FIRI 2019 call for research infrastructures

The Academy of Finland provides funding for the acquisition, establishment or upgrading of nationally significant research infrastructures that promote scientific research.

Research infrastructures refer to a reserve of research facilities, equipment, data and services enabling research and development, promoting research collaboration and reinforcing research and innovation capacity. Research infrastructures may be based at a single location (single-sited), scattered across numerous sites and organisations (distributed), or provided via a virtual platform (virtual).

The aim of the research infrastructure funding scheme is to upgrade the quality and improve the renewal, competitiveness and interdisciplinary approach of Finnish research. The aim is also to increase the appeal of Finnish research environments and boost the national and international collaboration of Finnish universities, research teams and researchers. By funding research infrastructures, the Academy and other relevant actors support researcher training and help generate and utilise scientific knowledge and know-how.

Finland’s roadmap for national research infrastructures is a list of key research infrastructures in Finland under development over the next 10–15 years. The list also concerns a major upgrade of existing research infrastructures. The roadmap infrastructures have gone through an interim evaluation, and a decision has been made (on 5 Feb 2018) on how they are positioned on the roadmap.

The updated roadmap contains 32 infrastructures classified according to their level of advancement. The table below shows each category’s eligibility to apply for funding as well as their assessment targets (advancement level, science promotion and development needs).

The FIRI 2019 call in April 2019 consists of two separate calls:

• Call 1 is for infrastructures included in Finland’s roadmap for research infrastructures (2018 version) and international infrastructures where Finland is a member.
• Call 2 is for new infrastructure initiatives and non-roadmap infrastructures.

FIRI funding is applied for by a university or some other research organisation that is host to a research infrastructure and that is responsible for the application. Joint projects of several organisations, i.e. consortia, must have one responsible party. Read the guidelines for consortium applications.

The application is started by a person approved by the host organisation of the infrastructure. The person may be the principal investigator (PI) of the infrastructure, the PI of the applicant consortium or some other person approved by the host organisation.

The approved person must authorise a representative of the host organisation to view or edit the application while the call is open. The completed application is submitted by the approved person via the Academy’s online services.

If the research infrastructure has ongoing infrastructure funding granted by the Academy, it may be awarded additional funding for justified reasons. The need for concurrent funding must be justified in the action plan and the links between the two fundings must be described in the progress plan.

The Academy of Finland is prepared to fund research infrastructures under the FIRI 2019 calls with a total of some 17 million euros.

The recommended minimum limit for the Academy’s contribution in an individual application is 400,000 euros. Correspondingly, the recommended minimum limit for the Academy’s contribution to a consortium subproject is 200,000 euros and 600,000 euros for the whole consortium.

The funding period in FIRI 2019 call 1 (infrastructures included in Finland’s roadmap and international infrastructures where Finland is a member) is no more than five years. The funding period will start on 1 January 2020 at the earliest and end no later than 31 December 2024.

The funding period in FIRI 2019 call 2 (new initiatives and non-roadmap infrastructures) is no more than three years. The funding period will start on 1 January 2020 at the earliest and end no later than 31 December 2022.

The funding is primarily allocated to investment costs (acquisition of equipment and systems and creation of services) at the construction phase and to significant upgrading of existing infrastructures. The equipment must be incorporated into an existing or upcoming national or international research infrastructure that is open to use by the scientific community.

Funding will not be awarded for infrastructure operating costs, and permanent operating expenses should mainly be covered by funding from host organisations. Funding for salary costs may be granted only for justified reasons.

Funding may also be granted to cover memberships fees to national and international research infrastructures. If the research infrastructure is applying for funding only to cover membership fees, the application must not be submitted in the online services but sent to the Academy’s Registrar’s Office. If the application concerns funding for membership fees and investments, the application is submitted in the online services. In this case, the investments are entered in a budget table in the online services and the membership fee is noted in the action plan.

The Academy’s funding contribution comes to no more than 70% of the total costs of the acquisition, establishment or upgrading of a research infrastructure. In the case of membership fees, the Academy’s contribution comes to 100 per cent. No advances are paid from infrastructure funding.

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable.

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 expires. You can make changes (e.g. change appendices) in an application you have submitted to the Academy, but you must make them before the deadline expires. If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline has expired, immediately get in touch with the call’s contact person, who can open the application so that you can add the missing information. Make sure to re-submit the application after you have supplemented it. We will take into account the additions 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 at the Academy 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 provided by the applicant.

Publicity and data protection

Under the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities, as a rule, an application and its appendices are public information; action plans, abstracts and progress reports, however, are not. For example, the CV is a public document and as such must not include any confidential information. The Academy is committed to following regulations on data protection. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on our 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 you to submit it in English to facilitate the international review.

Draft the application in the Academy’s online services. Select:

• Open calls > FIRI 2019: Finland’s roadmap infrastructures, international memberships
• Open calls > FIRI 2019: new initiatives, non-roadmap infrastructures.

Please make sure you select the correct call.

The online application consists of the following parts:

Personal data/CV

• Personal details
• Degrees (most recent one first)
• Titles of docent and professorships
• CV appendix following the template structure, no more than two pages

Consortium parties (if applicable)

• Details on each party (name, email address, organisation and country)
• Read the guidelines for consortium applications

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)
• Keywords in English and Finnish/Swedish

Abstract

• Maximum length 2,500 characters
• Brief description of the research infrastructure, what it is like and how it serves research. Description of the part of the infrastructure or the purpose for which funding is applied, e.g. acquisition of equipment, database update or service expansion

Most relevant publications

• No more than 20 of the most important publications for the research infrastructure
• You can import publication data from the VIRTA publication information service. VIRTA guidelines
• Details on publications may also be entered manually. Obligatory information: author(s), title, year of publication, name of series/journal
• The complete list of publications by the PI of the research infrastructure is appended to the application under Appendices in the online services.

Collaborators

• Specify the collaborators of the project (name, organisation, country, brief description of the collaboration)

Affiliations

• ESFRI roadmap research infrastructures
• Other research environments
• Centres of Excellence
• Projects funded under the Flagship Programme

Ethical aspects

• Ethical permission for project (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.

Funding for the project

• Funding period, effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT
• Salaries and other costs
• 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.
• Justifications for 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.
• Commitment by site of research. Make sure you have a commitment from your site of research (usually a university or research institute) to supporting the project.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters
• Reader-friendly and popular description of the application in English and Finnish/Swedish
  • What kind of research will the infrastructure facilitate? What is the significance of the research for science and society?
  • what kinds of equipment or services does the infrastructure offer for research (instruments, equipment, data networks, databases, etc.)
  • What type of research infrastructure is it? (single-sited, distributed, virtual)
  • any other interesting aspects
  • link to research infrastructure’s website
  • if relevant, references to previous publications that are readily available at public libraries or on the internet.
  • The public description helps the Academy to disseminate information on the research project.

Authorisation

• If the responsible person is someone other than the organisation’s representative, they must authorise the representative to view or edit parts of the application.
• Start by entering the person’s name in the field.
• The person must have set up 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.
• Technical instructions on the authorisation process are available in the how-to guides for the online services.

Submit the 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 information is missing.
• You can supplement the application until the deadline expires. Resaving will replace the earlier version.
• If you want to supplement the application after the deadline has expired, please get in touch with the call’s contact person.

Appendices to application

Obligatory appendices:

• action plan (see template for Call 1 and template for Call 2), no more than 15 pages
• CV for the person responsible for the application, appended under Personal data/CV, no more than two pages
• CV for the PI of the infrastructure, if not the same person as the person responsible for the application, no more than two pages
• prioritisation list
• data management plan

Case-specific appendices:

• progress report or final report on Academy-funded research infrastructure for which funding is applied
• statement by ethics committee or animal care committee

Academy of Finland funding is granted based on peer review. FIRI 2019 applications will be reviewed by an international review panel in autumn 2019.

Infrastructures that have been classified as advanced or highly advanced infrastructures in Finland’s infrastructure roadmap 2014–2020 (2018 version) will not be assessed for their science promotion as part of the FIRI 2019 call. Science promotion was assessed in connection with the roadmap interim report in 2017–2018. If the infrastructure classified as highly advanced or advanced expands its activities into new fields of research, so that the earlier assessment of the promotion of science does not cover the new activity, the application must be submitted as a new initiative to FIRI 2019 Call 2.

Research infrastructures of category B or D must describe in their application how they plan to address the development needs mentioned in the roadmap decision from 5 February 2018.

When deciding on funding, the Finnish Research Infrastructure Committee takes into account its general funding principles and the National Criteria for Research Infrastructures, factors such as the following:

• national and international scientific significance and added value of the research infrastructure
• project’s links to the research strategy of the host organisation(s) and the long-term commitment by the organisation(s) to the project
• openness in the use of the infrastructure
• systematic and broad utilisation of the infrastructure
• quality and scope of potential user community
• technological and other advancement of the infrastructure
• economic capacity and stability of the infrastructure during its lifespan
• connections to projects that are included in Finland’s roadmap (2018 version) or in ESFRI’s Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures (2018).

Read the review questions that will be used in the review of applications:

• Review form for Call 1, infrastructures included in Finland’s roadmap for research infrastructures (2018 version) and international infrastructures where Finland is a member
• Review form for Call 2, new infrastructure initiatives and non-roadmap infrastructures.

Due to budget reasons, the FIRI Committee will decide on the funding in two stages: the first decision is due in December 2019, the second in January 2020.

The person who has submitted the application will receive an automatic email message after the decision has been made. After receiving this message, they can log in to the online services with their user ID to view the decision and its justifications. They can also read the conditions for the decision, if it has been favourable. In addition, they will have access to read the expert reviews on the application.

How to receive the funding

After being granted funding, the person must check and accept it in the online services without delay. Make sure to check and, if necessary, update the public project description before you accept the funding. The system will then send a notification to the commitment issuer at the site of research. That person must also accept the granted 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.

• Watch the webcast from the FIRI 2019 call session on the Academy’s website under Research infrastructures.
• You can also ask questions about the FIRI 2019 calls on Twitter: @aka_firi
• National Criteria for Research Infrastructures
• Finland’s Strategy and Roadmap for Research Infrastructures 2014–2020 (2018 version)
• ESFRI Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures (2018)