Academy of Finland selects four new flagships

The Academy of Finland has selected four new competence clusters to be funded under its Flagship Programme. With six flagships in total, the programme is now ready. The host organisations of the flagships include six universities, two research institutes and Helsinki University Hospital. Between 2019 and 2022, the organisations will fund the flagships with a total of 320 million euros. The Academy of Finland’s funding contribution comes to 54.5 million euros.

The new flagships are the Digital Precision Cancer Medicine Platform (University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital), the flagship Inequalities, Interventions, and New Welfare State (University of Turku and National Institute for Health and Welfare), the Photonics Research and Innovation flagship (Tampere University of Technology (now University of Tampere), University of Eastern Finland, Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd) and the Finnish Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Aalto University, University of Helsinki and VTT).

The two previously selected flagships are FinnCERES, the Competence Centre for the Materials Bioeconomy (Aalto University and VTT), and 6Genesis, the 6G-Enabled Wireless Smart Society & Ecosystem (University of Oulu).

The Academy of Finland’s Flagship Programme is an instrument that promotes excellent research and versatile impact arising therefrom. The programme supports future knowledge and know-how and sustainable solutions to societal challenges and advances economic growth by developing new business opportunities. By providing substantial long-term funding, the programme accelerates active collaboration between different actors and facilitates the development and expansion and systematic operations.

Professor Johanna Myllyharju, Chair of the Academy of Finland Board, said: “The Flagship Programme provides a new, unique way of doing research in Finland. The funding granted under the programme supports researchers at various career stages and connects their work to a systematic, high-impact framework. Of particular importance is the long-term and firm support for both research and development.”

In the two calls opened under the Flagship Programme, international reviewers assessed the scientific quality and societal impact of a total of 30 applications. The flagship candidates were also interviewed by the reviewers and the Flagship Programme Subcommittee.

Based on the review reports and the opinion of the Flagship Programme Subcommittee, the clusters selected to the programme were the ones that best supported the programme’s objectives.

The Finnish Government has earmarked a total of 50 million euros for the Flagship Programme. In December 2018, the Board of the Academy of Finland decided to set aside an additional 4.5 million euros for the programme.

The Academy of Finland and Business Finland will organise a joint seminar about the Flagship Programme and the Growth Engines programme on 23 January 2019 at 11.00–14.30 at Hilton Helsinki Strand. The seminar will dig deeper into the contents and objectives of the two funding programmes. The seminar includes a keynote address from Minister of Education Sanni Grahn-Laasonen.