Funding for research post as Academy Research Fellow, all research fields

Successful applicants will have been engaged in successful scientific publication and collaboration since gaining their doctoral degree.

When applying for funding for a research post as Academy Research Fellow, you apply for funding for your own salary for five years. Academy Research Fellows work on research plans of a high scientific quality. They have built extensive research networks and the funding allows them to develop their skills of academic leadership and to establish themselves as independent researchers in the international scientific community.

A post as Academy Research Fellow provides a researcher 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 part of the term abroad. Foreign researchers who already work or who will work in the Finnish scientific community may also apply for the funding.

The duties include (without separate compensation) supervision of thesis and dissertation writers and teaching associated with the research, covering 5% of annual working hours.

The applicant is a researcher with 3–9 years of experience since completing their doctoral degree (degree certificate issued 25 Sept 2010–25 Sept 2016), or up to 13 years, provided that they have since completed medical specialist training.

Applicants who have completed their doctoral degree more than nine years ago 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/CV > Degrees > Additional information. If these reasons are confidential, the applicant must get in touch with the programme’s contact person named in the call text (see Contacts).

Mobility since completing their doctoral degree is required from applicants for funding for a research post as Academy Research Fellow (Mobility requirement). If an application for funding for a research post as Academy Research Fellow concerns the same research environment where the applicant worked while completing their doctoral degree, the applicant must have at least six months of research experience from another research environment or research-supporting experience from another sector since PhD completion.

You can find detailed guidelines for fulfilling the mobility requirement in the index of application guidelines (Mobility: Academy Research Fellows and postdoctoral researchers).

Special conditions and restrictions

In the September call, the Academy will consider only one application per researcher if the application concerns Academy Project funding (including a consortium subproject), Academy Research Fellow funding, Postdoctoral Researcher 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 you are appointed to a professorship for an indefinite term while your application is being processed, please notify us without delay. Academy Research Fellow funding is not granted to persons who hold tenured professorships or other corresponding senior-level research posts at research organisations.

Researcher who have received Academy funding for a research post as Postdoctoral Researcher cannot be granted Academy Research Fellow funding until the end of the Postdoctoral Researcher funding period.

A person applying for post as an Academy Research Fellow may be granted funding for one five-year term only.

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.

The research councils which started in the beginning of 2019 will update their science policies in May‒June. Funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies are updated on the research council’s website before the call opens. Read the policies of the research council before submitting your application.

Academy Research Fellow salary

Research posts as Academy Research Fellow are filled for five years. The funding period is 1 September 2020–31 August 2025. Separate decisions will be made on the funding for the salary and the research costs of Academy Research Fellows in spring 2020. The funding period may be changed only due to special reasons (see Who can apply in the call text).

The funding towards the salary of an Academy Research Fellow is determined according to a monthly salary of 5,000 euros. We will also allocate funding for indirect employee costs (28%) and overheads (14.29%, i.e. the funding includes an overhead share of 12.5%).

The funding is paid via a site of research (usually a university or research institute) based in Finland. The Academy Research Fellow may, however, work abroad for periods of different length during the funding period.

The salary of an Academy Research Fellow may also be co-funded, where appropriate in terms of supporting the researchers career advancement. This requires that the externally funded salary part has been allocated to research tasks or other tasks in support of the researcher’s career, such as tasks that are part of the university’s tenure-track system. The guidance value for the Academy’s contribution to the researcher’s salary costs is 70 per cent, unless there are reasons for a higher contribution. For those who have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) the corresponding contribution is 50 per cent. The Academy’s salary funding that is freed as a result of salary co-funding can be used for other research costs, which are justified separately. In the September 2019 call, however, applicants apply for the full amount of salary funding.

Academy Research Fellow research costs

Having received the decision on their salary funding, the recipients of Academy Research Fellow funding can submit a separate application for a grant to cover research costs.  The funding is granted to cover costs of setting up a research team, research costs, costs of international collaboration and mobility and other research costs. As the full cost model is applied to the applications for research cost funding, the Academy’s contribution to funding covers no more than 70% of the estimated total research costs.

However, you must also append a tentative funding plan for research costs to your application under Research costs. You can find more information on the different policies concerning reseach costs in Research council policies.

What is required from the site of research?

The Academy Research Fellow’s site of research is an organisation based in Finland through which the funding is channelled and paid. During the funding period, the Academy Research Fellow may work abroad for periods of varying durations, for example at foreign universities.

We require that the site of research (e.g. university) 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, etc.

Calculation of the mobility allowance in research costs

The mobility allowance in research projects depends neither on the target country nor on the duration of the stay. It is a taxable benefit and indirect employee costs will be deducted from it:

• for a researcher with no dependants:1,050 euros/month
• for a researcher with dependants:1,500 euros/month

The recommended amount should be enough to cover the costs of higher living expenses from living abroad. Additionally, you can apply for allowance covering ticket costs when travelling abroad. If researchers and their families stay abroad for at least six months, funding can also be applied for to cover family travel costs. You must justify the need for mobility allowance.

Research period at EUI or IIASA for the Academy Research Fellow 

Those applying for Academy Research Fellow funding 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  (IIASA), whose research focuses on global issues that require broad-based, multidisciplinary research cooperation. IIASA develops and utilises methods of systems analysis, but the applicant is not required to have knowledge of these methods. If your research is linked to one of IIASA’s research projects, you can agree on the visit with IIASA and append IIASA’s invitation to your application for Academy Research Fellow funding. 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.

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, so that the application can be reopened for your supplementary additions. Make sure to re-submit the application after you have supplemented it. We will consider the additions insofar as it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process. An important addition is, for instance, an invitation by a foreign university.

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, an application and its appendices are public information; confidential documents such as research plans, plans of intent, 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 that you to submit it in English to facilitate the international review.

The online application consists of the following parts:

Personal data/CV

• Personal details
• Degrees (most recent one first); parental leaves etc. may be filled in under Additional information
• Titles of docent and professorships
• CV appendix following the template structure, no more than two pages

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 overview of scientific and societal objectives, research methods and data as well as expected results and impact of the research
• Read more about the Abstract

Research plan

• Maximum length 12 pages
• See our guidelines on the structure of the research plan
• See the how-to guides for the online services

Most relevant publications

• No more than ten of your most important publications for the project
• Search for publications in the VIRTA publication information service See the how-to guides for the online services
• Details on publications may also be entered manually Obligatory information: author(s), title, year of publication, name of series/journal, type of publication (will not show in the PDF version of the application)
• Append a complete list of publications to the application under Appendices

Collaborators

• Specify the collaborators of the project (name, organisation, country, brief description of the collaboration)
• Describe the collaborators’ merits relevant to the project and the justifications for choosing them in section 3.2 of the research plan

Mobility

• Mobility requirement After their doctorate, the applicant must have at least a six-month period of national or international mobility, which must be specified in the application
• Another period of mobility after doctorate
• Period of mobility planned for the project
• See more information on mobility (Academy Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher)

Affiliations

• ESFRI roadmap research infrastructures
  Other research infrastructures
• 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.
• The research ethics description is entered under section 4.1 of the research plan.

Salary

• Funding period: 1 September 2020–31 August 2025
• Monthly salary according to the call text, 5,000 euros.
• Funding for a post as Academy Research Fellow is intended for the researcher’s own salary.
• 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.

Research costs

• Preliminary budget for the duration of the Academy Research Fellow post with justifications for research grants applied for later and funding currently applied for. The cost estimate must be realistic.
• Research group salaries and other expences
• Guidelines on the mobility allowance are available in the call text under Funding to be applied for and funding period.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters
• reader-friendly and popular description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedis
• the topic of the research and the rationale
• the data and research methods to be used (interviews, statistical data, archive materials, etc.)
• the site of research
• the significance and objectives of the research from the perspective of society and science
• any other interesting aspects
• if relevant, a link to the researcher’s website, if it contains more information on the topic
• 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.

• Read more about the Public description

Authorisation

• You can authorise another person to to supplement or view your 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.

Appendices

• Appendices must be pdf files

    Obligatory appendices

• CV is appended under Personal data/CV, no more than two pages
• Complete list of publications The most relevant publications are entered under Most relevant publications
• Data management plan: write the plan with help from DMPTuuli or according to the guidelines found on the Academy’s website
• Finnish doctoral degree certificate or English-language doctoral degree certificate of a degree obtained abroad; please do not append any transcripts

    Case-specific appendices

• Statement by ethics committee or animal care committee.
• Invitation by foreign university or research institute, if the research or part of it will be conducted abroad; do not append any letters of recommendation.
• Progress report on all Academy-funded projects headed by the applicant that have not submitted final reports.
• Research plan following the template structure, no more than 12 pages (no more than 15 pages for consortia); only if the research plan has not been written on the tab Research plan

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 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 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 mainly reviewed in international panels. The panel drafts one review report on each application. At least two individual reviews are requested for applications with a subject that does not fit into any of the panels.

Review criteria

• scientific quality, innovativeness and novelty value of the research      as well as its impact within the scientific community
• competence of applicant/research team in terms of project      implementation
• feasibility of research plan (incl. research ethics)
• quality of research environment and collaborative networks
• researcher mobility and researcher training.

Read the review questions that will be used in the review of applications: review form for Academy Research Fellows

Each panel will rank the applications that have received a rating of 5 or 6.

The research councils which started in the beginning of 2019 will update their science policies in May‒June. Funding decisions are based on the policies of each research council. The policies are updated on the research council’s website before the call opens. Read the policies of the research council before submitting your application.

The research council will make the funding decisions in two stages in spring 2020. In the first stage, applications that have received rating 1–4 in the review will receive a negative decision at the discretion of the research council concerned. Rest of the applications will be processed in the second stage (mainly applications that received a rating of  5–6). The second-stage funding decisions may be either positive or negative.

You will receive an email 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 funding decision and its justifications. You can also read the funding conditions, if the decision has been favourable. In addition, you will have access to read the expert reviews on your application.

The recipient of the Academy Research Fellow funding can submit a separate application for a grant to cover research costs. The presenting official of the funding instrument will contact them after the funding decision has been made.

How to receive the funding

After being granted funding, you 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 applicant 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.