Background and objectives

Under the Finnish Act on the Promotion of Sports and Physical Activity, the state budget shall include an annual appropriation for the purpose of granting aid and stipends for research and development in the field of sport and health sciences.

Responsibility for the government grant process for sport science was transferred from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture to the Research Council of Finland with an amendment to the Act in February 2023. For this purpose, the RCF has launched the Academy Programme for Sport Science and Physical Activity (ACTIVE). The RCF and the Ministry will continue to cooperate in funding sport science research within the framework of the programme.

The Ministry sets out the thematic areas and criteria for sport science research supported with government grants for the years to come in its Strategy Document for Research in Sports Science (in Finnish, abstracts in English and Swedish).