Research, Development and Innovation Programme ICT 2023: thematic calls 2020

The ongoing industrial revolution will take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalisation to create significant added value for industrial systems, processes and manufacturing as well as construction. It also opens up opportunities for the creation of completely new industrial systems. Digitalisation affects every element, process and actor in the industrial value chain, including business models, innovation ecosystems, product development, production, logistics, distribution and maintenance.

Future industrial systems will process much larger amounts of data, and data will be utilised in different parts of the systems in completely new ways. The management and sharing of data between different system parts has become a major research challenge and a source of innovations.

The aim of the ‘ICT Technologies for the Digital Transformation of Industry’ call is to support the creation of new techniques and technologies to enhance the digital transformation of industry. The call targets research that is aimed at achieving significant leaps in existing industrial processes and at creating completely new types of processes, methods and technologies that yield superior benefits compared to current activities. Key to this is the development and utilisation of ICT technologies in new ways.

The memorandum of the thematic call contains more details on the call’s background, aims, thematic areas and review and decision criteria.

The space industry is undergoing a major transformation as more and more commercial actors have appeared alongside traditional governmental space operators, equipped with new technologies and new opportunities derived from them. As a rule, the methods and solutions used in the space sector, such as applications used in low and high temperatures and challenging radiation environments, are designed to be robust and reliable to weather the challenging conditions.

Space technologies for remote sensing, telecommunications and positioning have progressed at a fierce pace in recent decades, opening up extensive benefits to serve the needs of several application areas, such as transport, agriculture and forestry, navigation, environmental monitoring, emergency and rescue solutions, space science and research, and the design of the built environment.

The field is undergoing a transformation and there is demand for the miniaturisation of sensors and new, intelligent IT solutions that increasingly exploit the opportunities of space-based data for society’s various needs, from export industry to scientific advances.

Space-based big data comprise both satellite images and a range of sensors and radio signals. Intelligent methods must be developed for both the generation and utilisation of space-based data to accelerate the transformation and ensure its sustainability. New ICT solutions for the space sector will facilitate a disruption of the processes and operating methods of the space and user segments by using satellite-generated data.

The aim of the ‘New ICT Solutions for Space Industry and Sectors Utilising Space-Based Data’ call is to explore new ways of producing data from space and to develop new methods for analysing that data.

The memorandum of the thematic call contains more details on the call’s background, aims, thematic areas and review and decision criteria.

The funding can be applied for by individual research teams or consortia composed of two or several research teams. The consortium parties may represent one or several research organisations. Applicants may be consortium PIs or subproject PIs in only one application for ICT 2023 funding.

A consortium application is an application built around a joint research plan, where each party to the consortium applies for funding. The Academy treats the consortium application as a single application, although the funding is granted to each subproject separately. Consortium compositions cannot be changed after the call deadline has expired. Read the guidelines for consortium applications.

The principal investigator (PI) of the proposed project must be a researcher with a doctoral degree or at the professor or docent level (adjunct professor). In addition, the applicant must have a close connection with Finland to support the implementation of a multi-year project. This connection must be described in the application.

Special terms and restrictions

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.

The funding is primarily intended towards the salaries of researchers who work full-time on the project and for other project costs. The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs. Read more about the PI’s salary in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.

Members of the Board, research councils and the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland will not be granted Academy funding during their terms.

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.

The call’s funding budget has been set at a total of some 9 million euros.

The funding period is three years: 1 January 2021–31 December 2023.

The funding is paid via a site of research (usually a university or research institute) based in Finland. Academy funding can be granted to foreign sites only in exceptional cases. Academy-funded researchers may, however, spend time working abroad during their funding period.

The application must contain a funding plan drafted in line with the full cost model (see funding terms and conditions), including the funding to be applied for from the Academy (up to 70% of the total project costs).

You can apply for Academy funding to cover, for example, the following direct research costs:

• research team salaries
• PI’s salary costs (under certain limitations)
• salaries of researchers returning to Finland
• essential implementation costs
• travel expenses
• collaboration and mobility in Finland
• international collaboration and mobility
• mobility allowance for periods abroad
• preparation of international projects
• publishing costs (e.g. costs of open-access publishing).

Research team salaries

As a rule, staff hired with Academy research funding must have an employment relationship. We recommend that they be hired for a period of employment no shorter than the funding period, unless a shorter contract is necessary for special reasons dictated by the implementation of the research project. Short-term research, study or other assignments may also be carried out in the form of outsourced services, if it is determined to be necessary for the project.

What is required from the site of research?

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.

The application must also include the overheads percentage, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research.

When the site of research is a university or a research institute, as a rule, the funding must be applied for VAT included. Consult the financial administration at the site of research for more information. The Academy’s funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see Value added tax and funding terms and conditions).

Funding plan

In the application, provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure. Also include a funding plan that shows all funding granted for the project as well as funding that will be provided by the site of research if the project is launched. The Academy funding must not exceed 70% of the total project costs. The cost estimate must be realistic. When drafting the cost estimate, remember to consider the policies on the granted funding. The policies are mentioned in the call text.

All research costs must be justified in the free-text field in the online services under ‘Project funding’.

PI’s salary costs

Academy funding for research projects (Academy Projects, Targeted Projects and Academy Programme Projects) is primarily intended for the salaries of full-time researchers working on the projects and for other research costs.

The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs. The PI’s salary is entered under ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services.

1. Including PI’s salary (for project management) in total project costs

The PI’s salary costs may be incorporated into the total project costs in accordance with what is stated under the tab ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services. In order for the salary costs to be eligible, the PI’s tasks must be clearly specified.

The salary costs must not be significant in relation to the project’s total costs. For example, a four-year research project must not include more than six months of the PI’s effective working hours. This is equivalent to approximately 1.5 months a year.

2. Applying for funding for PI’s salary (for research)

The Academy may grant funding for the PI’s salary for no more than a year for well-justified reasons, such as working abroad, returning to Finland or transferring to another research organisation or a company in Finland. Possible business collaboration must fulfil the terms set out in the Academy’s funding terms and conditions.

A condition is that the research-related reasons and the PI’s tasks must be clearly presented on the tab ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services. The funding cannot be used for this purpose unless it is mentioned in the conditions accompanying the funding decision.

3. Granting salary funding to PI with no employment relationship

If the PI does not have an employment relationship with, for example, a university or research institute, they must give an account  of how their salary will be covered during the funding period under the tab ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services.

Retired researchers can be granted funding on the same grounds as other researchers.

Mobility allowance in research projects

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:

• researchers without dependants: EUR 1,050/month
• researchers with dependants: EUR 1,500/month.

The mobility allowance is applied for as research costs for implementing the research plan and as part of the original application of the project (e.g. Academy Projects, Academy Programmes and research posts). The recommended amount should be enough to cover the costs of higher living expenses from living abroad.

The mobility allowance is applied for on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ under ‘Other expenses’. Ticket costs for travel abroad are entered separately under ‘Travel costs’. If researchers and their families stay abroad for at least six months, funding can also be applied for to cover family travel costs.

How to submit and supplement the application

The deadline is non-negotiable. The deadline for applications is 12 May 2020 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 also make changes to a submitted application, 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 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

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 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 contains 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

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 overview of scientific and societal objectives, research methods and data as well as expected research results and impact
• Read the guidelines for abstracts

Research plan

• Maximum length 12 pages (15 pages for consortium projects);
• See our guidelines on the structure of the research plan.
• If the project involves business collaboration, that collaboration must be clearly indicated in the research plan under item 3.2, Collaborators and their key merits in terms of the project.
• See the how-to guides for the online services

Most relevant publications

• No more than ten of the most relevant publications for the project; no more than 20 publications for consortium projects
• Append a complete list of publications to the application under ‘Appendices’
• You can retrieve publication details from 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)

Mobility

• Enter information on planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person
• Read more about mobility.
• Guidelines on the mobility allowance are available in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.

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.
• Finnish Flagships
• Centres of Excellence

Ethical aspects

• Ethical permission for project (yes/no). The ethical permit is appended on the tab‘Appendices’
• 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.

Funding for the project – Following the full cost model

• Funding period, effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT
• 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.
• 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.
• The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs: for project management and/or research. The justifications are entered on the tab ‘Salary of principal investigator’ in the online services.
• 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’.

Salary of principal investigator

• The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs: for project management and/or research.
• If the PI does not have a permanent employment relationship, include a salary plan for the PI covering the entire funding period
• Read more about the PI’s salary in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.

Public project description

• Maximum length 1,000 characters
• Popular and reader-friendly description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedish
• topic and rationale
• data and research methods to be used(interviews, statistical data, archive resources, etc.)
• site of research
• the significance and objectives of the research from the perspective of society and science
• any other interesting aspects
• if relevant, 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 project description helps us to disseminate information on the research project.
• Read more about the public project description.

Authorisation

• You can authorise other people to edit parts of the application for you.
• 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.
• See technical instructions on the authorisation process in the how-to guides for the online services.

Appendices

   A. Individual application (not consortium application)

• Appendices must be PDF files.

   Obligatory appendices

• The 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 (DMP): write the plan by using the DMPTuuli tool or following the Academy’s DMP guidelines.

   Case-specific appendices

• Collaboration plan; see the guidelines in the memorandum
• invitation by foreign university or research institute, if the research or part of it will be conducted abroad
• statement by ethics committee or animal care committee
• Progress report on all Academy-funded projects headed by the applicant that have not submitted final reports.
• Research plan following the template (no more than 12 pages); only if the research plan has not been filled in on the tab ‘Research plan’

   B. Consortium application

• Appendices must be PDF files.

   Appendices of consortium PI:

   Obligatory appendices

• Data management plan (DMP): write the plan by using the DMPTuuli tool or following the Academy’s DMP guidelines.

• CV following the template, no more than two pages
• Complete list of publications: The most relevant publications are entered under ‘Most relevant publications’.

   Case-specific appendices

• Collaboration plan; see the guidelines in the memorandum
• 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
• Progress report on all Academy-funded projects headed by the applicant that have not submitted final reports.
• Research plan following the template (no more than 15 pages); only if the research plan has not been filled in on the tab ‘Research plan’

   Appendices for PI of consortium subproject:

  Obligatory appendices

• CV following the template, no more than two pages
• Complete list of publications: The most relevant publications are entered under ‘Most relevant publications’.

   Case-specific appendices

• invitation by foreign university or research institute, if the research or part of it will be conducted abroad
• Progress report on all Academy-funded projects headed by the applicant that have not submitted final reports.

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. Resaving will replace the earlier version.
• If you want to supplement the application after the deadline, please get in touch with the 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 review of applications follows a single-stage process. The applications will be reviewed by an international panel.

The review is based on the following criteria:

• how the project supports the objectives of the call
• 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: Review form: ICT 2023.

Two threshold values will be used in the review:

• The threshold rating for the ‘Project’s relevance to the programme’ item is 4 on a scale from 1 to 6. If an application fails to meet this rating, the review will be discontinued, and the applicant will only receive feedback on that item.

The threshold rating for the ‘Scientific quality, novelty and innovativeness of the research’ item is 4 on a scale from 1 to 6. If an application fails to meet this rating, the review will be discontinued and the applicant will only receive feedback on two items: ‘Project’s relevance to the programme/call’ and ‘Scientific quality, novelty and innovativeness of the research’.

The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering will make the funding decisions in late 2020.

In addition to the general review criteria of Academy research programmes, the following issues will be considered:

• International cooperation
  • attracting top-level young, talented researchers from abroad to Finland or hiring researchers who have recently come to Finland to work on the project
  • research visits by Finnish researchers to leading-edge foreign universities and research institutes
• Cooperation with the private and public sectors
  • cooperation between universities, research institutes and business companies
  • problem-setting in research
  • application potential of results
• Intersectoral mobility of leading-edge researchers
  • mobility from universities to business companies
  • mobility from business companies to universities
• Use of universities’ and research institutes’ own resources to carry out research
  • use of resources of the site of research and the partners
  • level of commitment and funding contribution by the site of research.

You will receive an email notification 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 decision and its justifications. A positive funding decision will be accompanied by the terms and conditions of funding. In the online services, you will also have access to the review report, which may include the panel ranking (panels rank the best applications).

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the terms and conditions of funding. Make sure to check the decision and accept the funding and its terms in the online services without delay. If necessary, update the popular project description before you accept the funding. Once you have accepted the funding, the system will 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 the applicant and the representative of the site of research have accepted them. The system will then notify the funding to the finance administration of the site of research, whereupon the funds will be ready to use.