Academy Research Fellowships 2022, all research fields

An Academy Research Fellow is a talented early-career researcher. An Academy Research Fellowship supports early-career researchers on fast career tracks. The funding supports the researchers so that they can increase their competencies and make significant career progress towards more demanding research positions and achieve an established position in the national and international research community. Academy Research Fellows produce high-quality, high-impact research that stimulates the renewal of science.

An Academy Research Fellowship provides researchers with a good and diverse opportunity to work independently on their research and to contribute to developing the research in their field. As an Academy Research Fellow, you are encouraged to engage in international research collaboration and mobility across international and sectoral borders, for example, so that you will work abroad for part of the funding period. Foreign researchers who already work or who will work in the Finnish scientific community may also apply for the funding.

The objective of the funding scheme is to promote high-quality, high-impact science with capacity for renewal as well as to support researchers in increasing their competencies and making career progress. Researchers need a wide range of experience from working in different research and work environments to be able to increase their competencies. By working in different kinds of research groups or in other research-related positions, researchers can further strengthen their personal networks and improve their chances of securing competitive research positions or other senior expert tasks. For today’s researchers, it is also important to be able to acquire new methodological skills and adopt new means of communicating with people with different backgrounds.

In the present call, the applicant is an individual researcher whose first doctoral degree certificate is dated between 30 September 2013 and 30 September 2020. In this first call of the new Academy Research Fellowship funding scheme, the eligibility is exceptionally 2–9 years since the first doctorate. As of the autumn 2023 call, Academy Research Fellowships may be applied for by researchers with 2–7 years since the first doctorate.

Applicants who have completed their doctoral degree longer ago than the period mentioned above can be considered only for special reasons (maternity, paternity, parental or childcare leave, military service or nonmilitary service, or long-term illness). If you plead these special reasons, justify them in the application under ‘Personal data’, ‘Degrees’, ‘Additional information’. If these reasons are confidential, get in touch with the call’s contact person named in the call text (see ‘Contacts’).

Merits and competencies as a researcher

Past and planned mobility, research collaborations, the international dimension of the research plan and other competencies and qualifications achieved by the applicant are important considerations in the review.

The application must describe the applicant’s merits to date and how the applicant will increase their competencies both during and after the funding period. These can be demonstrated, for example, by the establishment of a research team and other academic leadership experience, planned or implemented co-publication, sharing of data, supervision and teaching experience, various expert tasks, application for co-financing, and national and international cooperation and mobility. The application shall also clarify how the research idea differs from the applicant’s doctoral dissertation.

The increasing competencies and career plan are described under ‘Merits and increased competencies’ in the online services. See the guidelines and structure.

Special terms and restrictions

In the autumn call, we will consider only one application per researcher if the application concerns Academy Project Funding (incl. a consortium subproject), Academy Research Fellow Funding or Clinical Researcher Funding. If you do submit more than one application for any of these funding opportunities or apply for funding from more than one of them, we will only review the first application to arrive. Applications that are not reviewed will not be eligible for funding.

If the applicant has ongoing Academy funding or completed projects for which a final report has not yet been submitted, they must prepare a progress report. This does not apply to applicants acting as the responsible person in funding schemes where the funding recipient is an organisation or to applicants who are subproject PIs in consortia. Read more about drafting the report. If you have not submitted a final report on a completed, Academy-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

If you are appointed to a professorship for an indefinite term while your application is being processed, please notify us without delay. Fellowships will not be granted to persons holding a permanent and senior research position (e.g. professor, assistant/associate professor, research director) or a comparable position.

Individuals who have received Academy of Finland funding for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher may be granted an Academy Research Fellowship during the last year of the Postdoctoral Researcher funding period if the funding periods do not overlap.

A person who has received the previous five-year funding for a research post as Academy Research Fellow will not be eligible for the new four-year Academy Research Fellowship.

You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after your application to the Academy has been submitted.

If the application includes cooperation with Russia or Belarus, you must take into account the Academy’s policies on the matter.

We will not process an application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.

An application will not be processed if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements, or if the application otherwise does not qualify for processing. A research council or another decision-making body may decide not to process and not to fund an application based on science policy objectives or if it is apparent for some other reason that the applicant cannot receive funding with the submitted application. Read more about the circumstances that may cause us not to process or review an application.

The research councils will update their science policies in May‒June. The funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies will be updated on our website before the call opens. Read the research council policies before submitting your application.

Academy Research Fellowship funding is granted for four years. The funding period is 1 September 2023–31 August 2027.

The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy in the 2023 state budget.

The funding is granted to a Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute) through which the funding is paid. During the funding period, the Academy Research Fellow may work abroad for periods of varying durations, for example at foreign universities.

Funding plan

In the application, provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure. Also include a funding plan that shows all funding granted for the project as well as funding that will be provided by the site of research if the project is launched. Before submitting the application, you must agree with the administration at your organisation on the contribution of the site of research to the funding of the project. Only costs that pass through the books of the site of the research must be included in the total costs. You must check with your organisation whether the funding planned as the own funding contribution suits this purpose. The funding applied for from the Academy must not exceed 70% of the total project costs. The cost estimate must be realistic.

Specify all research costs in the free-text field in the online services on the tab ‘Funding for the project’.

Academy funding cannot be used for economic activity. Read more about the eligibility of economic operators.

Only for compelling reasons can government grants be awarded to cover salary costs in cases where the applicant has obstacles related to illegal employment, as referred to in section 7(2) of the Finnish Act on Discretionary Government Transfers.

Salary and other research costs

Funds can be made available towards the Academy Research Fellow’s own salary, hiring a research team and other research costs. Funding can be applied for and used flexibly based on the needs of the research. The total cost estimate may, for example, only include the applicant’s own salary or the salary of up to two full-time researchers (incl. the applicant’s own salary) and other research costs. The total cost estimate need not include the applicant’s own salary if the salary is arranged in some other way and the applicant is able to commit to the research work described in the research plan.

The Academy Research Fellow applicant may apply for funding for their own salary for a maximum period of 46 months during the four-year period. The cost estimate need not include any personal salary for the applicant.

During the four-year funding period, the duties of the Academy Research Fellow include an average of four months in roles and tasks other than actual research yet relevant to the professional research career. These may include teaching and supervision, administrative duties, interaction or advocacy, or other tasks related to the organisation’s core functions. This salary for a total period of four months’ of work will be co-funded so that a maximum of two months of it can be included in the proportion applied for from the Academy. The total cost estimate for the four-year funding period may therefore include payment of the applicant’s salary for a maximum of 46 months.

As a rule, staff hired with Academy research funding must have an employment relationship. We recommend that they be hired for a period of employment no shorter than the funding period, unless a shorter contract is necessary for special reasons dictated by the implementation of the research project. Short-term research, study or other assignments may also be carried out in the form of outsourced services, if it is determined to be necessary for the project.

Mobility aid in research projects

The mobility aid is applied for as research costs related to the implementation of the research plan. The aid is applied for in accordance with the practices of the site of research. In order to obtain further information, you should contact the personnel and financial administration of the site of research.

In the online services, the aid is applied for on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ under ‘Travel expenses’. The mobility aid must be justified. Read more about the mobility aid in the funding terms and conditions.

What is required from the site of research?

With regard to the Academy Research Fellowship, the site of research undertakes to see to that the Academy Research Fellow will be able to fully commit to the research. The site also commits to employing the Academy Research Fellow full-time during the entire funding period, also during the two-month period during which they will have to perform other tasks that are important for a professional research career. The salary is determined based on the pay system of the site of research.

We require that the site of research (i.e. the applicant’s host organisation, e.g. a university, research institute or other research organisation) provides the research project with all necessary basic facilities. These are determined based on the nature of the research and are the same as those available to other research staff at the site: office and laboratory premises, equipment (incl. computer equipment), and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services. When accepting the funding, the site of research is responsible for ensuring that necessary ethical reviews and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project.

The costs of ensuring immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles are included in the overheads of the site of research and are thus part of the basic facilities provided by the site. The costs associated with storing and sharing research data are regarded as overheads for the project’s site of research. Only exceptionally and for justified reasons can they be accepted as research costs to be covered by Academy research funding. The site of research also commits to ensuring that the data management plan can be implemented at the site of research, and that the measures to be taken comply with good data management practice. After a positive funding decision, the site of research will also approve the data management plan of the project.

Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by the site of research.

The application must also include the overheads percentage, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research. The site of research will see to that this information is kept up to date in the online services. The information is provided as percentages.

When the site of research is a university or a research institute, as a rule, the funding must be applied for VAT included. Consult the financial administration at the site of research for more information. The Academy’s funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see Value added tax and read more in the funding terms and conditions).

Research at EUI or IIASA by Academy Research Fellows

Those applying for an Academy Research Fellowship can also apply to do research at the European University Institute (EUI) as part of the Academy Research Fellow term. The EUI can receive one Academy-funded Academy Research Fellow at a time to carry out research at the EUI for 1–2 years. You need not append a separate invitation from the EUI to your application or contact the EUI. However, please read about EUI research before applying and contact the Academy’s EUI contact person (see ‘Contacts’) when drafting your application.

During the Academy funding period, Academy Research Fellows can also visit the multidisciplinary International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), which focuses on global issues that require broad-based, multidisciplinary research cooperation that makes use of applied systems analysis. If your research is linked to one of IIASA’s research programmes or projects, you can agree on the visit with IIASA directly. You should also contact the Academy’s IIASA contact person for more details (see ‘Contacts’).

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable. The deadline for applications is 28 September 2022 at 16.15 Finnish time.

Make sure to submit the application in good time before the deadline. The system will only accept applications that contain all obligatory information.

You can edit and supplement the application until the deadline. You can make changes to a submitted application (e.g. change appendices), but you must make them before the deadline. If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline, immediately get in touch with the call’s contact person, so that they can reopen the application for you. Make sure to re-submit the application after you have supplemented it. We will consider the supplemented information insofar as it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.

We may ask you to supplement the application. If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, we may decide not to process it. You must make sure that your contact details (email address) are up to date.

How the application becomes pending

According to section 17 of the Finnish Administrative Procedure Act and section 8 of the Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public Sector, the sender is responsible for the application arriving by the set deadline. An application becomes pending when the online application and the obligatory appendices have been submitted in the online services. The system will confirm a successful submission by sending an email to the address you have provided.

If you have not submitted a final report on a completed or ongoing Academy-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

An application will not be processed if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements, or if the application otherwise does not qualify for processing. A research council or another decision-making body may decide not to process and not to fund an application based on science policy objectives or if it is apparent for some other reason that the applicant cannot receive funding with the submitted application. Read more about the circumstances that may cause us not to process or review an application.

Publicity and data protection

Except for the research plan, plan of intent, abstract and progress report, which are primarily confidential, the application and its appendices are public documents. For example, the CV is a public document and as such must not include any confidential information. This publicity is based on the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities. The Academy of Finland is committed to following regulations on data protection. The applicant is responsible for the disclosure of the personal data contained in the application and, where appropriate, for requesting the consent of the parties concerned. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on the Academy website under Data protection.

The application consists of forms completed in the online services and PDF appendices. As an applicant, you have the right to submit your application in Finnish or Swedish, but we ask that you to submit it in English to facilitate the international review.

Most of the links below take you to the A–Z index of application guidelines.

The online application contains the following parts

Personal data

• Personal details
• Degrees (most recent one first); parental leaves etc. may be filled in under ‘Additional information’
• Titles of docent and professorships

General information

• Details on the site of research
• Title of research project in English and Finnish/Swedish
• Research fields (at least one, no more than five). See the research field classification.
• Keywords in English and Finnish/Swedish

Abstract

• Maximum length 2,500 characters including spaces
• Brief overview of scientific and societal objectives, research methods and data as well as expected research results and impact
• See guidelines on the abstract.

Merits and increased competencies

• Maximum length 2,500 characters including spaces
• Follow the structure provided.

CV

• Maximum length three pages
• The CV must follow the structure provided in the template.

Research plan

• Maximum length twelve pages
• Submit the research plan as a PDF appendix on a separate tab in the online services.
• See the guidelines on the structure of the research plan. You must follow the given structure. Please use the headings provided.
• The application cannot be submitted if the system detects an error in the page configuration or the structure.
• See the how-to guides for the online services.

Funding for the project

• The project’s funding follows the full cost model. The Academy’s funding contribution to the research costs comes to no more than 70%.
• Before you can fill in the cost estimate, you must first select the site of research on the tab ‘General information’.
• The site of research maintains the following percentages: effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT.
• Enter the funding period (1 September 2023–31 August 2027).
• Enter salaries and other costs. The Academy Research Fellow applicant may apply for funding for their own salary for a maximum period of 46 months during the four-year period.
• Enter other funding sources and their funding contributions. You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after your application to the Academy has been submitted.
• Justify the funding to be applied for. The cost estimate must be realistic.
• Consult the administration at your site of research when filling in budget details. Read more about the funding in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.
• The commitment of the site of research is a requirement for the granting of funding. Make sure you have a commitment from your site of research (usually a university or research institute) to supporting the project. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by the site of research.

Mobility

• Describe planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person.
• See more information on mobility.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Collaborators

• Project collaborators, itemised by collaborator (name, organisation, country)
• Describe the collaborators’ roles and project-relevant key merits and provide justifications for choosing them in section 3.2 of the research plan.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Affiliations

• Use of infrastructures: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project plans to use. The menu includes infrastructures included in Finland’s national roadmap and/or ESFRI’s roadmap. Other possible infrastructures are entered in a free-text field. Read more about research infrastructures.
• Part of a Finnish Centre of Excellence. Read more about Centres of Excellence.
• Finnish Flagships: Read more about the Finnish Flagship Programme.

Research ethics

• Preliminary ethical review for project and/or animal testing permit (yes/no)
• Found guilty of research misconduct (yes/no). We will not process a funding application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.
• Guilty of illegal employment within the meaning referred to in section 7(2) of the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers (yes/no)
• The research ethics description is entered under section 4 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Progress report

• If you have ongoing Academy funding or completed projects for which no final report has yet been submitted, the projects to be reported are available on a separate tab in the online services. This does not apply to applicants acting as the responsible person in funding schemes where the funding recipient is an organisation or to applicants who are subproject PIs in consortia.
• Maximum length per project is 1,500 characters including spaces.
• Describe the progress and/or key achievements of the project and how the project is related to the funding being applied for.
• Read more about drafting the report.
• Also see the How-to guides for the online services.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters including spaces
• Popular and reader-friendly description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedish.
• We will use the project description in our communications on the funded research project. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. The project description is also stored at fi, a service that makes available information on research conducted in Finland.
• Read the guidelines on the public project description.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices:

• Complete list of publications. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• Finnish doctoral degree certificate or English-language doctoral degree certificate of a degree obtained abroad; please do not append any transcripts

Case-specific appendices:

• Letter of collaboration. Read more about the letter. As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Authorisation

• You can authorise another person to supplement or view your application.
• Start by entering the person’s name in the field. If the person has an account in the online services (SARA), they can be selected from the list.
• The person must have an account in the Academy’s online services (SARA).
• You cannot authorise more than one person at a time to edit a field in your application, and you cannot edit that same field while the authorisation is active.
• Do not authorise yourself.
• See technical instructions on the authorisation process in the how-to guides for the online services.

Submit application

• You can submit the application when you have filled in or attached all the necessary information.
• A red warning triangle on the tab tells you that some information is missing.
• You can supplement and edit the application until the deadline. Resaving will replace the earlier version.
• If you want to supplement the application after the deadline, please get in touch with the Academy’s contact persons listed in the call text.

Academy of Finland funding is granted based on peer review. We mainly use foreign experts as reviewers.

The applications are primarily reviewed by international panels. At least two individual reviews are requested for applications with a subject that does not fit into any of the panels.

The fundamental principles of the review are transparency, integrity, equity, competence and diversity. Read more about responsible researcher evaluation.

Review criteria

• scientific quality, innovativeness and novelty value of the research as well as its impact within the scientific community
• feasibility of research plan (incl. responsible science)
• competence of applicant/research team in terms of project implementation, possible researcher training
• quality of research environment and collaboration networks (incl. researcher mobility)
• suitability of the proposed research in terms of the special objectives of the funding scheme (incl. societal impact).

In the review of applications for Academy Research Fellowships, special attention will be paid to the applicant’s increasing competencies and ability to stimulate scientific renewal.

The academic competence and qualifications of the applicant will be evaluated with special reference to their postdoctoral research and scientific collaborations in relation to their career stage. In the application, the applicant can demonstrate their competence by describing, for example, their experience of different research environments, their ability to build up collaborative networks, previous national or international mobility, existing or planned joint projects or more independent publishing than in previous career stages. The review will also focus on the applicant’s increasing competence and expected qualification for the most demanding research tasks.

Read more in the guidelines on merits and increased competencies.

See the rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: review form for Academy Research Fellowships and review guidelines. The review guidelines and form are only available in English. The panel drafts one review report on each application. The review report is subject to professional secrecy. Applications that receive a final rating below 5 receive a brief panel summary on the application. The panel will also rank the applications that have received a rating of 5 or 6.

The funding decisions are based on the review reports and panel rankings. Additionally, the decisions are prepared considering the Academy of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions and other policies that guide the Academy’s activities. Read about how funding decisions are made.

The research councils will update their science policies in May‒June. The funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies will be updated on our website before the call opens. Read the research council policies before submitting your application.

The research councils will make the funding decisions in two stages in spring 2023. At the first stage, applications that have received rating below 5 in the review will receive a negative decision at the discretion of the research council concerned. The rest of the applications will be processed at the second stage (mainly applications that received a rating of 5–6). The second-stage funding decisions may be either positive or negative. Applicants receive an email notification of the funding decision after either the first or the second stage of decision-making.

You will receive an email notification after the funding decision has been made. After receiving the email, you can log in to the online services with your user ID to view the decision and its justifications. In the online services, you will also have access to the review report, which may include the panel ranking (panels rank the best applications).

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the funding terms and conditions. Make sure to check the decision and accept the funding and its terms in the online services without delay. This must be done within eight weeks of the decision date, unless otherwise stated in the special conditions of the decision notification.

If necessary, update the popular project description before you accept the funding. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. Make changes to the annual instalments, if necessary (see the instructions in the Academy’s funding terms and conditions). Append the full data management plan. Once you have accepted the funding, the system will send a notification to the commitment issuer at the site of research. That person must also accept the granted funding. See the how-to guide: Decision notification, review reports and accepting funding.

The funds can be paid only after the applicant and the representative of the site of research have accepted them. The system will then notify the funding to the finance administration of the site of research, whereupon the funds will be ready to use.

Please contact us primarily by email or via our helpdesk.

Biosciences, health and the environment

• Harri Hautala, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 019
• Outi Ala-Honkola, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 029
• Laura Forsström, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 041
• Päivi Kolu, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 028
• Rita Rinnankoski-Tuikka, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 096
• Vesa Yli-Pelkonen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 095

Natural sciences and engineering

• fellows-nse@aka.fi
• Hanna Pikkarainen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 155
• Maaria Lehtinen, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 061
• Jan Bäckman, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 010
• Anna Kalliomäki, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 035
• Minna Räisänen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 072
• Kati Sulonen, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 110

Culture and society

• Sampsa Kaataja, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 167
• Suvi Kansikas, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 047
• Sonja Kuosmanen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 025
• Katja Marjanen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 079
• Janne Niemi, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 014
• Siru Oksa, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 125
• ssh@aka.fi

EUI

• Sonja Kuosmanen, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 025

IIASA

• Jaana Roos, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 151

Our email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname(at)aka.fi.

Learn more about the Academy Research Fellow reform: www.aka.fi/en/earlycareer.