How decisions are made

In the Academy of Finland, funding decisions are made by the decision-making bodies:

The decision-making bodies attend to their tasks within their respective domains, as is laid down in the Act on the Academy of Finland.   

The Academy’s funding decisions are made after a presentation in the decision meetings. The presentation process is a decision-making method used in public administration, where the presenting official collects the material used in decision-making, assesses the facts and forms their own opinion as the basis for their presentation, prepares the decision documents and presents the decision proposals to the competent decision-makers. The presenting official also sees to that the decision is implemented. The presenting official is usually a science adviser or programme manager. 

Decision preparation is based on the review reports and panel rankings. Additionally the preparation considers the document that presents the Academy of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions and other policies that guide the Academy’s activities. 

The decisions on applications for Academy Project, Academy Research Fellow, Postdoctoral Researcher and Clinical Researcher funding submitted in the September 2019 call will be made in two stages. In the first stage, applications that have received rating 1–4 in the review will receive a negative decision at the discretion of the research council concerned. The decision notification is emailed to the applicant immediately after the decision is made. Therefore these applicants receive the information on the decision faster than before. The rest of the applications will be processed at the second stage. The second-stage funding decisions may be either positive or negative. 

Thematic programmes, such as Academy programmes and strategic research programmes, usually have two-stage calls. In the first stage, the applicants submit a letter of intent including a short plan of intent. The decision-making body decides on which applicants are included in the second call stage based on the letter of intent and the potential review. Others will receive a negative funding decision. The applicants selected to the second stage are requested full applications which are then reviewed. The decision-making body makes the funding decisions, that may be either positive or negative, based on the full applications.

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