Strategic Research Council starts theme preparations – have your say on new programme themes

The Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland is again opening an online survey to collect proposals on themes for strategic research programmes to be launched in 2025. Strategic research refers to long-term and scientifically high-level research aimed at finding solutions to major challenges facing Finnish society. It also supports social policymaking and the development of societal functions and services.

The theme survey is open from 10 October to 2 November 2023.

What makes a good theme?

The goal of the survey is to identify themes that

• address key challenges for the future of Finland
• require multidisciplinary research to generate new knowledge
• are horizontal, cover different sectors of society broadly and serve both the development of work and the public sector and economic renewal
• are sufficiently distinct in relation to previous themes.

The aim is also to develop new, forward-looking combinations of know-how and research as well as long-term approaches that will carry through the whole six-year programme period. The survey does not seek individual research topics but multidisciplinary wholes that meet the above characteristics of a good theme. It is also good to take into account the types of research questions that have already been funded under previous SRC programmes.

The theme preparation is also a foresighting exercise. The aim is to identify long-term information needs and themes in society where new multidisciplinary and impactful research is needed in order to build a better future.

Submit you proposal by 2 November

Proposals on themes for the strategic research programmes to be launched in 2025 can be submitted by 2 November through the Viima survey platform.

Viima enables respondents not only to submit their own proposals but also to comment on and discuss other proposals. Ideally, the discussion will lead to proposals that identify future challenges and open-mindedly combine different perspectives and disciplines. Respondents can also add hashtags to the proposals, which makes it possible to examine submitted proposals by theme.

The SRC will make use of the proposals in the theme preparation for future programmes. The collected proposals can also be used in planning the SRC’s and the Research Council of Finland’s programmes in the coming years. The survey data will be kept at the Research Council of Finland for possible reuse. The Research Council of Finland and the SRC reserve the right to edit or discard proposals.

To participate in the survey, respondents must either create a Viima account or sign in with their LinkedIn or Google accounts, for example.

Theme survey

• Go to the survey