Call for applications for Research Council of Finland Proof of Concept Funding 2024

The Research Council of Finland’s Proof of Concept Funding is intended for demonstrating the feasibility of ideas on how to utilise research results of projects funded by the Research Council and for strengthening the versatile utilisation of research results based on these ideas.

The funding can be used to, for example:

• strengthen and accelerate the effective utilisation of research and knowledge and increase the impact of research results
• promote the economic or other societal impact of research
• pilot or test research results in experimental or practical settings
• develop new models for industry, public administration or the third sector.

The funding will increase the competence of research organisations and researchers in utilising research and provide researchers with opportunities to diversify their collaboration networks and increase their expertise in business and stakeholder cooperation.

The funding complements Finnish national funding to support cooperation between research organisations, businesses and other societal actors. Compared to the funding opportunities offered by Business Finland, the Research Council of Finland Proof of Concept Funding is closer to scientific research. The projects to be funded are expected to move from research towards commercialisation or other societal use of the research. At the end of the project, the solution sought by the project may still be in a pre-commercial phase or in a phase where it is being prepared for deployment for other uses.

The project plan must describe the whole research utilisation path and indicate which phase will be implemented with the requested funding. See guidelines on describing the research utilisation path.

The 2024 funding can be applied for by researchers (principal investigators) who have received Academy Project funding, including the 2018 Academy Project Funding for early-career researchers, and whose project has ended or will end between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024.

In their application, applicants must describe how the proposed research utilisation project builds on Academy Project research funded under the Academy Project scheme or the 2018 Academy Project Funding for early-career researchers scheme.

They can apply for funding for either an individual project or a consortium project. A joint application from several applicants forms a consortium application. All subproject PIs in a consortium project must be eligible to apply. Read the guidelines for consortium applications.

Special terms and restrictions

In this call, we will consider (process) only one application per applicant. If you submit more than one application to the call, only the first application to arrive will be considered (processed).

The PI’s salary costs may only under certain limitations and on justifiable grounds be incorporated into the total project costs. Read more in the call text 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 you have submitted your application to us.

We will not consider (process) an application by a person who has participated in the planning of the call to an extent likely to give them a comparative advantage over other applicants

Nor will we consider an application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.

If the application includes cooperation with Russia or Belarus, you must take into account our policies on the matter.

If you have not submitted a final report on a completed or ongoing Research Council-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to consider (process) your application.

An application will not be considered (processed) if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements, or if there are otherwise no conditions for processing the case.

A scientific council or another decision-making body may decide 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.

Individual projects may be granted a maximum of 300,000 euros. In consortia, the maximum project size is 450,000 euros. The funding period starts on 1 January 2025, and the project duration is two years.

The funding is primarily intended towards the salaries of persons who work full-time on the project and for other project costs.

The funding is granted to a Finnish site of research (usually a university or research institute) through which the project’s funding is paid.

The PI of the funded project must have a close connection with Finland. However, during the funding period, persons hired to the project can work abroad for periods of varying lengths.

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 funding cannot be used to carry out the previously funded research project that underlies the utilisation idea.

Before submitting the application, you must agree with the administration at your organisation on the contribution of the site of research to the funding of the project. Only costs that pass through the books of the site of the research must be included in the total costs. You must check with your organisation whether the funding planned as the own funding contribution suits this purpose.

The funding applied for from the Research Council of Finland must not exceed 70% of the total project costs. The cost estimate must be realistic.

All costs must be justified in the free-text field on the tab ‘Funding for the project’.

The Research Council of Finland’s general funding terms and conditions are applied in this call.

In this call, applicants can also apply for funding, for instance, for the following direct costs of promoting research utilisation (provided they do not arise from economic activity):

• costs of carrying out the research utilisation plan
• costs of making research data available (open access)
• market or patent surveys, other equivalent proof-of-concept activities
• experimentation and pilot projects
• protection of IPRs (not maintenance fees)
• commercialisation preparation (not actual commercialisation or commercialisation activities that will benefit only one company).

According to the Research Council of Finland’s funding terms and conditions, the funding cannot be used for economic activity. Economic activity is defined as all activity where goods or services are offered on an open market regardless of whether profits are pursued or generated.

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.

Salary of project participants

As a rule, staff hired with Research Council research funding must have an employment relationship. We recommend that they be hired for the entire funding period, unless a shorter contract is necessary for special reasons dictated by the implementation of the project. Short-term research, studies or other assignments (max. duration six months) may also be carried out in the form of outsourced services.

Salary costs of principal investigator

As a rule, funding is not granted for the salary of the PI of the research utilisation project. The PI’s salary costs may only under certain limitations and on justifiable grounds be incorporated into the total project costs.

However, for duly justified reasons of a scientific nature or related to the implementation of the project, the PI may be granted a maximum of one year’s funding. These reasons may include working abroad, returning to Finland or transferring to another research organisation or a company in Finland.

The PI’s salary is entered under ‘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.

Mobility aid in research projects

Mobility aid is applied for as research costs related to the implementation of the research utilisation plan. The aid is applied for in accordance with the practices of the site of research. In order to obtain further information, you should contact the personnel and financial administration of the site of research.

In the online services, the aid is applied for on the tab ‘Funding for the project’ under ‘Travel expenses’. The mobility aid must be justified. Read more about the mobility aid in the funding terms and conditions.

What is required from the site of research?

We require that the site of research (e.g. a university, research institute or research organisation; see guidelines for sites of research) 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.

When accepting the funding, the site of research is responsible for ensuring that necessary statements and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project.

The costs of ensuring immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles are included in the overheads of the site of research and are thus part of the basic facilities provided by the site. The costs associated with storing research data and making them open access are regarded as overheads for the project’s site of research. Only exceptionally and for justified reasons can they be accepted as costs to be covered with the Research Council of Finland’s research funding.

The site of research also commits to ensuring that the data management plan can be implemented at the site of research, and that the measures to be taken comply with good data management practice. After a positive funding decision, the site of research will also approve the data management plan of the project. Read more: commitment by site of research.

The application must also include the overheads percentage, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research. The site of research will see to that this information is kept up to date in the online services. The information is provided as percentages.

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. Our funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see VAT and read more in our funding terms and conditions).

How to submit and supplement the application

The non-negotiable call deadline also applies to consortia. We will not consider (process) an application that has not been submitted by deadline. The deadline is Tuesday 11 June 2024 at 16.15 Finnish time.

The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI. The PI can submit the consortium application only after all subproject PIs have tagged their applications as complete.

Make sure to submit the application in good time before the deadline. The system will only accept applications that contain all obligatory information. The applicant is responsible for ensuring that the content of the application appendices is correct.

You can edit and supplement a submitted application (e.g. change appendices) until the deadline. If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline, immediately get in touch with us via email (poc@aka.fi), so that the application can be reopened for supplementation. We will consider the supplemented information if it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.

We may ask you to supplement the application. The request for supplementation will be sent to you by email. If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, or if the application is substantially incomplete even after a request for supplementary information, we may decide to dismiss it (i.e. it will not be processed). 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 you fail to submit a final report on a completed or ongoing project according to our guidelines, we may decide not to process your new 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 scientific council or another decision-making body may decide 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 utilisation plan and abstract, which are primarily confidential, 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.

We are committed to following regulations on data protection. The applicant is responsible for the disclosure of the personal data contained in the application and, where appropriate, for requesting the consent of the parties concerned.

The GDPR-compliant privacy notice 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.

Most of the links below take you to the A–Z index of application guidelines and 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

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 utilisation 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 project’s scientific and societal objectives, research methods and data as well as expected research results and impact
• Read the instructions on the abstract and use them as appropriate.

Project participants

• Project members and their tasks (only persons who are paid salary from the project)
• Effective working hours for the members

Most relevant publications and other key outputs

• The PI/consortium PI enters up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own outputs, with justifications.
• You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service. Also see our how-to guide for the online services.
• There are separate fields for selected publications and other outputs. If the desired output type is not listed, select ‘Other, what?’ and enter the name of the output.
• 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).
• Do not enter journal-based metrics on publications and research outputs. Read more about responsible researcher evaluation.
• The information is used to assess the competence of the applicant or consortium to carry out the project.

Public project description

• Write a popular and reader-friendly description of the project in English and Finnish/Swedish.
• Maximum length 1,000 characters including spaces
• We will use the project description in our communications on the funded research project. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience. The description will also be stored at fi, a service that makes available information on scientific research conducted in Finland.
• Use the guidelines on the public description where applicable.

Funding for the project

• The project’s funding follows the full cost model. The Research Council of Finland’s funding contribution to the costs of the research utilisation project is 70%.
• Before you can fill in the cost estimate, you must first select the site of research on the tab ‘General information’.
• The site of research maintains the following percentages: effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT. The information is provided as percentages.
• Enter the funding period (1 January 2025–31 December 2026).
• Enter salaries and other costs.
• Enter other funding sources and their funding contributions. You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after you have submitted your application to us.
• Justify the funding to be applied for by type of expenditure. 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’.
• The commitment of the site of research is a requirement for the granting of funding. Make sure you have a commitment from your site of research (usually a university or research institute) to supporting the project. Read more: commitment by site of research.

Mobility

• Describe planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person. The mobility can be to another university or research institute, or to another sector of society, such as a business company.
• See more information on mobility.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Collaborators

• Specify the collaborators of the project (name, organisation, country, brief description goals/benefits of the collaboration)
• Describe the collaborators’ roles and project-relevant key merits and provide justifications for choosing them in the research utilisation plan.
• We recommend that applicants append a letter of collaboration to the application. Read more about the letter. Letters of collaboration must be appended before the call deadline. After the call deadline, we will consider supplemented information if it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.
• As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English.

Affiliations

• Use of research infrastructure: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project plans to 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. Learn more about research infrastructures.
• Part of a Finnish Centre of Excellence. Select from the options provided if the application is affiliated with an ongoing Centre of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Finland. Read more about Centres of Excellence.
• Part of a Finnish Flagship. Select from the options provided if the application is affiliated with the Research Council of Finland’s Finnish Flagship Programme. Read more about the Finnish Flagship Programme.

Research ethics

• Preliminary ethical review for research utilisation project and/or animal testing permit (select yes/no)
• Found guilty of research misconduct (select yes/no). We will not consider (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 (select yes/no)
• The research ethics description is entered under section 2 of the research utilisation plan. Please note that you should consider responsible science as a cross-cutting issue when preparing your application. Read more about research ethics.

CV

• Maximum length three pages
• Write the CV on our template and append it to the application on the tab ‘CV’ in the online services.
• CV following the template

Research results utilised in the project

• Briefly describe the results of your Academy Project that will be utilised in this project.
• Project’s decision number
• Maximum length 2,000 characters

Plan for utilising research results

• Maximum length eight pages, nine pages for consortium projects
• Write the research utilisation plan on our template and submit it as a PDF appendix on a separate tab in the online services.
• See the guidelines on the structure of the plan for utilising research results. You must follow the given structure. Please use the headings provided.
• The application cannot be submitted if the system detects an error in the page configuration or the structure.
• See the how-to guides for the online services.

Appendices

Appendices must be PDF files.

Obligatory appendices:

• List of publications from the past five years. Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.

Case-specific appendices:

• Letter of collaboration. Read more about the letter. As applications are reviewed by international experts, we recommended that you write the letters of collaboration in English. Collaborators may by companies, organisations or authorities, for instance. Do not enter bibliometrics (e.g. h-index) for the collaborator. Letters of collaboration must be appended before the call deadline. After the call deadline, we will consider supplemented information if it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process.

Submit application

• You can submit the application when you have filled in or attached all the necessary information.
• The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI. They can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete.
• A red warning triangle on the tab tells you that some information is missing.
• You can supplement and edit 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 by email at poc@aka.fi.

Authorisation

• You can authorise another person to supplement or view your application.
• 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.
• 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 our online services (SARA).
• See technical instructions on the authorisation process in the how-to guides for the online services.

Research Council of Finland funding is granted based on peer review. The applications will be reviewed by panels of Finnish and international experts. If necessary, individual reviews may be requested to support the work of the panels.

The review of applications follows a two-stage process. In the first stage, experts are asked to give at least two individual reviews on the application. Applications with an overall rating of 5 or 6 from at least one expert will proceed to the panel review stage. Applications that receive an overall rating of 5 or 6 from the review panel will be ranked.

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

Review criteria

• innovativeness and utilisation potential of the research in the project as well as economic or other societal impact
• feasibility and innovativeness of the research utilisation plan
• quality, scope and utilisation relevance of collaborative structures and networks and the potential user groups for the research results.

See the rating scale (PDF), the review questions (PDF) and the review principles (PDF) that will be used in the review: The review guidelines and forms are only available in English.

The funding decisions are based on the review reports and panel rankings. Additionally, the decisions will be prepared considering the Research Council of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions and other guiding policies. Read about how funding decisions are made.

The Research Council of Finland’s Subcommittee for Proof of Concept Funding will make the funding decisions in November 2024.

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.

In the online services, you will also have access to the review report(s), which may include the panel ranking (panels rank the best applications).

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the funding terms and conditions. If the funding is subject to conditions that differ from or specify the Research Council’s funding terms and conditions, these are indicated in the specific conditions of the decision notification.

Make sure to check the decision, read the funding terms and conditions and accept the funding in the online services without delay. The funding must be accepted in the online services no later than 20 December 2024.

The data management plan, as required by the site of research, must be attached to the ‘Additional information’ section of the project no later than the date specified in the special conditions of the decision. For consortium applications, only the consortium PI appends the data management plan.

If necessary, update the popular project description before you accept the funding. If a project is granted funding, we will publish a description of the project on our website. It is important that the public description is written for a general audience.

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. See the how-to guide: Decision notification, review reports and accepting 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.

• Email address: poc@aka.fi
• Hannele Lahtinen, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 055
• Jan Bäckman, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 010
• Suvi Kansikas, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 047
• Anni Kleino, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 161
• Hanne Laine-Kaulio, Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 124