Strategic research themes for 2024 decided: water and democracy for the future

The Finnish Government has decided the themes of the strategic research programmes to be launched in 2024:

• Water for Welfare, Security and Peace
• Democracy for the Future.

The Strategic Research Council (SRC) is an independent body established within the Research Council of Finland. The SRC is tasked with providing funding for long-term excellent research that is aimed at finding solutions to the major challenges facing Finnish society. Through a multi-stage, interactive process, the SRC each year prepares a proposal to the Finnish Government on the next strategic research themes. The Prime Minister’s Office coordinates the preparation of the Government’s decision based on the proposal.

The SRC’s proposal in June 2023 included two themes: Water for welfare, security and peace and Interactions of immigration, work and wellbeing in future Finland. In November, the SRC was asked to provide its views on the theme “Democracy for the future” to support the preparation of the Government’s decision. Democracy featured as a strong potential theme in the SRC’s preparations, and it was a cross-cutting priority in the proposal submitted to the Government in June.

SRC Chair Anu Kaukovirta says that the SRC is now preparing to open two six-year research programmes, one for each theme: “In the Strategic Research Council, we believe that the themes can be turned into in very interesting and varied programmes, where the funded research will help Finnish society both meet current challenges and strengthen future generations’ opportunities for a good life.” The SRC understands that the situation is challenging for the consortia to be built for the democracy-themed programme, as there will be less time for preparation than usual. However, the call for applications will still be open for two months.

Strategic research funding is intended for extensive, multidisciplinary research consortia that carry out research with an emphasis on active interaction and engagement with knowledge users. Strategic research strengthens societal problem-solving capacity and improves the knowledge base of decision-making. From the projects to be funded, the SRC expects active interaction between knowledge producers and knowledge users, covering the entire life cycle of the research, in order to disseminate high-quality research to knowledge users across society.

The call text and guidelines will be published in mid-January (TBC) on the Research Council of Finland’s website. The first call stage will be open approximately from mid-January to mid-March 2024.