2026 Thematic research infrastructures: Local research infrastructures to strengthen regional R&D activities

At the core of the Research Council of Finland’s activities is to provide funding for excellent scientific research. The research we fund is also expected to have high scientific and societal impact and follow the principles of responsible science. Excellent research infrastructures are the foundation of high-impact research, development and innovation. By supporting them, the RCF aims at boosting the impact and international competitiveness of research environments, and at increasing the expertise of and interaction between RDI actors. The long-term plan for research infrastructures 2030 (PDF), decided by the RCF Board, outlines the objectives of infrastructure activities regarding their comprehensive development. In this call, the RCF will only fund research infrastructures that are primarily intended for R&D use.

The multiannual plan for the use of central government research and development funding includes a policy outline to “increase RCF funding also for pre-commercial applied research that aims at the renewal of business and society, is based on pioneering in science and promotes extensive utilisation of research findings”. The plan further states that “the development of the RDI system in a balanced way requires increasing and diversifying the collaboration between companies, universities, research institutes, universities of applied sciences and wellbeing services counties”. The plan goes on to point out that “competed research funding provided by the Research Council of Finland is also used to support research-oriented applied research with public results”.

Objectives of this call

In this call, the RCF will provide funding for research infrastructures that facilitate high-quality research and development (R&D) activities. The aim of the call is to promote regional vitality and ambitious R&D activity by targeting research infrastructure funding at research organisations, such as universities of applied sciences, that carry out high-quality applied research. The funding will focus on building and upgrading local research infrastructures of regional importance. The funded research infrastructures should create conditions to achieve regional R&D objectives. These objectives have been identified, for example, in ‘smart specialisation’ strategies and other strategies at regional level.

In addition, the funded research infrastructures should encourage R&D actors to collaborate and promote the creation of innovations or other societal benefits from R&D. In this call, the research infrastructure will be developed through cross-sectoral regional cooperation. This will strengthen the impact of the development project, the utilisation of the services and expertise of the research infrastructure and build up the R&D expertise of the partners. The application must include at least one regional collaborator, who may be a current or potential new user of the research infrastructure, with whom the research infrastructure and its services are developed. The collaborator may be, for example, a local company, a public-sector actor or some other actor, but not a research organisation. The collaborator cannot receive funding from this call but will participate in the cooperation with their own funding.

The funding applied for must be used for R&D activities that are in the public domain. R&D is innovative, creative, uncertain, systematic and transferable and/or replicable in terms of the results. Its aim is to increase knowledge and make good use of it in new applications, creating something substantially new. R&D covers fundamental research, applied research and development. R&D expenditure includes salary costs allocated to R&D, purchased services, other operating expenses and acquisition costs. In this call, the RCF will only fund research infrastructures that are primarily intended for R&D use or whose primary purpose is R&D.

Key concepts

Research infrastructures refer to research instruments, data and related services that strengthen the impact and increase the international attraction of the Finnish RDI system. Research infrastructure services enable R&D activity, support researcher training, and maintain and develop research and innovation capacity, thus promoting the quality, renewal and competitiveness of research, strengthening the versatile impact of research environments and enhancing national and international cooperation.

Research infrastructures are research-relevant equipment, information networks, databases, multidisciplinary research centres, research stations, collections, libraries and other memory organisations, as well as services related to their use. They may be based at a single location (single-sited), scattered across several sites (distributed), or provided via a virtual platform (virtual). They can also form mutually complementary wholes and networks. Large scientific research infrastructures are often shared and international, offering opportunities for cooperation for both domestic and foreign researchers and other actors.

A local research infrastructure is significant locally or regionally and takes into account the growth of digitalisation and the green transition. It is a reserve of research equipment, materials and services that contributes to excellent research, development and innovation. It may be an existing infrastructure or one that is under construction. A local infrastructure supports the strategy of its host organisation. It boosts local/regional specialisation and growth and serves as a (local/regional) hub of expertise, a platform for cooperation or a partner.

The applicant is an individual research organisation, such as a university of applied sciences, a government research institute, a university or some other research organisation, or a consortium formed by them. The research organisation shall select the person responsible for the application, who will be responsible for the development project and the application and who will submit the application. We recommend that the research infrastructure’s director is the person responsible for the application.

If the research infrastructure is maintained by more than one research organisation, they may form a consortium. A consortium application is an application built around a joint action plan, where each party to the consortium applies for funding. The RCF treats a consortium application as a single application, although the funding is granted to each subproject separately. Consortium compositions cannot be changed after the call deadline. Read the consortium application guidelines. Each organisation participating in the consortium shall select a person responsible for the subproject who will be responsible for the development project and the application for that organisation. We recommend that the designated person of the lead party of the consortium also be the director of the research infrastructure, who is responsible for the consortium application in full and for submitting it (i.e. the person responsible for the consortium application).

Restrictions

The RCF will consider (process) only one application from the same research infrastructure, either for the 2026 Thematic research infrastructures call or for the 2026 Shared-use research infrastructures call, which is open simultaneously. This restriction applies to a single-sited research infrastructure, a part of a distributed research infrastructure or a subproject of a consortium-based research infrastructure . If the research infrastructure or part of it participates in both calls, only the first application or consortium application will be considered (processed).

A research organisation may submit up to three research infrastructure-related applications (either as individual research organisation, as consortium PI or as subproject PI):

• The person designated by the research organisation will authorise up to three research infrastructures to participate in the call by means of a letter of authorisation from the organisation, which will be attached to the application.
• If the research organisation participates without a letter of authorisation attached to the application, the application or consortium application will not be considered (processed).
• If the same research organisation authorises more than three research infrastructures to participate in the call, only the first three applications or consortium applications to arrive will be considered (processed).

The consortium application for a consortium-based research infrastructure contains different research organisation parties. If the same research organisation participates in the consortium-based application with more than one subproject (as consortium PI or subproject PI), the application will not be considered (processed).

If the research infrastructure is or has been on the national roadmap for research infrastructures, including international research infrastructure memberships and their national functions, the related application or consortium application will not be considered (processed). In addition, we will not consider (process) an application or consortium application related to a research infrastructure if the research infrastructure has recently received FIRI funding. This means that the research infrastructure has received funding from the FIRI 2019, FIRI 2020, FIRI 2021 or FIRI 2023 calls (incl. calls for research infrastructures outside the roadmap and the FIRI 2020: Research infrastructures as collaborative platforms call).

Research infrastructures that have received funding under the 2025 call for thematic research infrastructures are eligible to apply for funding under this call. However, funding cannot be granted for the same purpose as funding already underway, so the planned development project must be substantially different from the ongoing development project. The research infrastructure will submit a progress report as an appendix to the application. The report briefly describes the progress of the ongoing project and how the project differs from the planned development project.

Thematic research infrastructures 2025: A new application from a research infrastructure that was funded under the 2025 call for local research infrastructures will not be considered (processed) unless the application is accompanied by a progress report.

Other conditions for and obstacles to the granting of funding

The conditions for and obstacles to the granting of funding apply to each subproject’s applicant (the responsible person for consortium or subproject). If a prerequisite for granting funding is missing or there is an obstacle to the granting, the RCF will not consider (process) the entire consortium’s application.

We will not consider (process) an application or a consortium application where the responsible person has participated in the planning of the call to an extent likely to give a comparative advantage over other applicants.

We will not consider (process) the application or consortium application if the responsible person has been found guilty of a serious violation of research integrity in the previous three years.

RCF funding will not be granted to a recipient located in Russia or Belarus. In RCF-funded projects, cooperation with individual Russian or Belarusian researchers and research teams can only be carried out if the instructions of the site of research, the sanctions against Russia and Belarus, the export control provisions, the travel recommendations of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs or other guidelines by authorities do not prevent it. Funding shall be granted and used in a way that respects the equal treatment of researchers, regardless of nationality.

The application or consortium application will not be considered (processed) if the research infrastructure in question is linked to current or completed RCF-funded research infrastructure projects that have not submitted required reports in accordance with the guidelines by the deadline.

The application or consortium application will not be considered (processed) if the applicant or the application does not meet the competence requirements or other key requirements set for the call, if the application does not belong to the call, or if there in some other respects are no conditions for processing the case. A scientific council or another decision-making body may decide not to fund an application or consortium 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: Eligibility.

We will not consider (process) the application (or consortium application) if the person responsible for the application is a member of the RCF Board or scientific councils or the Strategic Research Council.

Funding can only be granted if the conditions set by the RCF for the funding are met. In addition to the eligibility criteria, another condition that must be met for the funding to be awarded is that you have in your application identified and assessed the risks related to research security and, where necessary, presented an adequate risk management plan. The applicant must also describe in the action plan how research integrity will be maintained in the implementation of the project, how gender equality and nondiscrimination will be promoted in the implementation of the project, and how the RCF’s guidelines on open access to research results and on the responsible management of research data will be followed in the project.

The RCF Board decides the principles for RCF funding decisions. The present call is governed by the principles adopted on 18 September 2025. You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after you have submitted your application to us.

The application consists of a form 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.

Before the call opens

 Check eligibility

• The eligibility conditions are listed under Who can apply.
• The ‘Objectives of this call’ section describes the definitions of R&D activities that are applied to the operations of the research infrastructure.
• The organisation shall authorise the application. The organisation fills in the template for up to three infrastructures. The authorisation shall be appended to the application.
• The collaborator(s) of the development project shall be contacted, and a letter of collaboration shall be requested from them. The letters must be appended to the application before the call deadline. The letter shall be written in English.

Plan contents of application

• The objectives of the call include a description of the types of research infrastructures for which the funding is intended and a description of the definitions of R&D activities presented for the operation of the research infrastructure.
• Check your region’s smart specialisation strategy and/or other regional strategies. Consider which identified regional R&D-related objective(s) the research infrastructure will help achieve.
• Read the review instructions and the review form The review form also shows how the function and quality of the research infrastructure will be assessed. The action plan should be written in such a way that the reviewer can easily find answers to the review questions.
• It is worthwhile to start drawing up the action plan on time. Write the plan on our template. The appendix templates and guidelines are available under ‘Application parts in the online services’. You have access to the templates even before the call opens.
• The data management policy is prepared with DMPTuuli or in accordance with the guidelines found on the RCF’s website.
• The long-term financial plan for the research infrastructure is set out in the application. Draw up the plan on the template, which can be found under ‘Appendices to be appended on dedicated tabs’. You have access to the template even before the call opens.

Plan the project’s funding

• The budget shall be drafted according to the applicant organisation’s guidelines. Read the funding guidelines in the call text under ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’.
• If the application is funded, the applicant organisations undertake to follow the RCF's standard terms for funding. The present call is governed by the standard terms adopted on 22 September 2025.

When the call opens

• The person responsible for the application must sign up or log in to our online services. Check and update your personal details. An up-to-date email address is important when we are in contact with you.
• The online services contain instructions for filling in the form.
• The consortium application shall be prepared by the person responsible for the consortium application. All research organisations acting as consortium parties must demonstrate their commitment to the application in the RCF’s online services. Read more: Commitment by site of research. Please note that only the person appointed by the research organisation is entitled to give the commitment by the site of research. Consortium application guidelines.

Application parts in the online services

The different parts of the application are listed below. A comprehensive A–Z index of application guidelines is available on our website. Instructions for filling in the application form are also on the tabs of the form.

• Personal details of the person responsible for the application
• Consortium parties: In the case of consortium applications, the person responsible for the consortium application shall appoint the persons responsible for the subprojects.
• General description: Research infrastructure details, keywords, research fields, details on the site of research. Also indicate whether the research infrastructure is 1) in the planning, construction and/or implementation stage, or 2) in the operation and/or dismantling stage.
• Abstract
• Public project description
• Affiliation with research infrastructures, Centres of Excellence and Finnish Flagships
• Research ethics
• Project's funding and commitment by site of research. The commitment must be given within 14 days of call's closing date, or the application or consortium application may be considered to be inadmissible. See section ‘Funding to be applied for and funding period’ in the call text.
• Collaborators: list of collaborators, especially during the development project, but also in infrastructure activities more generally. The cooperation during the development project is described in the action plan, and the letter(s) of collaboration are appended to the application. Read more about the letter.

Appendices to be appended on dedicated tabs

• The action plan is a mandatory appendix to the application, appended by the person responsible for the consortium application.
• The long-term financial plan for the research infrastructure is a mandatory appendix to the application, appended by the person responsible for the consortium application.
• The authorisation to apply for funding in this call, given by the person nominated by the applicant organisation, is a mandatory appendix to the application, appended by each responsible person. The organisation may authorise up to three individual applications or consortium subproject applications.

Other appendices

• The letter of collaboration is a mandatory appendix, appended to the application by the person responsible for the consortium application. The letter is requested from a collaborator who participates in the development project's cross-sectoral cooperation. The letter shall be written in English.
• The research security assessment is a mandatory appendix, appended to the consortium application by the person responsible for the consortium application. Use the template provided. Read more: Research security.
• The data management policy is a mandatory appendix, appended to the consortium application by the person responsible for the consortium application.
• The progress report is a case-by-case appendix, appended to the consortium application by the person responsible for the consortium application. If the research infrastructure has ongoing RCF research infrastructure funding, a progress report shall be appended to the application.

Submitting the application in the online services

The application can be submitted when all necessary information has been filled in or attached. A red warning triangle tells you that there is an error or information missing.

The joint application of the consortium shall be submitted by the person responsible for the consortium application. They can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete.

A person can be authorised to edit or view the application on the tab ‘Authorisation’.

Submit your application in good time. You can supplement and edit the application and change appendices until the call deadline.

The RCF is prepared to fund research infrastructures in the present call with a total of 30 million euros.

A maximum of 2,000,000 euros will be granted to an individual research infrastructure project. The funding for a consortium-based research infrastructure project is up to 3,000,000 euros and for a consortium subproject up to 2,000,000 euros.

The funding period is 1 January 2027–31 December 2030.

The funding applied for must be used for R&D activities that are in the public domain. R&D is innovative, creative, uncertain, systematic and transferable and/or replicable in terms of the results. Its aim is to increase knowledge and make good use of it in new applications, creating something substantially new. R&D covers fundamental research, applied research and development. R&D expenditure includes salary costs allocated to R&D, purchased services, other operating expenses and acquisition costs. In this call, the RCF will only fund research infrastructures that are primarily intended for R&D use or whose primary purpose is R&D.

The research infrastructures must have a sound and sustainable funding base and a long-term financial plan. The maintenance of research infrastructure cannot rely on competitive funding granted by the RCF. The funding is not intended for maintenance costs or permanent operating expenses of the research infrastructure. The application shall be accompanied by a long-term financial plan for the research infrastructure. It demonstrates the commitment of the organisation or organisations to maintaining the research infrastructure and other funding received for the operation of the research infrastructure.

The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds in the 2026 and 2027 state budgets.

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

Funding plan

As a rule, research funding granted by the RCF is co-funding. The RCF’s contribution to the funding is up to 70% of the total costs, and the site of research (host organisation) will cover at least 30% of the total costs.

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. The applicant (responsible person) must check with their organisation whether the funding planned as the own funding contribution suits this purpose.

On the tab ‘Funding for the project’, provide the following information:

• cost estimate, including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure
  • the annual instalment costs are spread equally (e.g. 70%/30%) over all funding years.
• funding granted for the project as well as funding that will be provided by the site of research if the project is launched

Only costs that pass through the books of the site of the research must be included in the total costs. Justify the most significant costs by type of expenditure in the free-text field.

RCF funding can be applied for to cover, for example, the following development costs for a new or existing research infrastructure:

• construction or substantial upgrading, for example, the purchase of equipment and systems
• development of data management
• building new technology and services and developing skills needed to deliver them
• to a limited and justified extent, salary costs where the job description of the person employed relates to the above-mentioned activities of research infrastructure development. For the costs to be eligible, the employee’s tasks must be clearly specified on the budget tab and motivated in the action plan.
• the salary costs of the responsible person (in the case of a consortium application, responsible persons) for a maximum of 1.5 months/year

Acquisitions must be incorporated into an existing or upcoming national or international research infrastructure that is open to use by RDI user groups. Wherever possible, so-called innovative procurement can be used.

RCF funding cannot be used for economic activity. Read more about economic operators and the economic activities of research infrastructures in the standard terms of funding . In this call, the RCF will only fund research infrastructures that are primarily intended for R&D use or whose primary purpose is R&D.

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 Grants.

What is required from the site of research?

The site of project is a Finnish research organisation such as a university of applied sciences, a government research institute, a university, or some other research organisation.

We require that the site 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.

The site of research also commits to ensuring that the data management policy can be implemented at the site of research, and that the measures to be taken comply with good data management practice. The costs of ensuring immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles are included in the overheads of the site of research. The costs associated with storing and sharing research data are regarded as overheads for the infrastructure project’s site of research, but they may also be legitimately accepted as research costs to be covered with RCF funding. If the construction or significant upgrading of the research infrastructure and the formation of services are focused on the processing of large amounts of data, or if the processing of the project’s data requires exceptionally much work or time, the project may apply for funding for salary costs related to the data processing. In this case, a person whose working hours are spent on data management and processing may be hired to the project.

Any supplies, equipment and literature acquired with funding from the RCF will remain in the ownership and possession of the site of research. The parties can agree in writing on other procedures in the case of research infrastructures. In multi-site joint projects, the parties must conclude a written agreement on the use, ownership and location of the research infrastructure, even for the time after the funding period. The agreement is kept as part of the procurement documents. The agreement does not need to be submitted to the RCF.

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 site of research is also responsible for ensuring that the responsible person has not been found guilty of a violation of research integrity in the previous three years.

The overheads, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research are entered in the application. The site of research maintains these percentages in the online services under the site’s details. The information is provided as percentages.

When the site of research is a university or research institute, as a rule, the funding is applied for VAT included. Consult the financial administration at the site of research for more information on VAT. Our funding may also cover VAT costs, but only on certain conditions (see Value added tax and read more in our standard terms for funding).

Read more: Guidelines for sites of research.

How to submit and supplement the application

The call deadline is non-negotiable and also applies to consortia. We will not consider (process) an application or a consortium application that has not been submitted by the deadline. The deadline for applications is 29 April 2026 at 16.15 Finnish time.

The joint application of the consortium shall be submitted by the person responsible for the consortium application. They can submit the application only after all subproject responsible persons have tagged their applications as complete. While the call is open, the person responsible for the consortium application can return the consortium subproject application to be supplemented.

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.

A submitted application can be edited and supplemented until the deadline. For example, you can change the appendices to the application. If the applicant notices that the application lacks important information after the deadline, they should immediately get in touch with us via our helpdesk, so that the application can be reopened for supplementation. However, the possibility of supplementation does not apply to the action plan. Once the review process has started, supplementations can no longer be taken into account. Typically, the application review begins 1–2 weeks after the call has closed.

We may ask the applicant to supplement the application. The request for supplementation will be sent to the person responsible for the application by email. If the application has not been supplemented by the given deadline, or if the application is substantially incomplete even after a request for supplementary information, we may declare it inadmissible (i.e. it will not be processed). Make sure that your email address is 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.

Publicity and data protection

Except for the action 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 secret information. This publicity is based on the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

The RCF complies with data protection legislation. The applicant is responsible for the disclosure of any personal data contained in the application and, where appropriate, for requesting the consent of the parties concerned. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on our website under Data protection.

RCF funding is granted based on peer review. We mainly use foreign experts as reviewers, and they make up the review panels. The reviewers are highly regarded representatives of various fields of research and development. Finnish experts may also be used.

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. If at least one expert has given an overall rating of 5 or 6, the application will advance to the panel review stage. In the panel, applications with an overall rating of 5 or 6 are placed in ranked groups. Applications in the same group will not be placed in order of priority. The placement into groups shall be carried out on the same criteria as the review of applications.

The fundamental principles of the review are transparency, integrity, equity, competence and diversity.

Review factors

• Support for regional specialisation, regional added value and cooperation between R&D actors (main criterion; see ‘Background and objectives’)
• Quality, innovativeness and novelty of R&D activities supported by the research infrastructure
• Feasibility of the development project described in the action plan
• Operation and quality of the research infrastructure (see ‘Who can apply?’) (incl. ownership, long-term financial plan, services and users, digitalisation and data management, risk management and responsible science incl. equality and nondiscrimination aspects)

The research security appendix will not be peer-reviewed.

See the review questions and instructions on our website. The review instructions, forms and principles are only available in English.

The present call is governed by the principles for RCF funding decisions adopted by the RCF Board on 18 September 2025. The decisions of the Scientific Council for Research Infrastructures, appointed by the Finnish Government, are based on the review reports and the ranking of the panel.

The Scientific Council for Research Infrastructures takes into consideration all applications to be decided on in relation to the objectives of the call, and the funding is designed to promote research in a multidisciplinary manner.

If there are applications of equal merit, priority shall be given to the application that the Scientific Council considers best advances the dismantling of gender stereotypes, promotes diversity in research and the scientific community as well as supports sustainable development.

The Scientific Council will make the funding decisions in late 2026 and early 2027. The funded projects start on 1 January 2027.

The person responsible for the application will receive an automatic email message after the decision has been made. After receiving the email, they can log in to the online services with their user ID to view the decision and its justifications. There they can also read the review report(s) on the application.

How to receive the funding

A positive funding decision is accompanied by the standard terms for funding. They contain instructions on how to receive the funding (section 1.2).

• Contact us primarily via the helpdesk (select ‘Application guidance, thematic calls’).
• Technical issues with the online services? Contact us via the helpdesk (select ‘Online services and other technical questions’).
• Our telephone number (switchboard) is +358 295 335 000.