Mobility grant from Finland to Japan (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship) 2022

The Academy of Finland’s mobility funding is based on bilateral agreements and supports the Academy’s general science policy objectives. The mobility funding promotes the international interactions of Finnish researchers as well as the internationalisation of Finnish research environments and thereby strengthens the quality of Finnish research.

JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowships apply to Japan. The funding is based on a bilateral agreement between the Academy of Finland and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

The funding is intended for the researcher’s own mobility costs (necessary travel and living expenses) for research in Japan.

The applicant is a researcher who is based in Finland and has close connections to Finland. The applicant is required to obtain a doctoral degree no later than 31 March 2023.

Special terms and restrictions

The funding comes in the form of a personal grant. The JSPS is responsible for the funding and the funding terms and conditions. The funding may be allocated to one person for a period of 12–24 months. More information on the grant is available under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’ in the call text.

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. 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.

Members of the Academy Board, research councils and the Strategic Research Council will not be granted Academy 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.

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.

The name of the call is ‘Mobility grant from Finland to Japan (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship) 2022’.

The funding comes in the form of a personal grant paid directly to the researcher. The grant is intended for the researcher’s own mobility costs (necessary travel and living expenses). The grant duration is between 12 months and 24 months. The visit to Japan must be a single, uninterrupted period. The earliest start date is 1 April 2023, and the latest start date is 30 November 2023.

Applications are submitted to the Academy so that the Academy will screen out the applicants and select a candidate for the JSPS. The JSPS will make the funding decision and be responsible for grant payment.

The most important part of the application is the JSPS application form, which must be appended to the application in the online services. You can find JSPS’s application form (FY 2023, FORM 2, Standard) and the guidelines (FY 2023) and the JSPS application guide.

If family members accompany the applicant to Japan for at least six (6) months, the researcher may apply for Academy funding for the family’s travel expenses. Funding for family members’ travel expenses is applied for with the same form as the JSPS Fellowship. The travel expenses of family members are added to the ‘Travel expenses’ category on the tab ‘Funding for the project’. The family members are named and their travel expenses are specified in the PDF appendix to the application: name, age, relation to the applicant and travel funding applied for, e.g. daughter Anna, 5 years of age, €750. The funding period for the family’s travel expenses (period during which funding can be used) starts at the earliest on 1 March 2023. The travel funding for family members is paid as a grant to the applicant’s personal account in Finland. The funding does not cover insurances for family members, so applicants must take out appropriate insurances.

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.

Funding plan

JSPS pays the grant directly to the Fellow according to its own calculations.

In the application, the applicant presents a cost estimate to the Academy:

• If the applicant travels to Japan alone, they enter one (1) euro in the expenditure category ‘Other expenses’. This is a technical formality; the sum is not meant to be withdrawn.
• If the family accompanies the applicant to Japan for at least six (6) months, the applicant enters the travel expenses of the family members under the heading ‘Travel expenses’. The family members are named and their travel expenses are specified in the PDF appendix to the application.

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 the application is submitted to the wrong call or if you have not submitted a report on a completed or ongoing Academy-funded project 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 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, 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 Academy of Finland is committed to following regulations on data protection. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on the Academy website under Data protection.

The application consists of a form completed in the online services and its 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.

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

CV

• Draft the CV following the template (no more than three pages).

General information

• Details on the applicant’s 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.
• 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
• Read more about the Academy’s aims concerning mobility.

Collaborators

• Project’s foreign collaborator (name, organisation and country of host or responsible person for visit)

Affiliations

• Research infrastructures: 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. Read more about research infrastructures.
• Centres of Excellence in Research: 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)
• If necessary, the research ethics description is entered under section 1.2 of the research plan.
• See the ethical guidelines.

Funding for the project

• Enter the funding period. The Academy’s funding period for the travel expenses of the family accompanying the researcher to Japan for at least six (6) months is at least two (2) years.
• Enter the cost estimate as explained above under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.
• 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.
• The cost estimate must be realistic.

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. 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 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.
• 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.

Appendices

• Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices:

• Complete list of publications by the applicant. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.
• JSPS form (FY 2023, FORM 2, Standard), filled in
• Invitation letter from Japan (template)
• Letter of recommendation from dissertation supervisor
• Certificate of doctoral degree
• If your family accompanies you to Japan for at least six (6) months and you apply for Academy funding to cover their travel expenses, name and specify the family members: name, age, relation to the applicant, travel expenses, e.g. daughter Anna, 5 years of age, €750.

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 edit and 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.

The review of mobility applications will focus on the following aspects, for example:

• How does the applicant justify why and for what purposes the funding is applied for?
• How does the application address the objective of the funding as regards promoting the international interaction of Finnish researchers and increasing the internationalisation of Finnish research environments?
• What is the quality, impact and renewal potential of the research cooperation described in the application?

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

In the review of the applications, focus will be placed on the following:

• scientific quality of project
• applicant’s scientific merits
• added value of research cooperation
• increasing international collaboration
• participation of early-career researchers.

See the Academy’s rating scale and the review questions that will be used in the review: review form. The Academy’s review forms are only available in English.

The Academy’s research councils will make the decisions on the Fellowship candidates in early 2023.

As an applicant, you will receive an automatic email message after the 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. There you can also read the review report on your application.

How to receive the funding

If you have been selected by the Academy as the Fellowship candidate, we will also contact you personally before your application is sent to Japan. It will take approximately three months for your application to be processed in Japan.

If necessary, update the popular project description.

For technical reasons, a small funding decision has been made for your application, usually amounting to one (1) euro. The sum is not intended to be withdrawn.

If you have also applied for a travel grant to family members, it will be regarded as having been received when you send a request for payment to the Academy.

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

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

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