RCF winter call results: Academy Projects and Academy Research Fellows in natural sciences and engineering research granted funding

The first results from the Research Council of Finland’s (RCF) winter 2025 call are in: 48 researchers in natural sciences and engineering research will receive Academy Research Fellowship funding. The RCF’s Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering also granted funding for 69 new Academy Projects, which involve a total of 107 subprojects. The total funding comes to around 34 million euros for Academy Research Fellowships and around 50.5 million euros for Academy Projects.

The funding period in the Academy Research Fellowship and Academy Project funding schemes is four years. The funding is granted to a research organisation that will manage the use of funding and be responsible for compliance with the funding terms and conditions, including those relating to research security. The Research Council of Finland monitors the impact of funded research.

In this round, the applicant success rate was around 11 per cent for Academy Research Fellowships and around 15 per cent for Academy Projects. Only about a quarter of the projects that received the highest overall ratings of 6 or 5 in the peer review could be funded, meaning that several applications with an excellent rating were not funded. The applications submitted to the Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering were reviewed in a total of 30 panels. The Scientific Council aims to support a wide range of disciplines. 

Academy Research Fellowships

The RCF’s Academy Research Fellowship funding is intended for early-career researchers on a fast career track who have formed international networks and who are conducting scientifically high-quality and high-impact research that contributes to scientific renewal.

The funding can be used flexibly according to the research needs, for example for the researcher’s own salary, to hire a research team and to cover other research costs. As regards the Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering, the average funding per post in this round comes to around 710,000 euros.

Although the competition for Academy Research Fellowships was extremely fierce, the Scientific Council was able to provide funding across a wide range of scientific disciplines within its domain. The new Academy Research Fellowships were also granted to researchers at different career stages.

Professor Kalle-Antti Suominen, Chair of the Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering, said: “I’m particularly pleased that even applicants who had obtained their doctorates only 2–3 years ago were successful in this tough competition. What’s more, the proportion of female grantees was at a record high of 27 per cent.”

Academy Project Funding

The aim of the RCF’s Academy Project Funding is to promote the renewal and diversity of Finnish science and to improve the quality and scientific and other impact of research. The aim is to attain internationally as high a scientific standard of work as possible and to support scientific breakthroughs and top-tier international research collaboration.

The funding supports scientific renewal and strengthens future research skills, including through additional funding for doctoral education.

The Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering welcomed the value-adding cooperation between different research groups presented in the applications. Suominen said: “Of the research plans submitted this year, approximately 30 per cent were consortium applications, and the review panels rated consortium applications as being of above average quality. This shows that cooperation between complementary groups is a way to harness a broad range of expertise to solve the research questions that have been set.”

Academy Project funding is intended for hiring a research team and for other research costs. The principal investigators of the funded projects include researchers at different career stages.