment relationship. The recommended amounts of monthly grants and a note concerning taxation are available in Appendices 2 and 3 and on our website under Grant amounts.

In your application, you shall give a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure. You shall also include a funding plan with your application, that is, all funding granted for the project in question and funding provided by the site of research if the project is launched. The funding plan shall be realistic. The cost estimate shall be justified by type of expenditure in the research plan.

Salary of principal investigator

Academy funding for research projects is primarily intended for the salaries of full-time researchers working on the project and for other project costs.

1.    Principal investigator’s salary for research

The Academy can grant a total of 12 months worth of funding towards the salary of a PI of a research project funded with the Academy’s 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 (e.g. working abroad, returning to Finland, and transferring to another research organisation or a company in Finland). The well-substantiated reasons shall be clearly 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.

2.    Incorporating the principal investigator’s salary into project costs to be funded

Notwithstanding the above, and in accordance with the full cost model and the research plan, the salary costs of a PI of a research project 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 PI’s effective working hours. This is equivalent to one day a week or 1.5 months a year. The PI’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.

Funding conditions 

The Academy of Finland will provide funding only insofar as the site of research undertakes to provide the researcher with the necessary basic facilities for research.

Academy funding is allocated to the researcher’s host organisation. Grants for work abroad (referred to as mobility grants) may also be allocated directly to researchers.

Academy funding to organisations outside the central government (e.g. universities) is classed as a discretionary government transfer. Since Academy funding is not allocated to individual researchers but to their host organisation, the host organisation is regarded as the recipient of the transfer, in accordance with the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers, and will accordingly be required to assume all related obligations. The decision to grant a discretionary government transfer is subject to specific conditions, in that the host organisation receiving the transfer is permitted to use the transfer in question solely to fund the research carried out by the PI named in the application.

Staff to be hired with Academy research funding must have an employment relationship with the site of research or the organisation that has received the funding. 

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

Detailed conditions and guidelines on the use of funding and reporting are available on our website under Use of funding.

Commitment by site of research

The Academy will provide funding for research projects only insofar as the institution serving as the site of research undertakes to provide the research project with the necessary basic facilities, which are the same as those available to other research staff at the institution, such as office and laboratory premises, equipment (incl. computer equipment), and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services. 

The application includes a commitment by the site of research on which you shall agree in advance with a representative of the site of research.

In calls where the full cost model is applied, before submitting your application, you shall determine from your own organisation the funding contribution and the coefficients of the site of research, and agree on them with the commitment issuer. The coefficients indicated in the application under Funding for the project will be valid during the whole duration of the project.

The Academy may provide funding for the VAT costs associated with the project costs only insofar as the funding recipient (usually the PI’s host organisation) is not entitled to deduct the VAT costs incurred in its operation. You shall indicate the VAT practices of your site of research in the application under Funding for the project.

After the application deadline, the Academy will request a commitment by the site of research from the person indicated in the application. By issuing its commitment, the site of research commits to funding the project with the percentage presented in the funding plan and securing the basic facilities for the project. The commitment also applies to the percentages given in the application form, that is, the overheads percentage, the percentage for indirect employee costs and the coefficient for effective working hours. The site of research shall also check that the VAT practice indicated in the application is correct.

When the funding is awarded to organisations outside the central government (e.g. universities), the site of research undertakes to act as the recipient of the discretionary government transfer on behalf of the applicant and will accordingly be required to assume all related obligations. With respect to applicants for a research post as Academy Professor and Academy Research Fellow, the commitment of the site of research also applies to the use of the researcher’s working hours for purposes other than research, to salaries and to other circumstances surrounding the researcher’s work.

If funding is not received from any other sources, the site of research shall cover at least 20% of total project costs. If funding is received from other sources, the contributions by other sources must also pass through the books of the site of research.

Detailed guidelines on how to issue a commitment by the site of research online are available on our website under Commitment of site of research.

Project collaboration or consortium?

Researchers and research teams may collaborate through normal project collaboration. In this case, the partners independently apply (with their own applications) for funding for their projects and the cooperation is described in each partner’s research plan. Project collaboration applications are reviewed as separate applications.

Applicants for research funding may also be consortia composed of research projects working at different sites. A consortium is a fixed-term body of individual sub-projects that work under a joint research plan with a view to generating greater added value through systematic collaboration than through normal project collaboration. Any letters of intent of the consortium and the full application with a joint research and funding plan of the consortium are submitted by the PI of the consortium. In addition, in the call for applications, the PIs of each consortium sub-project submit their applications that specify the joint research plan in terms of funding. A consortium application is reviewed at the Academy as one application and the decision is made by a research council or sub-committee.

Detailed guidelines on how to draft consortium applications and appendices are available on our website under Consortium application.

The application of the whole consortium can be processed only if the applications of all sub-projects have been submitted by the deadline. The deadline is non-negotiable. The composition of a consortium cannot be changed after the deadline.

International joint project applications and consortia

In international joint project applications that normally involve at least two partners (i.e. a Finnish and a foreign partner), the Finnish partner submits a separate application (not a consortium application) in line with the application guidelines. A consortium application is submitted only in cases where, in addition to a foreign partner, the collaboration involves research teams from two or more Finnish sites of research, and these teams apply for funding from the Academy to implement a joint research plan.

Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation

In accordance with a decision by the Board of the Academy of Finland, the Academy works to promote leading-edge scientific research serving the Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation (known in Finnish under the abbreviation SHOK) through all its funding opportunities (Academy of Finland financial and action plan, The Academy’s Strategic Action Plan for 2013‒2016, in Finnish). The research may be incorporated as part of a specific strategic centre or related to the thematic areas of strategic centres.

These applications will be reviewed in accordance with the Academy’s general procedures and evaluation criteria. The general evaluation criteria are available on our website under Evaluation criteria. For more details on the thematic areas of the Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation, see Strategic centres. Contact details for the strategic centres are available at www.shok.fi/en. 

If your application is tied in with a thematic area of a strategic centre, the following guidelines apply to the application: When submitting your application, select on the list in the online services the strategic centre with whose thematic area the application is affiliated.

1.    If your application is directly affiliated with the strategic centre, you shall attach a statement issued by the strategic centre. The statement shall confirm that your research is affiliated with the centre. It shall also give a description of the role and significance of the project for the strategic centre’s operations and agree on the form and content of the collaboration between the project and the relevant centre. The statement must be requested from the relevant strategic centre by the end of March (April 2012 call).

2. If your application is not affiliated with a strategic centre (as described above) but you consider that the application serves the centre’s thematic area, you shall justify this in your research plan.

In April 2012, applications are invited for targeted funding for research in the thematic areas of the strategic centres, see section 1.2.1.

Language of application

The Academy uses mainly foreign experts as scientific reviewers of applications. In order to ensure equal and fluent international peer review of applications and preparation of funding decisions, you are requested to submit your application in English. However, you do have the right to submit your application in Finnish or Swedish.

Ethical issues

The ethical issues and responsibilities in connection with the application stage are described on our website under Ethical guidelines. The ethical issues of the research must always be specified in the research plan as they are reviewed as part of the scientific review.

Mobility plan

The application must include a mobility plan. In the application, under Mobility, you shall describe how the project intends to carry out mobility serving the project within Finland and abroad during the funding period. If you are applying for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher and Academy Research Fellow, you shall also give an account of your previous mobility (under Previous mobility). In addition, in the application, under Partners, you shall describe how foreign researchers will participate in the project.

Besides in the application (incl. a detailed description), you 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 our website.

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 used 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.

We recommend that research projects funded by the Academy deliver any social-science research data they have gathered to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD, see www.fsd.uta.fi/english). We further recommend that any language materials created within the projects be made available for other researchers through the FIN-CLARIN system.

Academy classification of research fields

In addition to your primary field of research, you may also indicate four other research fields and sub-categories in your application, ranked in order of importance. It is important that, in addition to the research field, you also give keywords describing the research and research methods in a free-text section of the application. More information is available on our website under Research field classification, where also the research fields hosted by the Research Councils are listed.

Submitting applications, applications pending

Applications for the April 2012 call can be drafted and submitted in the Academy’s online services as of Monday 2 April 2012. The deadline is Wednesday 25 April 2012 at 16.15, if not otherwise indicated in the call for applications. The deadline is non-negotiable.

According to Section 17 of the Finnish Administrative Procedure Act, the sender is responsible for the application arriving by the set deadline. Applications received after the deadline can only be considered if the delay or failure of submission is due to causes not attributable to the applicant. An application is regarded as pending at the Academy when the online application and the appendices defined as obligatory in the online services have been submitted in the online system. The system will indicate the successful submission of an application by sending an email to the address given by the applicant.

You cannot submit an application in accordance with the full cost model in the Academy’s online system if you have entered a higher funding percentage for the Academy than is given in the call for applications. The procedure for submitting an application in the online services is described in detail in the How to Guide.

If you run into problems in the online services at the time of application submission, please contact us before the deadline, either by phone or via Questions and feedback on our website. To ensure smooth drafting and submission, it is important that you submit your application well in advance of the deadline.

You shall submit your application in your own name and using your own user identification.

Only the requested appendices are to be appended to the application. The maximum length of appendices indicated in the guidelines must not be exceeded.

Supplementing an application

If you notice significant omissions in your application, or if you have, for instance, received a letter of invitation from a foreign university after the deadline, you are urged to immediately contact the person named in the call for applications, who will open the application for your additions. These supplementary additions will be taken into account insofar as it is possible in view of the review, application processing and decision-making process.

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

Reviewing/Not reviewing applications

Academy funding is based on a scientific review of the research plan and the applicant. The evaluation procedure and criteria are presented on our website under Application processing and Review of applications. You are advised to read these evaluation criteria and any additional guidelines available on the Research Councils’ pages.

The Academy may, for justified reasons, decide not to review an application. In considering whether not to review an application, the criteria include the following:

• The application has arrived late.

• The application is substantially incomplete after one request for supplementary information.

• The applicant or the application does not meet the competence or other key requirements set for the call.

• The application is submitted for a purpose for which the Academy does not grant funding.

• The application does not belong to the scope of the call.

• The application submitted within a research programme call does not belong to the scope of the programme.

• The applicant has in the same application round submitted more than one application for one or several of the following funding opportunities: research post as Academy Research Fellow, research post as Postdoctoral Researcher or Academy Project. In this case, only the first application received from the applicant will be reviewed.

• The director of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) is applying for Academy Project funding during the first three years of the six-year CoE funding period; as a general rule, this also applies to other researchers closely affiliated with a CoE.

• The researcher with a research post as Academy Postdoctoral Researcher applies for a research post as Academy Research Fellow, the term of which would overlap with the Postdoctoral Researcher term for more than four months.

• The applicant has not followed the guidelines on reporting on a completed or ongoing research project with Academy funding.

• It is clearly evident that, for some other reasons, the applicant will not be eligible for funding on the basis of the application submitted.

An application not reviewed on these grounds cannot receive funding.

Publicity

Under the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), an application and its appendices constitute a public document, with the exception of research plans, plans of intent, abstracts and progress reports.

Public project description

When a project is granted funding, the Academy will publish a description of the project on its website. The description is written by the applicant in connection with the drafting of the application. Finnish- or Swedish-speaking applicants write their description in Finnish or Swedish in the text field given in the online application. All applicants shall also write the description in English.

The public project description is a means for the Academy and researchers to disseminate information on Academy-funded research. Consequently, it is important that the description be as clear and readable as possible – it should be accessible to a general audience. It shall give the reader a brief summary of the key points of the research. For more details, see Public description of project on our website.

The Academy will not edit public project descriptions – it is the applicants themselves who are responsible for the content, clarity and style of their project descriptions.

Decisions and reviews in the online services

The Academy’s decision timetables are posted online under Decision timetables. The projects to be funded are posted under Funding decisions.

You will receive an automatic email message after the funding decision has been made. After receiving this message, you can log in to the online services with your user identification, select the application on which the decision has been made and see whether the decision is favourable or not. You can also view the conditions related to the funding decision and read the expert reviews on your application, if such reviews have been drafted.

More information

For each funding opportunity, the call for applications indicates the presenting officials who can give you further information. The email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname@aka.fi. You can also use the Questions and feedback page on our website.

Contact details

Postal address:  POB 131, 00531 Helsinki

Street address: Hakaniemenranta 6

Switchboard: +358 9 774 881

Fax: +358 9 7748 8299

Registrar’s Office, phone: +358 9 7748 8377

Registrar’s Office, office hours: 8.00–16.15

Email: kirjaamo@aka.fi

Other emails: firstname.lastname@aka.fi  

Website: www.aka.fi/eng

Questions and feedback: Contacts listed in the call for applications
Questions and feedback on our website