Academy of Finland – Artificial Intelligence Research Grants

Academy of Finland – Artificial Intelligence Research Grants is sponsored by Academy of Finland. The Academy of Finland supports AI research projects. Their 'Academy Project Funding' program aims to promote the quality of research, scientific impact, and scientific renewal.

Specific calls for applications are published regularly.

Academy of Finland–NSF jo - Research Council of Finland 31 March 2022 at 16. 15 Finnish time In this joint call, the application procedure differs from a typical Academy of Finland call. Please study the procedure in section ‘Background and objectives’ in detail before preparing to apply.

In this call, applicants from Finland can participate in the NSF funding opportunity ‘CISE Core Small competition’ via proposals submitted to the NSF between 2 January and 31 March 2022. Intention to submit must be submitted to the Academy at least four weeks before the proposal is planned to be submitted to the NSF and no later than 3 March 2022.

The Academy is prepared to fund the Finnish components of the collaborative AoF-NSF projects with a maximum of 2 million euros in total in 2022; the maximum funding for a three-year project is 500,000 euros. The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy of Finland in its budget for 2022.

In case of delays in the processing of the applications resulting in the need to commit the Academy’s budget for 2023 to this call, the funding to be distributed will depend on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy in its budget for 2023.

Academy funding will be granted only for proposals that receive a ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter from the Academy, are selected for funding in the NSF call, and are selected for funding by the Academy. The National Science Foundation and the Academy of Finland collaborate via a Lead Agency Opportunity, in which the NSF acts as the Lead Agency.

In this approach, proposers from both countries will collaborate to write a single proposal. It is the responsibility of the US proposer to submit the proposal to the appropriate NSF programme for review. Researchers from Finland participating in the joint research project will apply for funding separately from the Academy in accordance with the guidelines and procedures provided in this call text.

The aim of this joint call is to support research collaboration in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and/or wireless communication technologies. In case the proposed project is only targeting the AI theme, the project must advance AI technologies, algorithms or methods. Such projects can include case studies on real-world problems, but projects using AI (e.g. machine learning) only as a tool will not be supported.

However, the aforementioned restriction does not apply to research projects that are related to wireless communication technologies or to combination of AI and wireless communication technologies. The steps in the application procedure for researchers from Finland are as follows: Intention to Submit is emailed to the Academy at ict2023@aka.

fi Academy assesses the eligibility of the project If assessed eligible, the Academy issues ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the applicant US proposer submits the proposal including the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the appropriate NSF programme for review The proposal is reviewed in accordance with the standard NSF review criteria If the project is selected for funding by the NSF, the Academy decides whether it will support the Finnish subproject and if so, invites the applicant to submit an application to the Academy.

The application procedure is described in detail in the section ‘Background and objectives’. The requirements in this call announcement relate only to applicants applying for funding from the Academy of Finland. Read the full call text on this page.

Background and objectives The overall goal of the partnership between the Academy of Finland and the NSF is to enable and facilitate research collaboration between US and Finnish researchers. This collaboration expects to generate valuable discoveries and innovations that may lead to enhancements in multiple areas of science and technology.

The partnership achieves its goals through research projects in which the funding agencies fund the elements of research undertaken by researchers based in their respective nations. For more details on the collaboration, see NSF’s Dear Colleague Letter on the partnership . The NSF and the Academy collaborate via a Lead Agency Opportunity, in which the NSF acts as the Lead Agency.

In this approach, proposers from both countries will collaborate to write a single proposal. It is the responsibility of the US proposer to submit the proposal to the appropriate NSF programme for review. Researchers from Finland participating in the joint research project will apply for funding separately from the Academy of Finland in accordance with the guidelines and procedures provided in this call text.

In Finland, the partnership and the joint call is guided by the Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering at the Academy of Finland and managed under the Research, Development and Innovation Programme ICT 2023 .

Proposals will be accepted for collaborative research in areas at the intersection of core research programmes in the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and the Academy’s Finnish Research Flagships in which Finland has widespread demonstrated expertise, that is, artificial intelligence (AI) and wireless communication technologies.

The aim of this joint call is to support research collaboration in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and/or wireless communication technologies. In case the proposed project is only targeting the AI theme, the project must advance AI technologies, algorithms or methods. Such projects can include case studies on real-world problems, but projects using AI (e.g. machine learning) only as a tool will not be supported.

However, the aforementioned restriction does not apply to research projects that are related to wireless communication technologies or to combination of AI and wireless communication technologies. The Partnership is expected to continue at least until 2023. How the programme works – study in detail before application preparation Proposers from both countries will collaborate to write a single proposal.

It is the responsibility of the US proposer to submit the proposal to the appropriate NSF programme for review. In this joint call, applicants from Finland can participate in the NSF funding opportunity ‘CISE Core Small competition’ via proposals submitted to the NSF between 2 January and 31 March 2022. For more details, see NSF’s Dear Colleague Letter on the partnership .

Intention to Submit must be submitted to the Academy on 3 March 2022 at the latest (see below for details). Proposers should comply with the proposal preparation requirements outlined in NSF’s Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) and submit the proposal through NSF’s FastLane system or Grants. gov and include any additional documents required by the NSF programme.

It is required that the researchers from Finland participating in the joint research project apply for funding separately from the Academy in accordance with the guidelines and procedures provided in this call text. The steps in the application procedure for researchers from Finland are as follows: Intention to Submit is emailed to the Academy at ict2023@aka.

fi Academy assesses the eligibility of the project If assessed eligible, the Academy issues Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding letter to the applicant US proposer submits the proposal including the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the appropriate NSF programme for review The proposal is reviewed in accordance with the standard NSF review criteria If the project is selected for funding by the NSF, the Academy decides whether it will support the Finnish sub-project and if so, invites the applicant to submit an application to the Academy.

The steps are described in detail below. 1. Notification of intention to submit In order to be considered for funding by the Academy, applicants who are eligible (see ‘Who can apply’) must have identified a US collaborator who is willing to develop a joint grant application.

The Finnish principal investigator (PI) must send a mandatory ‘Intention to Submit’ form to the Academy using the template provided (see below). The document must be submitted to the Academy at least four weeks before the proposal is planned to be submitted to the NSF. In this joint call, the last possible day to submit a ‘Intention to Submit’ to the Academy is 3 March 2022.

The information required is summarised below and the ‘Intention to Submit’ form can be accessed here . Please submit the form to ict2023@aka. fi .

Contact details of the PIs from both countries NSF target programme/call and planned proposal submission date and funding period Proposed topic, keywords, collaboration and link to AI and/or wireless communication technologies research Description of how the proposed project contributes to the goals of the ICT 2023 programme Costs to be requested from the Academy of Finland and indicative total budget figure to be requested from the NSF The information in the form will be used for planning purposes and for an eligibility assessment by the Academy (see below).

2. Eligibility assessment The Academy aims to perform the eligibility assessments at the latest at the turn of the month for the notifications received during the past month. For notifications received in early March, the eligibility assessments will be performed within two weeks of their arrival at the Academy.

The Academy will assess the information in the Intention to Submit letter to: verify the eligibility of the Finnish applicant(s) confirm that the topic links to AI and/or wireless communication technologies research determine if there is evidence of significant participation by partners from both countries determine if the project advances the goals of the ICT 2023 programme pre-approve the budget for the Finnish subproject verify the site of research is willing to commit to administering and funding the project The Academy will confirm via email within a few days of the eligibility assessment whether the project has been deemed eligible.

The confirmation email will be accompanied by a ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter for inclusion in the full proposal submission to the NSF if, and only if, the project has been deemed eligible (see below).

It is important to note that only proposals assessed eligible and having received the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter from the Academy will be considered to receive funding from the Academy. 3.

Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding The ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter issued by the Academy for eligible projects will outline the maximum level of budget commitment subject to NSF selecting the proposal for funding following established NSF grant review/selection processes.

The Academy will issue a single ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the Academy applicant(s), who is responsible for ensuring its inclusion in the final proposal submission to the NSF by the US PI. If, after issuance of the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter, the applicant decides not to submit their final proposal to NSF, the applicant is requested to notify the Academy. 4.

Submission of final proposal to NSF In order to be considered for funding by the Academy, the final proposal needs to be submitted to the NSF between 2 January and 31 March 2022. It is the responsibility of the US proposer to submit the proposal including the ‘Confirmation of Eligibility for Funding’ letter to the appropriate NSF programme for review.

Proposers should comply with the proposal preparation requirements outlined in the NSF’s PAPPG and submit the proposal through the NSF’s FastLane system or Grants. gov and include any additional documents required by the NSF programme. The proposal should indicate that it is to be considered under the partnership between the Academy of Finland and the NSF by prefacing the title with ‘NSF-AoF:’.

The collaborative AoF-NSF projects will be reviewed in accordance with the standard NSF merit review criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts of the proposed effort, along with any additional solicitation-specific review criteria. In general, proposal review is completed within six months of submission. More details on NSF peer review and review criteria are available online.

If a collaborative AoF-NSF project is selected for funding by the NSF, the Academy aims to provide funding for the Finnish component of the project. The Academy is prepared to fund the Finnish components with a maximum of 2 million euros in total in 2022. If the NSF does not select a AoF-NSF project for funding, the Academy will not fund the Finnish subproject alone.

If the overall funding applied by the PIs from Finland in the projects recommended for funding by the NSF exceeds the available funding, the Academy will select the projects it will provide funding for. The selections will be made only after NSF has provided its recommendations on each AoF-NSF application submitted to the NSF within this joint call.

Note that in case of individual projects there may be a period of a couple of months between NSF recommendation and Academy’s selection. The selections will be made based on: availability of Academy budget authority results of the NSF review and recommendation by the NSF for projects to be funded. Note that the PIs from Finland may be invited to submit review reports(s) on their proposal to the Academy at this stage.

negotiations between the NSF and the Academy of projects to be selected assessment of how well the project is expected to advance the goals of the ICT 2023 programme (based on information in the ‘Intention to Submit’ form) maximizing diversity of the program in terms of research topics in the fields of AI and/or wireless communication technologies Academy of Finland’s criteria for research funding decisions and other policies that guide the Academy’s activities (e.g. prioritising applicants in the gender minority in the case of projects of equal merit).

Alternative to making selections and if possible, for both the Academy and NSF, issuing awards may be delayed and the funding decisions may be rolled over to the subsequent funding cycle in a synchronised and coordinated fashion between the Academy and the NSF.

This option will be investigated jointly between the Academy and the NSF to avoid situations in which the NSF funds the US component of the project and the Academy does not fund the Finnish component. It is important to note that this possibility does not guarantee that such situations can be avoided.

The PIs of the Finnish subprojects selected for funding by the Academy will be invited to submit proposals to the Academy following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the Academy. Applicants are recommended to contact the Academy early on to check national eligibility requirements.

The funding from the Academy can be applied for by individual research teams or consortia composed of two or more research teams from Finnish research organisations. The consortium parties may represent one or several research organisations. In addition to a doctoral degree, the PI of the proposed project must also have other significant scientific merits.

Usually, the PI is a researcher at the professor or docent (adjunct professor) level. These criteria also apply to subproject PIs in consortia. In addition, the applicant must have a close connection with Finland to support the implementation of a multi-year project.

This connection must be evident from the application. Special terms and restrictions To be eligible for consideration by the Academy, each proposal must have a minimum of one applicant from Finland and the US, and significant research participation by both countries.

The collaborative projects must add significant added value that is not achievable by the PI working alone, and the topics proposed must link to AI and/or wireless communication technologies research. A PI requesting funding from the Academy can have only one active Academy of Finland-NSF partnership proposal. A proposal is considered active from its submission until the date of the Academy’s funding decision.

If the applicant has ongoing funding from previous Academy of Finland – NSF joint calls, the applicant is not eligible to apply for funding from the present call. Members of the Board, research councils and the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland will not be granted Academy funding during their terms.

Funding cannot be granted to a person who has participated in the planning of the call to an extent likely to give them a comparative advantage over other applicants. We will not process an application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.

Funding to be applied for and funding period In general, the funding comes under the conditions and restrictions applicable to Academy Projects. For more details, see the latest version of the funding terms and conditions on the Academy’s website . Project duration is expected to be up to 36 months.

The funding period must be within the funding period identified in the NSF programme call to which the full proposal is submitted for. The Academy's funding is granted to sites of research in Finland (usually universities or research institutes). The PI of the funded project must have a close connection with Finland to support the implementation of a multi-year project.

The funded researchers may, however, spend time working abroad during their funding period. In this joint call, the Academy is prepared to fund the Finnish components of the collaborative AoF-NSF projects with a maximum of 2 million euros in total in 2022. The Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering is prepared to grant a maximum of 500,000 euros for a three-year project.

Oversubscription of the Academy’s funding budget of no more than 2 million euros for the collaborative AoF-NSF projects will be restricted at the funding decision stage. For more details on how the programme operates, see section ‘Background and objectives’, 6. Selections.

The funding to be distributed through this call depends on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy of Finland in its budget for 2022.

In case of delays in the processing of the applications resulting in the need to commit the Academy’s budget for 2023 to this call, the funding to be distributed will depend on the Finnish Parliament’s decision to allocate the necessary funds to the Academy in its budget for 2023. Academy funding cannot be used for economic activity. What is required from the site of research?

We require that the site of research (i.e. the applicant’s host organisation, e.g. a university, research institute or other research organisation) provides the research project with all necessary basic facilities. These are determined based on the nature of the research and are the same as those available to other research staff at the site: office and laboratory premises, equipment (incl.

computer equipment), and telecommunications, telephone, mailing, copying and library services. When accepting the funding, the site of research is responsible for ensuring that necessary statements and permits from ethics committees have been obtained before the start of the project. The application must also include the overheads percentage, indirect employee costs and coefficient for effective working hours of the site of research.

The site of research will see to that this information is kept up to date in the online services. The information is provided as percentages. After a positive funding decision, the site of research will also approve the data management plan of the project.

In the application (applies to the PIs of the Finnish sub-projects selected for funding by Academy, for more details see section ‘Background and objectives’, 6. Selections), provide a cost estimate including an estimate of the annual amount of funding needed, itemised by type of expenditure.

Also include a funding plan that shows all funding granted for the project as well as funding that will be provided by the site of research if the project is launched. Before submitting the application, applicants must agree with the administration at their own organisation on the contribution of the site of research to the funding of the project.

Only costs that pass through the books of the site of the research must be included in the total costs. You must check with your own organisation whether the funding planned as the own funding contribution suits this purpose. The funding applied for from the Academy must not exceed 70% of the total project costs.

The cost estimate must be realistic. All research costs must be justified in the free-text field in the online services under ‘Funding for the project’.

How applications are submitted and become pending, publicity of applications How to submit and supplement the application In this call, applicants from Finland can participate in the NSF funding opportunity ‘CISE Core Small competition’ via proposals submitted to the NSF between 2 January and 31 March 2022.

The Finnish PI(s) must send a mandatory ‘Intention to Submit’ form to the Academy at least four weeks before the proposal is planned to be submitted to the NSF. In this joint call, the last possible day to submit a ‘Intention to Submit’ to the Academy is 3 March 2022.

The PIs of the Finnish subprojects selected for funding by both the NSF and the Academy will be invited to submit applications to the Academy following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the Academy. For more details, study how the programme works in the section ‘Background and objectives’. Make sure to submit the application in good time before the deadline.

The system will only accept applications that contain all obligatory information. The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI. The PI can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete.

You can edit and supplement the application until the deadline. You can make changes to a submitted application (e.g. change appendices), but you must make them before the deadline. If you notice that your application lacks important information after the deadline, immediately get in touch with the call’s contact person, so that they can reopen the application for you.

Make sure to re-submit the application after you have supplemented it. We will consider the supplemented information insofar as it is possible in view of the review and decision-making process. We may ask you to supplement the application.

If you do not supplement the application by the given deadline, we may decide not to process it. You must make sure that your contact details (email address) are up to date.

How the application becomes pending According to section 17 of the Finnish Administrative Procedure Act and section 8 of the Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public Sector, the sender is responsible for the application arriving by the set deadline. An application becomes pending at the Academy when the online application and the obligatory appendices have been submitted in the online services.

The system will confirm a successful submission by sending an email to the address you have provided. If you have not submitted a final report on a completed or ongoing Academy-funded project by the set deadline, we may decide not to process your application.

Publicity and data protection Except for the research plan, plan of intent, abstract and progress report, which are primarily confidential, the application and its appendices are public documents. For example, the CV is a public document and as such must not include any confidential information. This publicity is based on the Finnish Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

The Academy is committed to following regulations on data protection. The GDPR-compliant privacy statement concerning the research funding process is available on our website under Data protection . Application parts and guidelines In order to be considered for funding by the Academy, applicants must follow the guidelines and procedure described in the section ‘Background and objectives’.

The PIs of the Finnish sub-projects selected for funding by the Academy will be invited to submit proposals to the Academy following the guidelines provided in this call text and possible further instructions provided by the Academy. The following guidelines apply only to the PIs of Finnish sub-projects selected for funding by the Academy. Most of the links below take you to the A–Z index of application guidelines on our website.

The online application contains the following parts Degrees (most recent one first); parental leaves etc. may be filled in under ‘Additional information’ Titles of docent and professorships CV following the template , no more than two pages Consortium parties (if applicable) Note that the US collaborator is not listed as a consortium party here, but on the 'Collaborators' tab Details on each party (name, email address, organisation and country) Read the guidelines for consortium applications .

Details on the site of research Title of research project in English and Finnish/Swedish Research fields (at least one, no more than five). See the research field classification. Keywords in English and Finnish/Swedish Maximum length 2,500 characters including spaces Brief description of the collaboration and how the proposed work links to AI and/or wireless communication technologies research.

Most relevant publications and other key outputs The PI/consortium PI enters up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own most important project-relevant publications and up to ten of their own/the consortium’s own research outputs, with justifications. You can retrieve publication details from the VIRTA publication information service . Also see our how-to guide for the online services .

Details on publications may also be entered manually. Obligatory information: author(s), title, year of publication, name of series/journal, type of publication (the type will not show in the PDF version of the application). The information is used to assess the competence of the applicant or consortium to carry out the project.

Describe planned national and international mobility within the project, itemised by person. See more information on mobility. Note that the US collaborator should be listed here.

Project collaborators, itemised by collaborator (name, organisation, country) Research infrastructures: Indicate what kinds of equipment, resources or data reserves provided by national or international research infrastructures the project plans to use. The menu includes infrastructures included in Finland’s national roadmap and/or ESFRI’s roadmap. Other possible infrastructures are entered in a free-text field.

Learn more about research infrastructures. Preliminary ethical review for project and/or animal testing permit (yes/no) Found guilty of research misconduct (yes/no). We will not process a funding application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct in the three years preceding the year of the call.

The research ethics description is entered under section 4. 1 of the research plan. See the ethical guidelines.

The project’s funding follows the full cost model . The Academy’s funding contribution to the research costs comes to no more than 70%. Before you can fill in the cost estimate, you must first select the site of research on the tab ‘General information’.

The site of research maintains the following percentages: effective working hours, indirect employee costs, overheads percentage and VAT . The information is provided as percentages. Enter the funding period.

Enter salaries and other costs. Enter other funding sources and their funding contributions. You must immediately notify us if you receive funding from other sources for the same purpose after your application to the Academy has been submitted.

Justify the funding to be applied for. The cost estimate must be realistic. Provide the total budget figure (USD) requested from the US funder by the US PI here .

Salary of principal investigator Justifications, if salary costs for PI are included in the funding plan The PI’s salary costs may, under certain limitations, be incorporated into the total project costs: for project management and/or research.

If the PI does not have a permanent employment relationship for the duration of the funding period, include a salary plan for the PI covering the entire funding period Public project description Maximum length 1,000 characters including spaces Popular and reader-friendly description of the research project in English and Finnish/Swedish We will use the project description in our communications on the funded research project.

The project description is also stored at Research. fi , a service that makes available information on research conducted in Finland. Read the guidelines on the public project description .

If you have ongoing Academy funding or completed projects for which no final report has yet been submitted, the projects to be reported are available on a separate tab in the online services. This does not apply to applicants acting as the responsible person in funding schemes where the funding recipient is an organisation. Maximum length per project is 1,500 characters including spaces.

Describe the progress and/or key achievements of the project and how the project is related to the funding being applied for. Also see the How-to guides for the online services . Appendices must be PDF files.

Copy of the full proposal submitted to the NSF, in NSF format. In case of a consortium application, this document is provided only by the consortium PI Copy of the review report(s) received from the NSF Complete list of publications . Read the guidelines on the structure of the list of publications.

Case-specific appendices: You can authorise another person to supplement or view your application. Start by entering the person’s name in the field. If the person has an account in the online services (SARA), they can be selected from the list.

The person must have an account in the Academy’s online services (SARA). You cannot authorise more than one person at a time to edit a field in your application, and you cannot edit that same field while the authorisation is active. Do not authorise yourself.

See technical instructions on the authorisation process in the how-to guides for the online services . You can submit the application when you have filled in or attached all the necessary information. The joint consortium application is submitted by the consortium PI.

The PI can submit the consortium application only after all subprojects have tagged their applications as complete. A red warning triangle on the tab tells you that information is missing. You can supplement the application until the deadline.

Resaving will replace the earlier version. If you want to supplement the application after the deadline, please get in touch with the Academy’s contact persons listed in the call text. How the application will be reviewed The collaborative AoF-NSF projects will be reviewed in accordance with the standard NSF merit review