First-stage decisions on September 2020 call have been made

The decisions on applications submitted in the Academy of Finland’s September 2020 call will be made in two stages. The two-stage decision procedure applies to four funding schemes: Academy Projects, Academy Research Fellows, Postdoctoral Researchers and Clinical Researchers. The aim of this phased decision-making is to speed up application processing times in cases where the peer review indicates that an application will not be funded.

At the first decision stage, the Academy’s research councils, at their discretion, will mete out rejections to applications that have received a rating of 1–4 in the review. Applicants who receive a negative decision will be able to view the review report on their application in the online services (SARA).

Applications with rating 5–6 continue to the next stage and will be decided later (see tables below).

The research councils make the funding decisions based on the review reports, the rankings, the Academy’s science policy objectives and their own policies. The research councils have the right to make positive or negative decisions regardless of the panels’ rankings. The justifications for the funding decision are included in the decision notification.

The table on decision dates on the Academy’s website shows two dates for each funding opportunity (where phased decision-making is applied): the first and second decision stage. Applicants receive an email notification of the funding decision after either the first or the second stage of decision-making.

Decision dates for September 2020 call

Research Council for Biosciences, Health and the Environment

Research Council for Culture and Society

In early June 2021, the Division for Social Sciences and Humanities Research will organise a feedback session on the September 2020 call.

Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering

The decisions on the call ‘International Co-Investigator Scheme for Finnish-Norwegian research cooperation in engineering’ (ratings 1–6) will be made on 15 April.