Working at the Academy

The Academy of Finland is an esteemed and attractive workplace for science and administration professionals. The Academy is known as being reliable, an expert, international, competent and impartial. According to its key stakeholder groups, the Academy has in recent years succeeded well in science policy expertise, in developing international research collaboration and in quality-based long-term funding (Image survey 2006).

The Academy provides excellent opportunities for the development of skills and competencies. The aim of human resources management at the Academy is a skilled and competent staff, motivated, healthy and satisfied in their jobs. The services offered to staff include the praised workplace restaurant as well as the excellent gym and supervised gym sessions.

Academy staff cooperate closely with universities, research institutes, business companies and national and international funding agencies. The Academy’s main customer is the individual researcher. The Academy is an international workplace: it takes part in the activities of foreign science and research organisations, acts as the national partner in the EU framework programmes in cooperation with Tekes, and represents Finland in a number of international science organisations.

At year-end 2006, the Academy’s Administration Office had a staff of 166 (2005: 168); of these 124 persons (74.7%) were in permanent employment relationships and 42 persons as substitutes or in fixed-term employment relationship. The number of trainees at the Academy was 16. In 2006, a total of 20 new employees were hired by the Academy. Women accounted for about 70 per cent of staff. The average age of staff was around 45 years and the proportion with an academic degree was 66 per cent. These figures do not include Academy research post holders (Academy Professors and Academy Research Fellows), who work at universities and research institutes.