University profiling

The Research Council of Finland grants competitive funding to Finnish universities to support them in strengthening their research profiles. The funding opportunity is often referred to as Profi. The aim of the funding is to support and speed up the strategic profiling of Finnish universities in order to improve the quality of research.

Evaluations of the instrument have shown that Profi funding has helped to strengthen selected components, reduce fragmentation within disciplines and promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary cooperation. The Research Council develops the funding instrument in close cooperation with the universities. Particular attention has been paid to reducing the administrative burden required at the application stage and when the universities report on their activities.

A flexible funding scheme

In Profi calls, each university submits one application for funding. The funding is granted for a fixed term to finance the profiling areas selected by each university on the basis of its own strategy.

Universities may use the granted funding to finance more than one profiling area. Many universities continue to develop a selected profiling area with funding from successive Profi calls. This approach makes it possible to carry out development activities over a longer period of time. For example, the funding periods of Profi 1 and Profi 5 span from 2015 to 2023. On the other hand, many universities also propose entirely new profiling areas or form a new area that combines profiling areas that have been funded previously. In this case, funding can be used to advance important recruitments, for instance.

Inquiries

  • Questions about calls and grant management: helpdesk
  • Other questions: profi@aka.fi
  • Sara Illman, Senior Science Adviser, tel. +358 295 335 119

Our email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname(at)aka.fi.

Do you have questions or feedback for us?