Draft themes for strategic research focus on water, migration and work – join public consultation

The Strategic Research Council (SRC) will present the draft themes for its next research programmes at a public consultation on Thursday 25 May at 13.00–14.15. This year, the SRC is preparing two themes: Water for welfare, security and peace and Interactions of immigration, work and wellbeing in future Finland. The proposed cross-cutting priority of the 2024 SRC programmes is democracy.

The Strategic Research Council (SRC) funds high-quality research that has great societal impact and that seeks solutions to major societal challenges. SRC funding is programme-based funding built around specific themes. A key task of the SRC is to annually prepare a proposal for the Finnish Government on the themes of new strategic research programmes. Themes are now being prepared for the six-year programmes starting in 2024.

Sign up for public consultation

The draft themes will be presented at a public consultation on Thursday 25 May at 13.00. Participants will be able to comment on the drafts before the SRC finalises them and submits them to the Government.

At the online public consultation, members of the scientific community, research knowledge users and other interested parties can discuss the proposed themes with representatives of the SRC. Registration is open until Wednesday 24 May. More details on the event and the instructions for participation will be published on the SRC website before the event and sent to registered participants.

Interaction and feedback provide valuable support

An essential part of the theme preparation is to identify topical societal challenges that are significant in scale and of such quality that their resolution requires a multidisciplinary and interactive approach to research. The long duration of the six-year programmes also requires foresight from the themes.

The SRC’s theme preparation is supported by an interactive and multi-stage process, which enables a wide range of perspectives to be included from different disciplines as well as from other sectors of society. Interaction and feedback from stakeholders are a valuable part of the preparation of themes. Stakeholders with knowledge of both current scientific issues and Finnish society support the SRC at various stages of the preparation and help in identifying essential research needs. Seen through many eyes, the picture of the issues that are important for the future of Finnish society becomes more nuanced. In its preparatory work, the SRC also makes use of the most topical foresight reports.

The SRC warmly welcomes stakeholders to the consultation to comment on the draft themes.

Register here.