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Features:
Markku Mattila started as Academy of Finland President
Academy research funding in 2006
Lottery funds worth over €401 million for the benefit of research and Finns
Long tradition of evaluating Academy research programmes
Power in Finland research programme investigates power elites
Reorganisation of Department for Higher Education and Science Policy at Ministry of Education
Academy Professor Risto Nieminen appointed to Millennium Technology Prize Selection Committee
Scroll down for more on these stories

MARKKU MATTILA STARTED AS ACADEMY OF FINLAND PRESIDENT
Professor Markku Mattila, Doctor of Science (Technology), started his term as President of the Academy of Finland on 1 March 2007. Before the Academy, he worked at the Finnish Ministry of Education. According to Mattila, in the spring of 2007 Finland is in many respects on the threshold of new opportunities for scientific research. The Science and Technology Council chaired by the Prime Minister has set as goal to raise Finland's R&D investments to a new level. Consequently, this will increase need for researchers, and forecasting the field-specific need for new doctorates will also be more and more important, if the goal set by the Council is to be realised during the new government.

Mattila points out that real success in research is possible only through the committed work of highly motivated, talented researchers. Therefore it is important to maintain the research career as an attractive option and to secure the work opportunities and motivation of researchers in the long run. The Finnish Ministry of Education published in February a programme for the development of researcher training and research careers for 2007–2011. According to Mattila, it is time to take action to ensure the future supply of high-quality and well-motivated researchers in Finland.

ACADEMY RESEARCH FUNDING IN 2006
Year 2006 was financially an exceptionally good year for the Academy of Finland: funds made available for allocation by the Academy increased in real terms by 12.4 per cent. The extra funds were spent on supporting graduate schools and on general research grants. The number of new research projects started up with Academy funding was higher than in previous years. According to the Academy's annual review, Academy funding for basic research in 2006 amounted to 238.7 million euros; in 2005 the figure was 218.7 million euros.

The Academy received a total of 5,576 funding applications worth 1.1 billion euros in 2006. Around 20 per cent of all applications were funded. The breakdown of funding decisions by site of research has shown only slight variation in 2000–2006. About 80 per cent of Academy funding went to research projects, research programmes and centres of excellence in research at universities.

The Academy's research funding is spread out across several fields of research. Most of the funding was allocated to research applications submitted in disciplines under the Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering followed by the Research Council for Culture and Society, the Research Council for Biosciences and Environment and the Research Council for Health in this order.


LOTTERY FUNDS WORTH OVER €401 MILLION FOR THE BENEFIT OF RESEARCH AND FINNS
The result of the financial year 2006 of Veikkaus, the Finnish lottery, betting and pools games company, was record high amounting to 407.7 million euros, of which it returned to the Ministry of Education a total of 387.2 million euros to be distributed to Finnish science, arts, sports and youth work. Veikkaus returned to the state in all 456.5 million euros; in addition to its profits, it also paid lottery tax, VAT and profits from previous years.

In science, the major receiver is the Academy of Finland; around a third of Academy research funding comes from lottery funds. Veikkaus funds distributed to sports are allocated to, for example, sports research, building of sports sites and facilities, sports associations, sports scholarships, and children and youth sports. Funds to youth work are allocated to, among others, youth research, youth work in municipalities, youth associations, youth workshops and schoolchildren's afternoon activities.  

LONG TRADITION OF EVALUATING ACADEMY RESEARCH PROGRAMMES
The Academy of Finland has systematically evaluated all Academy-funded research programmes. During 1997–2006, for instance, a total of 26 research programme evaluations, mostly by foreign reviewers, have been published. The latest one is the evaluation report on the research programme on Finnish Companies and the Challenges of Globalisation, which was published in 2006. The research programmes on Proactive Computing, Microbes and Man, and Baltic Sea Research were also evaluated in 2006, and the reports are published during spring 2007.

The Academy has conducted assessment of individual disciplines and fields of research since 1983. In the past ten years it has published 14 such assessments, two of which were completed in 2006. International panels of experts evaluated Finnish research in energy sector in 1999–2005 and Finnish food sciences and related research on nutrition and consumption in 2002–2004. The evaluation of dental research is carried out in 2007 by the Research Council for Health. The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering is to conduct an evaluation of Finnish computer science in 2007.

POWER AND SOCIETY IN FINLAND RESEARCH PROGRAMME TO STUDY POWER ELITES
The Academy of Finland has recently launched the Power and Society in Finland research programme (2007–2010). The programme seeks to raise active debate on power. In Finland, large-scale administrative and power-political decisions have often been made without wide public debate and the country has also lacked comprehensive research on the power system. The key objective of the programme is to support broad-based research on power and its changes. Another aim of the programme is to generate new knowledge of power processes by using interdisciplinary and comparative approaches and by strengthening national and international cooperation of research and research projects.

The research programme has six thematic areas: International system, power in Finland and Finnish power; Power in the state and state power; Economy and power; Citizens and civic society; The media and power; and Gender and power. The programme is funded with 6.5 million euros. The points of departure of the programme are national but it can make use of the national studies on power carried out in Nordic countries in the 1980s and 1990s. The programme involves 21 projects and about a hundred researchers in the fields of e.g. political science, sociology, history, law, and economics.


REORGANISATION OF DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE POLICY AT MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
Organisational changes took place at the Finnish Ministry of Education at the beginning of March. The Division for Higher Education and Science, the Division for Adult Education and Training and the Department's Office were established at the Department for Education and Science Policy, headed by Director General Sakari Karjalainen The Division for Higher Education and Science deal with matters related to universities and polytechnics, university studies and degrees, scientific and applied research, graduate schools, the Academy of Finland, the Research Institute for the Language in Finland, computing and information services in the field and national archive services as well as CSC – Finnish IT Centre for Science. The Division involves units for higher education and research. Ms Anita Lehikoinen acts as fixed-term Director of the Division for Higher Education and Science. The Academy of Finland operates under the administrative sector of the Ministry of Education.

ACADEMY PROFESSOR RISTO NIEMINEN APPOINTED TO MILLENNIUM TECHNOLOGY PRIZE SELECTION COMMITTEE
The international Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every second year to a technological innovation that has a potential for a positive impact on quality of life while also supporting sustainable development. The Prize has been awarded twice, the first time in 2004. The name of the winner of the third Millennium Technology Prize will be announced in June 2008. The nomination period for new candidates begins on16 April 2007. The Prize was established and is funded jointly by Finnish organisations, industry and the Finnish state. Millennium is the world's largest technology prize, worth one million euros. 

The Millennium Technology Prize is administered by the independent Millennium Technology Foundation based in Helsinki. The Board of the Foundation has appointed five new members to the eight-person international Selection Committee, one of the new members being Academy Professor Risto Nieminen from Helsinki University of Technology. Other new members of the Selection Committee for 2007–2008 are Professor Mikko Hupa from Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, Dr Bob Iannucci, Senior Vice President and Head of Nokia Research Centre, Finland, Professor V.S. Ramamurthy from Inter-University Accelerator Center, New Delhi, India, and Professor Henry Yang, Chancellor of the University of California (Santa Barbara, USA). In addition to the Committee's new chair, Professor Marja Makarow, Vice-Rector of the University of Helsinki, Finland, members of the Committee who will continue to serve are Professor Bengt Nordén from the Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and Professor Jean-Claude Charpentier, President of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering and Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
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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 276 million euros. Each year about 5,000 people benefit from Academy research funding. For more information, go to www.aka.fi or send a message to maj-lis.tanner(at)aka.fi.
Viimeksi muokattu 9.10.2007