Research Council of Finland selects projects to promote research utilisation

The Research Council of Finland (RCF) has granted a total of 9.7 million euros to 27 projects (altogether 41 subprojects) in the 2025 Proof of Concept call. The application success rate was 26 per cent. The projects start on 1 January 2026 and run for two years.

The RCF Proof of Concept scheme supports research projects in taking their ideas towards commercialisation and generating other societal impact. The funding encourages researchers to, for example, test their research results in practical settings or develop new approaches to address the needs of industry, public administration or the third sector. The RCF monitors the impact of the research projects.

The 2025 Proof of Concept call was implemented with additional R&D appropriations allocated by the Finnish Government. In addition to Academy Project funding, many applicants had produced their research results with Academy Research Fellowship funding or funding from the Strategic Research Council (SRC). Applications were received from a wide range of scientific disciplines.

The RCF Subcommittee for Research Utilisation, which made the funding decisions, considered the best applications to be highly innovative and of a high standard. They had clearly defined the research utilisation path, the potential of the ideas and the project’s objectives. The collaborators and stakeholders and user groups important to the impact of the project, as well as their roles in the project, were also well described. A total of 49 per cent of all applications earned an excellent rating, scoring 5 or 6 in the review. Only slightly more than half of the top-rated applications could be granted funding.

Programme Director Jarkko Pellikka, the Chair of the Subcommittee, said: “We received excellent applications including both fundamental research ideas funded with Spark funding and applied research ideas funded with Shift funding. There’s a widespread need for exactly this type of utilisation funding, as the funded projects represent dozens of different scientific disciplines.”