Academy of Finland’s Ask & Apply webinars attract over a thousand participants

This year, like last year, the Academy of Finland’s Ask & Apply tour was organised in the form of webinars.

Ask & Apply tours have been organised in the largest university cities since 2012. The events have been developed on the basis of feedback and together with university research services. The webinar series has also been well received. This year, more than a thousand people attended the webinars.

The Ask & Apply events highlight different aspects of the application process with the Academy’s experts and answer questions that concern the applicants.

Science Adviser Satu Huuha-Cissokho from the Academy’s call guidance team said: “Some of the webinars were organised in connection with the publication of the calls for applications in early summer and the rest after the start of the call at the end of August and at the beginning of September. Replays and presentation materials are available on the Academy’s website.”

Huuha-Cissokho added: “This year, the content of the webinars was tailored to different groups of applicants, such as new applicants, and also by funding opportunity. In addition, we organised theme-specific webinars on key topics in the calls. For example, we organised a webinar about decision-making in which a panel consisting of members of different research councils responded to questions from applicants.”

The subjects of interest and funding schemes of the participants were examined at the beginning of the events in order to give the presentations the right focus areas for the audience.

The deadline for funding schemes targeted at individual researchers (Postdoctoral Researcher, Academy Research Fellow, Clinical Researcher and international mobility) is 22 September. The call for Academy Projects and sport science research projects closes one week later, on 29 September. The staggered deadlines were introduced to ease the pressure on the Academy’s online services (SARA) during the last days of the calls.