Guide to applying for research funding: Finnish foundations

The guidelines below are on a general level. Please note that each foundation has its own guidelines regarding applying and eligibility. Always check the details in the guidelines of the foundation in question.

Foundations may grant personal working grants or expenditure grants or both. The funder pays the grant on the applicant’s personal bank account, in which case it is not funding for the university. Therefore, if you would like to implement the research project in the university context, you should discuss the compatibility of the project with your unit’s objectives and agree on affiliation arrangements with your own unit already at the application stage.

• The university commitment is given by the director of the unit or the dean.
• Read more on visitor positions

Project grants can usually be paid either to the applicant’s or the university’s bank account. If the sum granted includes funding for both personal monthly grants and other expenses and the project is administered the university, foundations usually pay the personal monthly grants directly to the grantees’ bank accounts and the other expenses to the university’s account. Some foundations accept salaries instead of personal monthly grants. In this case you should always choose the salary option, as that makes it possible to have an employment relationship with related benefits.

Depending on the foundation and the situation, the applicant may be an organisation, i.e. Uniarts Helsinki, or a working group.

• If you would like the university to administer the project funding, ask for the university’s commitment at the application stage. Please reserve enough time for the application approval process. The approval will be given according to the following budget limits, taking into account other expenses than personal monthly grants:

• When the project is administered by the university, the budget must include an overhead share if the foundation in question allows it. If the funder allows overheads but does not have a fixed percentage for them, their share is 20% of the other expenses (= excluding personal monthly grants), according to the rector’s decision.
• Also in this case it may be necessary to discuss the possible visitor positions of the researchers working on personal monthly grants within the project. Read more on visitor positions.

The Research Services assist in applying for funding for postdoctoral research conducted at Uniarts Helsinki

Tiia Saarinen (tiia.saarinen@uniarts.fi)

Foundations grant funding not only for research projects, but also for other initiatives. The coordination of these applications is managed by the external relations team. When Uniarts Helsinki is listed as the applicant, the external relations team should be notified of the application during the process of its preparation. Read more on the external relations team's support in Artsi.

You can also find further information in this Uniarts guide to applying for research funding and the Project Guide for researchers. In Artsi you can find an overview of the most commonly-used Finnish grant-making foundations and an annual cycle of research funding calls.

See also the Grant Information for Researchers guide by the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers for those working on personal grants and the Wellbeing at work for grant-funded researchers workbook by Elina Henttonen, Sikke Leinikki and Kirsi LaPointe.