Competitive funding to strengthen university research profiles (PROFI 7 call 2022)

The aim of the Academy of Finland’s competitive funding to strengthen university research profiles (PROFI) is to support and speed up the strategic profiling of Finnish universities in order to improve the quality of research. The funding is fixed-term and may be granted to support profiling areas chosen by Finnish universities based on their strategy. The funding aims to speed up the development of these areas. In their applications, universities are asked to provide an overall picture of their plans for profiling and distribution of work, both from the university’s perspective and in relation to other universities, if applicable.

Another aim is to contribute to intensifying strategic cooperation between Finnish universities and with universities of applied sciences, research institutes, hospital districts and other relevant actors, and to clarifying the responsibilities between these actors. The regional and thematic competitive clusters formed via such collaboration and distribution of work may also include actors from the private and nonprofit sectors.

Based on their own strategies, the universities will set out concrete plans for how they intend to improve the quality and impact of their research. In the plans, the universities describe how they intend to promote strengths, thematic research programmes or emerging research fields, and provide a clear schedule for these measures. The applications should also include a description of how the universities intend to distribute work between and collaborate with other Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes, hospital districts and other relevant actors. The applications must also include cost estimates.

In preparing and making the funding decisions, the Academy will consider the relationship between the funding applied for, the planned profiling measures and the university’s research funding as a whole. It will also take into account the university’s interim and final reports on previously funded profiling measures.

Funding can be applied for in one or several profiling areas. The university can choose the desired profiling area freely. The area can continue the previously planned development of a profiling area, be completely new or combine old profiling areas.

Key concepts

A profiling area is a research area or a thematic research module that a university intends to develop according to its strategy. It is a carefully chosen part of the research conducted at the university.

Profiling areas can be:

• existing high-quality research areas or thematic research modules
• emerging fields or thematic research modules with potential to reach a high level of research
• new fields or thematic research modules with a great deal of potential.

A profiling measure is an action that a university aims to carry out to develop a chosen profiling area. Universities may start several measures to advance the same area within a PROFI call.

Funding will be granted for a fixed term. The funding is applied for by universities, each university with its own application. Consortium applications will not be accepted.

The application is started by a responsible person approved by the university. The completed application is submitted by the person via the Academy’s online services.

The responsible person can authorise one or several persons to read or edit an incomplete application in the online services. The authorisation is given on the tab ‘Authorisation’ in the online services. Please note that the authorisation is valid only when the call is open.

The funding period will start on 1 January 2023 at the earliest and end no later than 31 December 2028.

The PROFI 7 call has a total budget of 100 million euros, which will be granted for measures supporting the research-related profiling of Finnish universities. Parliament has allocated 50 million euros to the call in the 2022 budget. 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 call is implemented following the full cost model. The Academy of Finland’s funding contribution comes to 100 per cent, covering the costs in full. The universities will not be required to contribute to the Academy’s funding.

Discretionary government grants cannot overlap. The funding of an initiated profiling area or measure may, however, be continued with another PROFI funding decision.

Costs related to research infrastructures will be funded only if the infrastructure concerned is a ‘local infrastructure’ primarily operated by the university itself. The key instrument with which the Academy funds national and international research infrastructures is the funding provided by the Finnish Research Infrastructure Committee (FIRI Committee). The Academy will not grant overlapping funding for research infrastructures.

The funding is granted to support the profiling measures specified in the action plan included in the application. The Academy will not make advance payments on the funding.

The funding must be used in accordance with detailed, annually revised funding terms and conditions.

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.

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

Competent representatives of the applicant universities will submit the funding applications using the Academy of Finland’s online services. In the online services, the representatives will also issue a commitment on behalf of the site of research. The call opens on 6 April 2022 and closes on 27 April 2022 at 16.15 Finnish time.

How to submit and supplement the application

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 us by email, so that we 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.

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.

Publicity and data protection

After the funding decisions have been made, the application and its appendices become public documents. 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 Academy’s online services. The action plan must not exceed 30 pages. 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.

The online application contains the following parts

Details on responsible person

• Personal details

Site of research

• Site of research
• Site of research, if other
• Website of site of research

Funding for the project – Following the full cost model, 100%

• Enter the funding period, effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT.
• Enter salaries and other costs. Use only one line per each cost; for example, the salaries of all professors will be combined.
• Commitment by site of research. Read more in the guidelines on the commitment by the site of research.

Action plan

1. Summary

• Summary of the application (2,500 characters)
• Tabular estimate of funding for the profiling areas. The table should include information on the following funding for each profiling area:
  • PROFI 5 funding 2019–2023 (previous PROFI funding essential for the PROFI 7 application)
  • PROFI 6 funding 2021–2026 (previous PROFI funding essential for the PROFI 7 application)
  • PROFI 7 funding (2023–2028) applied for
  • University’s own funding 2023–2028 (core funding from Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and university’s own funds)
  • Other funding 2023–2028 (external funding excluding PROFI funding)

2. Brief description of key contents in the university’s strategy that is of importance for the research (max. 5 pages)

3. Description of the profiling area for which funding will be applied, following the instructions below (1–4 areas). Maximum length six pages/area. If the application contains several profiling areas, the number of pages for a single profiling area may differ from the recommended number of pages, but the total number of pages is six per profiling area.

3.1 Justifications for why the area is of strategic importance

• Name of profiling area
• On what grounds has the area been selected as a strategic profiling area and how is it linked to the university’s strategy?
• How is the area associated with the university’s other profiling areas?

3.2 Actions, resources, schedules, follow-up, risk management

• Description of profiling measures and justifications for amount of funding applied for.
• Short description of how the university will monitor the increase in research quality as well as the progress and impact of the profiling measures
• Description of implementation risks and risk management

3.3 Standard of research

• What is the current international standard of research in the profiling area at the university?
• Current strengths
• Core expertise of key personnel in the profiling area
• What is the international level being sought?
• Compared to the premise, how significant will the change be?
• How will the university ensure a sufficient level of scientific renewal?

3.4 National and international cooperation

• Research environment, including national and international cooperation
• Research-related reasons for and added value of existing and planned national and international cooperation in the profiling area

3.5 Societal impact

• What is the significance and impact of the measures in terms of promoting knowledge transfer, competence-based growth and other societal needs?

4. Profiling area 2

• 4.1–4.5 like 3

5. Profiling area 3

• 5.1–5.5 like 3

6. Profiling area 4

• 6.1–6.5 like 3

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.

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 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. PROFI 7 applications will be reviewed by an international review panel in summer 2022.

Representatives of university management will be called in to be interviewed by the panel. The review focuses both on a university’s overall action plan and on how significant, concrete and realistic each individual profiling area and measure is. The review report is based on the application and the interview. In addition to the review report, the panel will give an overall rating for the application and a rating for each profiling area. The review panel will also rank the applications.

The fundamental principles of the review are transparency, integrity, equity, competence and diversity.

Funding to strengthen university research profiles is granted based on the following review criteria:

• how the plan is linked to the university’s strategy and strategic development measures
• feasibility, credibility and follow-up of the proposed plan
• international standard of research in the profiling area and plans for reaching or maintaining the international level of research in the profiling areas
• ensuring the creation of new, profiling-based initiatives and seeing to their resources
• university’s overall commitment to profiling and developing the quality of research
• significance and national added value of collaboration with other universities, research institutes and society at large (incl. infrastructure collaboration)
• plan’s significance for promoting diverse societal impact

After the panel has given its review report, the Academy will send them to the universities for potential comments. This stage enables the correction of any factual mistakes or misunderstandings in the review report. The applicants have nine working days to correct any mistakes they identify (no more than 2 pages). In addition to the panel review reports, the General Subcommittee designated by the Academy Board also has access to the universities’ comments on the reports when it decides on the funding.

The General Subcommittee will make the funding decisions in late 2022 and early 2023.

In preparing and making the funding decisions, the Academy will consider the relationship between the funding applied for, the planned profiling measures and the university’s research funding as a whole. It will also take into account the university’s interim and final reports on previously funded profiling measures.

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. The system will then 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 both the person responsible for the application and the representative of the site of research have accepted them as received. The system will then notify the funding to the finance administration of the site of research, whereupon the funds will be ready to use.

Primary email address: profi@aka.fi

• Sanna Marjavaara, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 070
• Anne Heinänen, Counsellor of Science, tel. +358 295 335 021
• Helena Vänskä, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 036

Questions and feedback

• PROFI 7 call info session on 18 January 2022 (PDF)