Funding criteria and policies

The Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering is unfortunately unable to fund all top-rated applications (overall ratings 6 and 5). Against this backdrop, the Scientific Council has outlined a set of policies and criteria that it will systematically apply in making funding decisions and prioritising between high-quality applications.

The policies and criteria applied in the autumn 2022 call are presented below. Please contact us if you want to access the criteria and policies used in other calls.

Policies and criteria for September 2022 call

General policies

  1. The Research Council supports responsible natural sciences and engineering research of a high international standard and a wide scope. The specific characteristics of different disciplines, such as research and publishing traditions, are taken into account in decision-making.
  2. As a rule, the Scientific Council’s funding decisions are based on review reports.
  3. The Scientific Council supports the renewal of science by funding new initiatives, such as high-risk, high-gain research, and the development of new methods and tools. The Scientific Council supports researchers who are on a rising career trajectory, grants Academy Project Funding to PIs at different career stages and considers equality and nondiscrimination issues in the case of applicants of equal merit.
  4. The Scientific Council supports the utilisation of research results. When making funding decisions, the Scientific Council considers the relevance of the research for business and industry or other societal sectors in Finland. It also considers applicants’ previous merits in the scientific, economic and other utilisation of research as well as their networks with end-users and beneficiaries of research.
  5. The Scientific Council supports high-quality national and international research cooperation and the researcher mobility therein. The supported collaboration may occur between universities, between universities and research institutes or with business and industry or other societal actors. The Scientific Council’s support for collaboration is researcher-driven and implemented through the funding of Academy Projects and Academy Research Fellows and through participation in strategically selected international funding calls. Consortium-based Academy Projects that include parties from different research organisations are an important tool for promoting national collaboration.
  6. The Research Council supports research that makes good use of both Finnish and international research infrastructures.

Criteria and policies for Academy Projects

Decision criteria (in order of priority):

  1. Quality of research, new initiatives, breakthrough potential, impact and feasibility
  2. Competence of researcher/research team, particularly recent achievements, and research cooperation
  3. Societal relevance of the research

Policies

  • The goal is to grant an average of €450,000 per four-year project.
  • The maximum funding per project is €600,000 (equivalent to €150,000 per year).
  • The maximum total amount of funding per consortium-based Academy Project is €1,000,000 (equivalent to €250,000 per year), and the maximum funding per consortium subproject is €600,000 (equivalent to €150,000 per year).

Criteria and policies for Academy Research Fellows

The Scientific Council supports promising researchers with capacity for renewal and independent research. They are on a rising career trajectory and can make significant career progress during the funding period in carrying out scientifically high-quality, high-impact and regenerative research.  The Scientific Council pays particular attention to the applicant’s competence and to their merits and collaborative networks in relation to the career stage. An Academy Research Fellow’s research team contributes to improving the researcher’s supervision skills and to increasing academic leadership competencies. The Scientific Council accepts reasonable research costs at its discretion.

Decision criteria (in order of priority):

  1. Applicant’s personal competence in relation to the career stage
  2. Quality, novelty and impact of the research
  3. Feasibility of the research as well as cooperation networks and their added value for the proposed research plan and research career
  4. Societal relevance of the research

Policies and criteria for September 2021 call

General policies

  1. The Scientific Council supports natural sciences and engineering research of a high international standard and a wide scope. The specific characteristics of different disciplines, such as research and publishing traditions, will be taken into account in decision-making.
  2. As a rule, the Scientific Council’s funding decisions are based on review reports.
  3. The Scientific Council supports the renewal of science by funding new initiatives, such as high-risk, high-gain research, and researchers who are in a buoyant career phase. The Scientific Council promotes the development of new methods and technical tools, grants funding to PIs at different career stages and to Academy Research Fellows and Postdoctoral Researchers who return to Finland from abroad, and – in the case of applicants of equal merit – prioritises applicants in the gender minority.
  4. The Scientific Council supports the utilisation of research results. When making funding decisions, the Scientific Council considers the relevance of the research for business and industry or other societal sectors in Finland. It also considers applicants’ previous merits in the scientific, economic and other utilisation of research as well as their networks with end-users and beneficiaries of research.
  5. The Scientific Council supports high-quality national and international research cooperation and the researcher mobility therein. The supported collaboration may occur between universities, between universities and research institutes or with business and industry or other societal actors. The Scientific Council’s support for collaboration is researcher-driven and implemented through the funding of Academy Projects, Academy Research Fellows and Postdoctoral Researchers and through participation in strategically selected international funding calls. Consortium-based Academy Projects that include parties from different research organisations are an important tool for promoting international collaboration.
  6. The Scientific Council supports research that makes good use of both Finnish and international research infrastructures.

Criteria and policies for Academy Projects

Decision criteria (in order of priority):

  1. Quality of research, new initiatives, breakthrough potential, impact and feasibility
  2. Competence of researcher/research team, particularly recent achievements
  3. Research cooperation and mobility

Policies

  • The goal is to grant an average of EUR 450,000 per four-year project.
  • The maximum funding per project is EUR 600,000 (equivalent to EUR 150,000 per year).
  • The maximum total amount of funding per consortium-based Academy Project is EUR 1,000,000 (equivalent to EUR 250,000 per year), and the maximum funding per consortium subproject is EUR 600,000 (equivalent to EUR 150,000 per year).

Criteria and policies for Academy Research Fellows

Criteria (in order of priority)

  1. Applicant’s personal competence
  2. Quality of research, novelty value, impact and feasibility
  1. Applicant’s mobility and collaborative networks, for mobility especially quality of applicant’s previous and planned mobility as well as its added value for the proposed research plan and the applicant’s research career

Policies

  • The Scientific Council supports the Academy Research Fellows it funds by granting them funding for research costs to the tune of EUR 400,000 per five years. The funding will be granted in two parts. The funding for the first three years is a maximum of EUR 240,000 and for the last two years a maximum of EUR 160,000.

Criteria and policies for Postdoctoral Researchers

By funding promising early-career researchers, the Scientific Council wants to ensure that the research community in the natural sciences and engineering sector is competitive and that its renewal rests on a sustainable basis. There should also be a sufficient number of high-quality researchers in engineering sectors of national and societal importance. The Scientific Council’s most important funding criteria are the competence of the applicant and the scientific quality of the research plan. In addition, attention will be paid to the applicant’s mobility and diverse collaboration networks that support the researcher’s independence during the funding period. The applicant’s mobility plan and collaborations should support the implementation of the research plan. The Scientific Council also supports the utilisation of research results and considers the relevance of the research for business and industry or other societal sectors in Finland.

Decision criteria (in order of priority):

  1. Applicant’s personal competence
  2. Quality of research, novelty value, impact and feasibility
  3. Applicant’s mobility and versatile collaboration networks that support the researcher’s independence and the implementation of the research plan
  4. relevance of the research for business and industry or other societal sectors in Finland.

Policies

The Scientific Council’s funding for a Postdoctoral Researcher comes to 252,000 euros on average, including salary costs, justified research costs and reasonable mobility costs. The salary of is determined according to a maximum monthly salary of 3,900 euros. The maximum funding for research costs is 20,000 euros, but the amount may be higher in the case of experimental research, for justified reasons.

    Do you have questions or feedback for us?

    Contact us