Academy of Finland Newsletter, February – March 2008

The Academy of Finland newsletter will keep you updated on basic research funded in Finland and on other news from the Finnish world of science and research. In case you wish us to send this to someone else in your organisation or if you do not want to receive these newsletters in the future, please let us know at viestinta@aka.fi.

Features:
Government R&D funding totals €1.8 billion in 2008
€77 million in lottery proceeds for the benefit of Finnish science
Kick-off for the Academy’s Sustainable Energy Research Programme
Academy’s cooperation with Russia on the increase
Nordic funding for workshops in cultural and social sciences research
Finns score big in competition for ERC funding
Finland works towards a regionally effective and high-level network of higher education

Scroll down for more on these stories

GOVERNMENT R&D FUNDING TOTALS €1.8 BILLION IN 2008
In the Finnish Government Budget 2008, the total appropriations or outlays for research and development amount to 1,798 million euros. The increase from the previous year is 68 million euros. R&D funding increases in nominal terms by 3.9 per cent and in real terms by approximately 0.7 per cent. The proportion of funds allocated to R&D activities of overall government spending exclusive of debt servicing stands at 4.4 per cent. The share of public R&D funding of GDP falls to 0.95 per cent.

The R&D funding under the Ministry of Education increases by 27 million euros from the year before to a total of 778 million euros. The funding under the new Ministry of Employment and the Economy totals 673 million euros. Even excluding the sums transferred from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labour, the funding under the Ministry of Employment and the Economy increased the most among all administrative sectors (by €34 million), if compared to the former Ministry of Trade and Industry. R&D funding increases significantly also in the administrative sector of the Ministry of Defence, but decreases by nearly four million euros under the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the Ministry of the Environment.

The share of the Academy of Finland, which is one of the organisations awarding funding on a competitive basis, increases to over 16 per cent and its total funding amounts to 297 million euros. The other R&D funding organisation, Tekes, grants funding to the amount of 526 million euros, and its share is 29 per cent. The funding of research conducted at the Academy of Finland, Tekes and, for example, the ministries, receives an increase of roughly 20 million euros in 2008.

In line with the socio-economic objective, the general advancement of knowledge is the largest category with its share of 42 per cent. It also receives the largest increase in 2008, namely 25 million euros, which consists mostly of science funding granted by the Academy of Finland. The share of funding of industrial production and technology is 27 per cent and that of the social structures and relationships 15 per cent.

Government budget appropriations or outlays for R&D 2008

Source: Government R&D; funding in the state budget 2008, Statistics Finland

€77 MILLION IN LOTTERY PROCEEDS FOR THE BENEFIT OF FINNISH SCIENCE
Finnish science is supported financially not only through the state budget, but also through lottery proceeds. Last year’s financial result for Veikkaus, the Finnish national lottery, was record high, amounting to 427.4 million euros. Veikkaus returned 76.6 million euros to be distributed to Finnish science, while 184.8 million euros went to the arts, 100.2 million euros to sports and 36.1 million euros to youth work. In science, the major recipient is the Academy of Finland, as around a quarter of Academy research funding comes from Veikkaus funds.

KICK-OFF FOR THE ACADEMY’S SUSTAINABLE ENERGY RESEARCH PROGRAMME
February 2008 saw the kick-off of the Academy of Finland’s four-year Sustainable Energy Research Programme (SusEn). The SusEn programme aims at generating new and innovative scientific knowledge about energy technology, energy systems and energy efficiency. Another aim is to direct research to developing sustainable solutions in energy technology and energy systems as well as know-how in identifying future energy systems alternatives. The research within the programme is carried out from a multidisciplinary perspective: the Academy’s all four Research Councils take part in funding the projects. The research programme will run until the end of 2011.

The challenges faced by energy research include, in particular, harmonisation of environmental effects and economic edge conditions as well as the optimal use of renewable natural resources for raw materials and energy. Energy solutions are key issues in terms of the present and future well-being of all mankind. Indeed, future energy solutions are significantly affected by their possible effects on human health and well-being.

The Academy of Finland provides 10.5 million euros in funding for the SusEn programme. Other Finnish funding bodies include the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, Fortum, UPM-Kymmene and Neste Oil, contributing a total of 0.9 million euros. The SusEn programme also cooperates with a number of foreign research funding agencies. Funding agencies from China, Chile, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Luxembourg and Poland have earmarked about four million euros in funding for joint projects within the programme.

ACADEMY’S COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA ON THE INCREASE
Enhancing the research collaboration between Russia and Finland, and cooperation within the Finnish-coordinated, multidisciplinary Baltic Sea research programme under the BONUS ERA-NET, which involves all nine Baltic Sea countries. These were some of the topics addressed during President of the Academy of Finland Markku Mattila’s meeting with Russian funding agency and ministerial representatives in Moscow on 19–21 Feb 2008. Mattila held discussions with Vladislav Khomich, Chair of the Board of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), Yury Vorotnikov, Chair of the Russian Foundation for the Humanities (RFH), and Vladimir Fridlyanov, Deputy Minister of Education and Science.

Russia has substantially increased its funding for research in science and technology during recent years, and it seems this trend will continue. The RFH, for instance, can look forward to an annual increase of 25 per cent during the next few years. Russia is committed to giving a boost to scientific research by directing funding increasingly also towards international joint projects.

The Finnish scientific community has established a wide collaborative network with its Russian counterpart, and has a distinct readiness to rise to the challenges of increasing cooperation. The Academy of Finland has provided funding for Finnish-Russian research collaborations since the 1970s and from the 1990s onwards through research programmes specifically related to Russia.  

The Academy has organised joint calls with the RFBR and the RFH since 2003, for example, in the fields of Baltic Sea research, optical materials research, media research, economics, materials research, biosciences and addiction research. At present, there is an open call for proposals under the theme The Use of the Finnish and Russian Languages in a Multicultural World. The joint projects involve research teams from both Finland and Russia. The goal is to support and reinforce multidisciplinary, high-level research collaboration between the two countries as well as to produce answers to important societal questions.

NORDIC FUNDING FOR WORKSHOPS IN CULTURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH
The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS) has launched a call for Nordic exploratory workshops in the fields of cultural and social sciences research. The aim of the funding, now open for application for the second time, is to support new and innovative initiatives and to facilitate the participation of Nordic researchers in Nordic and major international research programme calls.

Applications shall be submitted to the NOS-HS Secretariat in Denmark by 16 April 2008. The funding decisions will be made in June 2008.

An exploratory workshop shall include researcher participants from at least three Nordic countries. The funding is granted to cover arrangement costs, travel and accommodation costs of participants as well as administrative costs.

The exploratory workshops shall be arranged in 2008 and/or 2009. A maximum of 45,000 euros is granted for a workshop with 2–4 meetings. Funding can be applied for by researchers with a PhD working at a university or research institute. The applicant nominates two other Nordic researchers who will take part in the preparation of the workshop.

The call for applications (opslag) and the application form (ansøgningsskema) are available at the NOS-HS website at www.nos-nop.org > NOS-HS > Nyheder.

FINNS SCORE BIG IN COMPETITION FOR ERC FUNDING
Young Finnish researchers did very well in the European Research Council’s (ERC) first Starting Grant competition. The ERC Starting Grant call is aimed at supporting researchers at the time they are establishing themselves as independent research leaders. Seven Finnish researchers were granted funding, for the following research projects:
• Hemminki, Akseli, University of Helsinki : Oncolytic Adenoviruses Expressing Monoclonal Antibody Trastuzumab for Treatment of Her-2+ Cancer
• Ivaska, Johanna, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland: Spatially and Temporally Regulated Membrane Complexes in Cancer Cell Invasion and Cytokinesis
• Kukkonen, Taneli, University of Jyväskylä: Subjectivity and Selfhood in the Arabic and Latin Traditions
• Kurki, Milja, University of Wales Aberystwyth, UK: Political Economies of Democratisation
• Lokki, Tapio, Helsinki University of Technology: Physically-based Virtual Acoustics
• Lummaa, Virpi, University of Sheffield, UK: Mothers, Grandmothers and the Evolution of Prolonged Lifespan in Humans
• Ovaskainen, Otso, University of Helsinki: Spatial Ecology: Bringing Mathematical Theory and Data together

A total of 9,146 applications were submitted by the Starting Grant call deadline in April 2007, about 230 of them from Finland. Of the 559 successful applications at the first stage, 15 had ties to Finland. The ERC will fund no more than 300 of applications going through to the second stage, which translates into a 3 per cent share of the total number of applications. The ERC may still increase the final budget of the call, which means that even more Finnish researchers may be granted funding. The ERC was set up in 2007 as part of the EU Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7), under the specific programme ‘Ideas’. The Academy of Finland is the Finnish national contact for the Ideas programme.

FINLAND WORKS TOWARDS A REGIONALLY EFFECTIVE AND HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The Finnish Ministry of Education is outlining the structural development of higher education institutions for the years 2008–2011, on the basis of Government policy definitions and educational field surveys. The outlines will form the Ministry’s view on the need to further develop the higher education network. The structural development programme will be completed in 2010. 

The Ministry of Education is committed to ensuring that Finnish institutions of higher education have both regional and field-specific impact. The goal is to significantly reduce the number of universities and polytechnics by the year 2012. They shall be economically more efficient and have better preconditions for high-quality teaching, research and development. Increasing the size of individual higher education units would improve the opportunities for international cooperation, support multidisciplinary approaches and greatly expand students’ options. The Ministry aims to trim the number of universities to 15 and polytechnics to 18. Within this network, universities and polytechnics would form 4–5 strategic alliances.  

The Ministry envisions a minimum of 3,000 full time students per university and 2,500 per polytechnic. The target size of the strategic alliances, which are meant to foster university-polytechnic cooperation, is around 8,000 full time students. At present, six universities and six polytechnics are below this target. 

The aim is to ensure solid higher education profiles – both regionally and field-specifically – for Finnish universities and polytechnics. Increasing the effectiveness of their activities allows more resources to be used for teaching and research. This is a way to strengthen cutting-edge research and strategic focus areas, reinforce international collaboration in research and education, improve the quality of teaching, and guarantee the supply of competent labour. The structural development of the higher education system is part of a wider ongoing programme of reform for European universities.

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Academy of Finland in brief: The Academy’s objective is to promote high-level scientific research through long-term quality-based research funding, research and science policy expertise and efforts to strengthen the position of science and scientific research. The Academy makes decisions on research funding worth about 280 million euros. Each year about 5,000 people benefit from Academy research funding. For more information, go to www.aka.fi/eng or send a message to maj-lis.tanner@aka.fi.