Call for inviting researchers from Ukraine to Finland, autumn 2023

The aim of the present call is to support researchers at risk whose work in Ukraine has been prevented by Russia’s attack, which started in 2022. The Finnish inviter (or research team) and the invitee should be a good fit from the viewpoint of the research theme or other scientific competence.

The funding covers the researcher’s mobility costs (necessary travel and living expenses) during the research to be carried out in Finland. Funding for the actual research work must be obtained from other sources.

The applicant is a researcher with a doctoral degree who is based in Finland and has close connections to Finland. The applicant acts as the contact person of the invitee and undertakes to assist in practical matters, such as in finding accommodation and a workspace for the duration of the visit.

Special terms and restrictions

If the application complies with the provisions of the call (incl. the compatibility of the Finnish inviter or research team and the invitee in terms of research topic and/or other scientific expertise) and the invitee meets the eligibility criteria, the application is in principle eligible for funding. Read more under ‘Funding decisions’ in the call text.

Eligibility criteria:

• inviter and invitee must have completed a doctoral degree
• invitee’s research work in Ukraine must have been prevented as a result of Russia’s attack
• invitee must travel to Finland to carry out research.

Only one researcher can be invited with one application. One applicant may submit no more than three applications.

If the invitee received funding (Call for inviting researchers from Ukraine to Finland 2022) from the Research Council of Finland in 2022 and their visit to Finland has already ended or is about to end, they can apply for funding for a new visit from the present call. If the invitee received funding in 2022 but has not been able to start the visit in Finland, they cannot apply for funding in this call.

If the invitee received funding from the previous call for mobility from Ukraine in 2023, they cannot apply for funding in this call.

The funding is granted in the form of an appropriation. The funding may be allocated to the invitee for a maximum period of 24 months. More information on the appropriation is available under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’ in the call text.

The invitee currently has or has at the beginning of the war had a clear affinity with a Ukrainian university, research institute or similar research site, where their research has been prevented by the Russian attack of 2022.

The Research Council of Finland requires that the site of research make sure that funding is not channelled to a researcher who has supported the Russian war in Ukraine.

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

If you have ongoing funding from us or completed projects for which a final report has not yet been submitted, you 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, Research Council of Finland-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

Members of our Board, scientific councils and the Strategic Research Council will not be granted Research Council of Finland funding during their terms.

Funding cannot be granted to a person who has participated in the planning of the call to an extent likely to give them a comparative advantage over other applicants.

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.

The funding period is 1 January 2024–31 December 2026. This refers to the period during which the funding may be used. It is longer than the duration of the visit for which funding is applied. The funding covers a visit of no more than 24 months.

The name of the call in our online services is “Mobility invitation from Ukraine to Finland, autumn 2023”.

Mobility funding is granted as an appropriation, which is paid via and managed by a Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute). The funding does not cover the overheads percentage or insurances, so the researcher must take out appropriate insurance for the grant period and prepare for tax consequences.

The funding is intended to cover the mobility costs of the invitee, that is, the necessary travel and living expenses, including accommodation during the stay in Finland. The travel expenses may include travel to Finland if the invitee is not already in Finland, local transport fares in Finland and return travel to Ukraine or another country after the visit. For living expenses, the site of research may pay a grant to the invitee, for example. It is recommended that the funding amount be determined in line with standard practice at the site of research. If the researcher comes to Finland with their family, the amount applied for may be sized accordingly.

The researcher should take into account the guidelines of the Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution Mela, in particular with regard to visits of more than four (4) months.

Funding for the actual research work must be obtained from other sources.

The funding to applied for must be itemised on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ in the online services as well as in the research plan. The funding to be applied for must be itemised in section 2.2 of the research plan.

What is required from the site of research?

The Research Council of Finland requires that the site of research, in other words the applicant’s host organisation (e.g. university, research institute or other research organisation), make sure that mobility funding is not channelled to a researcher who has supported the Russian war in Ukraine.

The site of research must provide 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 preliminary ethical reviews and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project.

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. Our funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see Value added tax and read more in the funding terms and conditions).

Funding plan

In the application, provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure (travel expenses, other costs).

All funding applied for must be specified in section 2.2 of the research plan: travel expenses, living expenses, accommodation, insurance, etc. Any preparation for Mela payments and tax consequences must also be specified.

Indicative size of the total amount applied for:

• 43,500 euros per year for individual researcher
• 57,000 euros per year for researcher with family.

The total budget earmarked for the call is 2 million euros.

How to submit and supplement the application

The non-negotiable deadline for applications is 20 September 2023 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. The request for supplementation will be sent to you by email. 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 project funded by us according to our instructions, 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 scientific 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, abstract and progress report, which are primarily subject to professional secrecy, 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 Research Council of Finland is committed to following regulations on data protection. The applicant is responsible for the disclosure of the personal data related to the application and for requesting the consent of the parties concerned.

The GDPR-compliant privacy notice concerning the register of persons related to the research funding process is available on our website under Data protection.

The application consists of a form completed in the online services and its PDF appendices. Applicants may submit the application in English, Finnish or Swedish.

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

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 Finnish 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
• Read more about the abstract.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• Up to ten of your most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of your most important other outputs, with justifications.
• You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service. Also see our how-to guide for the online services.
• There are separate fields for selected publications and other research outputs. If the desired output type is not listed, select ‘Other, what?’ and enter the name of the output.
• Details on publications may also be entered manually. Obligatory information: author(s), title, year of publication, name of series/journal, type of publication (the type will not show in the PDF version of the application).
• The information is used to assess the competence of the applicant or consortium to carry out the project.

Mobility

• International mobility for which funding is applied. If the invitee is already in Finland, both the country of origin and the country of destination will be Finland.
• Read more about our aims concerning mobility.

Collaborators

• The invitee acts as the project’s foreign collaborator. Enter the name of the invitee and the organisation in Ukraine with which the invitee is (or was on 24 February 2022) affiliated. Enter Ukraine as the country.
• The invitee’s key merits and justifications for choosing the invitee as collaborator are described in the research plan (item 4).

Affiliations

• Use of research infrastructure: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project will 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. Learn more about research infrastructures.
• Part of a Finnish Centre of Excellence. Select from the options provided if the application is affiliated with an ongoing Centre of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Finland. Read more about Centres of Excellence.
• Finnish Flagship. Select from the options provided if the application is affiliated with the Research Council of Finland’s Finnish Flagship Programme. Read more about the Finnish Flagship Programme.

Research ethics

• Preliminary ethical review for project and/or animal testing permit (select yes/no)
• Found guilty of research misconduct (select 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 (select yes/no)
• If necessary, the research ethics description is entered under section 1.1 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Funding for the project

• Enter the funding period (1 January 2024–31 December 2026). Please note that the planned dates of the visit (e.g. 12 months starting in summer 2024) must be indicated in section 2.1 of the research plan.
• Enter the travel expenses for which funding is applied.
• Enter the other costs for which funding is applied (e.g. grant for living expenses, accommodation costs, Mela fees).
• You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after you have submitted your application to us.
• The commitment of the site of research is a requirement for the granting of funding. Make sure that the Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute) is committed to supporting the project. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by the site of research.

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.

Progress report

• If you have ongoing Research Council of Finland 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 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.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices:

• Research plan, maximum length five pages. See the guidelines on the structure of the research plan.
• Complete list of publications by the applicant. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• Applicant’s CV (max. 3 pages). See the guidelines on the structure of the CV.
• Invitee’s CV (max. 3 pages), clearly indicating the applicant’s date of birth, highest academic degree obtained, affiliation in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, place of work on 24 February 2022, current place of work and periods spent in Finland with grants or other funding in the last five (5) years.

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 our 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 contact persons listed in the call text.

Applications will not go through the Research Council of Finland’s normal peer review process and no review reports will be issued.

The Research Council of Finland’s Subcommittee for Mobility Funding will make the funding decisions in December 2023.

Unlike our previous calls for mobility from Ukraine, the main focus of this new call is to support researchers who have already fled from Ukraine to Finland or another country.

If the funding we have reserved is not sufficient to fund all eligible applications, decisions will be made in the following order of priority:

1. The invitee has fled from Ukraine to Finland on or after 24 February 2022. If applications have to be prioritised among researchers who already are in Finland, priority will be given to those whose current funding is ending first and who are at risk of returning to war.
2. The invitee has fled from Ukraine to a country other than Finland on or after 24 February 2022. If applications have to be prioritised among researchers who already are in a country other than Finland, priority will be given to those whose current funding is ending first and who are at risk of returning to war.
3. The invitee is still in Ukraine.
4. On 24 February 2022, the invitee was doing most of their research outside Ukraine (e.g. on a research visit), but due to the war they are now unable to return to Ukraine to continue the research. According to the terms of the call, the invitee currently has or has at the start of the war had a clear affiliation with a Ukrainian university, research institute or similar site of research.

If the invitee received funding (Call for inviting researchers from Ukraine to Finland 2022) from the Research Council of Finland in 2022 and their visit to Finland has already ended or is about to end, they can apply for funding for a new visit from the present call. If the invitee received funding in 2022 but has not been able to start the visit in Finland, they cannot apply for funding in this call.

If the invitee received funding from the previous call for mobility from Ukraine in 2023, they cannot apply for funding in this call.

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.

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. If a project is granted funding, we will publish a description of the project on our website. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience.

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.

• Siru Oksa, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 125
• Ulla Ellmén, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 011

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

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