Research Council of Finland – NIH joint call 2024: thematic areas of the Finnish Research Flag-ships

6 Feb 2024
Multiple cut-off dates
3 M€
1 Apr 2025 to 31 Mar 2030
Pending
  • In this joint call, the application procedure differs from a typical Research Council of Finland call. Please study the procedure in section ‘Background and objectives’ in detail before starting preparations to apply.
  • Applicants from Finland can participate in NIH R01 funding opportunities with proposal due dates of 5 June (R01 new) and 5 July 2024 (R01 renewal, resubmission, revision). These deadlines correspond to NIH application cycle II.
  • Intention to Submit’ must be sent by the PI from Finland to the RCF as early as possible and at least ten weeks before the NIH call deadline, and the close-to-final draft proposal at least six weeks before the NIH call deadline. The final proposal is submitted to the NIH by the US PI.
  • RCF funding will be granted only for proposals that receive a ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter from the RCF and are selected for funding in the respective NIH funding call.
  • The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the RCF in its budget for 2025.

The RCF-NIH Partnership Programme, launched in November 2020, is an initiative between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Research Council of Finland (RCF). Under the Programme, a ‘single-proposal, single-review’ mechanism is facilitated by the NIH through their existing grants programmes. From the perspective of RCF, all proposals submitted under the auspices of the Partnership must have significant research involvement from researchers from both countries. Funding will be provided for collaborative research activities falling within the missions of participating NIH Institutes and Centers and the thematic areas of RCF Finnish Research Flagships. For all the NIH details on this grant opportunity, see:

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-24-040.html

The application procedure, which should be studied in detail before starting preparations to apply, is described in detail in the section ‘Background and objectives’. The following steps are included in the application procedure for researchers from Finland:

  1. Notification of Intention to Submit: The Intention to Submit is emailed to RCF at flagship@aka.fi as early as possible and no later than ten weeks before the NIH R01 call deadline. RCF pre-assesses the eligibility of the project. If assessed eligible, the applicant is invited to submit a close‐to‐final draft of the full proposal to RCF.

  2. Draft proposal submission and cut-off stage: The close-to-final proposal must be submitted to RCF no later than six weeks before the NIH R01 call deadline. Following submission of the close-to-final draft proposal, RCF will assess the proposal and, if supportive, provide a ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the Finnish applicant for inclusion in the full proposal submission to the NIH.

If the total requested funding in the close-to-final draft proposals significantly exceeds the available funding, RCF will select the proposals it will support and issue ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letters for the selected proposals. After this cut-off stage RCF may no longer issue new letters.

  1. Submitting application to the NIH: The US proposer submits the final proposal, including the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter, to the appropriate NIH programme for review. The proposal is reviewed in accordance with the standard NIH merit review criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts of the proposed effort. RCF has agreed to accept the assessments of the NIH with regard to the suitability for funding of individual proposals.

The requirements in this call announcement relate only to applicants applying for funding from RCF.

Before you start preparing to apply for the funding, please read carefully the call text, which is published by NIH and only in English:

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-24-040.html

Before you fill in the application in the online services (SARA), carefully read the call text and the ‘Read more’ section, especially the funding terms and conditions. If the call text and the funding terms and conditions conflict, the terms and conditions should always be considered primary.

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