Background and objectives
The funding for clinical research boosts clinical research and promotes clinical research careers.
The funded clinical research projects are built around scientifically high-quality and ambitious research plans that are implemented by a consortium of three or more research teams.
The projects must produce new research knowledge to support social welfare and healthcare, disease treatment, diagnostics and prevention, or business activity. They are therefore expected to have significant and broad societal impact and promote a seamless transfer of research results into practice.
To strengthen the societal impact, the research projects must engage in close and goal-oriented cooperation with key actors in the utilisation of research results at different stages of the project’s lifecycle.
The funding encourages researchers working in wellbeing services counties to cooperate with researchers at universities, research institutes or universities of applied sciences. Only consortia consisting of three or more teams can apply for the funding, and the consortium PI's site of research must be a wellbeing services county (incl. City of Helsinki and HUS Group). The other subprojects of the consortium can be carried out at any organisation, but the consortia are encouraged to involve researchers from different organisations. The consortium must bring clear added value to the implementation of the research project and increase cooperation.
The funding aims to facilitate clinical research expertise in a wide range of specialities by supporting clinical research careers and encouraging those who are engaged in part-time clinical patient work and in the early stages of their careers to become PIs. Therefore, the consortium PI or at least one subproject PI must carry out clinical patient work in addition to the part-time research (20–50% of working hours). They must be a medical doctor or other healthcare professional.
The RCF's clinical research funding can be applied for to hire research teams, cover research costs incurred in the project, manage the research project, and to cover the personal salary for part-time clinical patient work.
A single consortium can be granted a maximum of 1.7 million euros for a period of four years.
