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The call for applications for Tandem Industry Academia (TIA) 2021 closed on 25 April 2021 and the Foundation received 80 applications. The TIA funding model has been developed by FRIF with a view to encouraging ambitious precompetitive projects that further the aims of both leading-edge academic research and business and industry.

This was the second round of TIA funding calls. The first TIA call in 2020 attracted 92 eligible applications, and 11 successful two-year projects received a total of two million euros in funding from FRIF.

The Foundation is looking to award funding to roughly the same number of projects in the spring 2021 call. The funding decisions will be made public in August 2021.

A report commissioned by the Finnish Research Impact Foundation on the current state of business-academia cooperation in Finland attracted wide attention both in the news and social media. Commentary on Twitter highlighted the continuing decline in funding from business and industry for RDI activities in the university sector since 2010 – even though research projects in Finland are funded from multiple sources.

Jointly produced by VTT Finland and Tampere University, the report was published at the beginning of February – and to date has been downloaded an impressive 631 times.

The slowdown of cooperation between academia and industry was widely noted in national news media and in several blog posts. For example, Riikka Heikinheimo, Director of the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK, pointed out that “if we can’t find the time to build up interaction and trust, then we also won’t find the time to align the true needs of business development with the agenda of academic research. This will frustrate both sides and cause them to drift apart.”

Another important commentary was made by Jari Hämäläinen, Chairman of Universities Finland UNIFI Vice Deans for Research. He reminded that different disciplines have different roles in cooperation and that academic career paths don’t always favour mobility between the academic world and business and industry. “All in all, I sincerely hope that universities continue to work closely with businesses and that they commit themselves to making an impact,” Hämäläinen says.

Pauli Kuosmanen, Director of Innovation Services and Partnerships at Tampere University, was likewise keen to stress the key importance of collaboration for the creation of business value and for the promotion of societal development. This is an issue that warrants serious concern. Kuosmanen believes one possible reason for the slowdown of cooperation could lie in inadequate or outdated support mechanisms: “Even the highest quality research does not automatically translate into usable business concepts, but that requires specific translation mechanisms …  it’s crucial to update existing structures and support mechanisms so that they correspond to constantly changing business needs and the demands of effective cooperation.”

Click here to download the report (available in Finnish only).

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation will be live on Zoom every Tuesday at 1:00 pm to 1:30 pm, from 23 March through to 6 April. The live sessions are dedicated to answering applicants’ questions regarding the TIA 2021 spring call. You can send your questions in advance using this form. The Foundation’s CEO Petro Poutanen will be available to answer your questions.

Join us on Zoom! Link to Zoom Q&A sessions. Tuesdays 1:00-1:30 pm from 23 March to 6 April 2021.

A report just out by VTT Finland and Tampere University highlights a worrying trend in the Finnish RDI field.

Commissioned by the Finnish Research Impact Foundation FRIF, the report raises concerns about a slowdown in cooperation between academia and industry.

“Finland has been quite at the cutting edge compared to its European peers, but recent indicators suggest that cooperation has been on the decline and that we’ve become increasingly detached and isolated from each other,” says Arho Suominen, one of the report’s authors who works at VTT and Tampere University.

Suominen says that there are several bodies in Finland that provide funding for joint projects between the university and business sector. In recent years these joint efforts have been significantly curtailed, however.

“In the current financing environment the two sides quite simply don’t see each other as attractive partners in cooperation. Because of the scarcity of meaningful research problems and limited opportunities to achieve academic merit, research funding doesn’t give enough incentive for researchers to join forces and work together,” Suominen explains.

Based on an extensive review of the research literature and indicators of research cooperation, the report puts forward a range of new initiatives for deepening cooperation between universities and businesses.

Close collaboration between academia and business has generated significant growth and contributed to regenerate and revitalise the Finnish economy. It has long been recognized as one of the major strengths of the Finnish system compared to other European countries. Yet the momentum of this cooperation is now waning.

Over the past decade the amount and relative weight of business-funded research have continued to decline at universities across the country. This is in stark contrast to trends in other EU and OECD countries, as indicated by figures for business-funded academic research in Finland in 2000–2018 compared to the EU average (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Universities’ funding from business and industry in Finland, EU28 and OECD countries. Source: OECD, Main Science and Technology Indicators

Chairman of the FRIF Board, Mr Lauri Oksanen says that Finnish business and industry is certainly keen to undertake research cooperation and to take advantage of the unique skills and competencies and the new business generated.

“There is no doubt that both parties benefit from the coming together of research and innovation. It’s crucial that we get this cooperation back on track,” Mr Oksanen says.

Improving and intensifying cooperation between academia and industry is important so that Finland can continue to build on its key success factor – a culture of cooperation and interaction – and so that it does not fall behind international developments.

“Our research system in Finland is world-class, and we also have a very strong export industry. The obstacles to cooperation are largely structural and cultural in nature and cannot be overcome by money alone. We need to have open dialogue about the bottlenecks of cooperation and to show a true commitment to finding solutions,” Arho Suominen says.

The report makes a range of observations and suggestions about developing funding opportunities that will serve to promote cooperation. One of these observations is that rather than making funding available for individual projects, funding schemes should be specifically geared to advancing cooperation, promoting interaction and securing the continuity of cooperation.

The Board of Directors of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation (FRIF) decided in its December 15, 2020 meeting to choose a team from the University of Helsinki to study and assess the effectiveness of the funding model of the Foundation. The study will be targeted at the two-year Tandem Industry Academia collaboration projects funded by the Foundation in the spring of 2020, each of which involved an industrial partner.

The Tailored Metrics for Measuring Industry–Academia Funding Programme (TAILOMETRICS) project, funded in the call that closed in November, develops an evaluation system to measure and forecast the impact of FRIF joint research projects. Along with traditional indicators for assessing research impact, the project studies alternative impact indicators such as new themes for research, innovations, and social networks.

“The indicators for measuring impact are underdeveloped. For example, social contacts – both official and unofficial ones – are essential in terms of long-term impact yet are rarely studied systematically”, says Nina Kahma, a Docent from the Centre for Consumer Society Research of the University of Helsinki and the principal investigator in charge of the project.

“Research and industry have been rather far from each other, and researchers measure results by the number of peer-reviewed publications for example. If the impact of a study is reduced to these indicators, it does not bring up where and how scientific knowledge could be put to good use”, Kahma says.

The project aims not only at assessing the impact of funded research projects but also at describing and establishing what forms the impact of research may assume.

“It is important to increase interaction between the research world and business companies. Various exchanges between academia and applied work help scientific knowledge and researchers to gain access in companies for instance and will lead, in the long run, in more interesting research and better innovations. What research is and what it could generate outside a university is worth active consideration”, Kahma says.

Effectiveness under scrutiny

The objective of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation is to set out to assess the effectiveness of its own funding model without prejudice while wishing to promote knowledge about research impact and to create visibility for various models of cooperation. The call aimed at finding not only a group of impact researchers of a high academic standard but also a genuinely innovative way of intensive research.

“The mission of our foundation is to promote the impact of research. The shoemaker’s children must not go barefoot. That is, we wish to subject the effectiveness of the Foundation’s own work to critical assessment”, says Juha Teperi, a member of the Board of Directors and one of the initiators of the call.

“We are thrilled with the cooperation that is about to start and look forward to the results. While we will put them to good use in developing our own funding activities, we will also be only too happy to share their essence with other funders and research organizations for their benefit as well”, Teperi says.
The mission of the FRIF is to strengthen cooperation between world-class research and industrial stakeholders and thus to increase the impact of top research. In its first call for applications in the spring of 2020, the Foundation funded 11 joint academic and industrial research projects in which post doc researchers work in an academic organization for one year of funding and in a business company for the other year.

FRIF to announce new funding calls – Call for impact assessment proposals to open in autumn 2020

The Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation has decided to launch a new funding call for proposals on research impact assessment. In addition, the Board has decided to rerun in spring 2021 the Tandem Industry Academia call that was held for the first time earlier this year.

Mr Lauri Oksanen, Chairman of the FRIF Board, opened the virtual ceremony for the announcement of the Foundation’s first-ever grant recipients on 16 September 2020. He took the opportunity to describe the mission of the newly established foundation and also outlined its plans for upcoming funding calls.

Mr Oksanen said the foundation’s role is to enhance the impact of research in Finland, especially in relation to business and industry. Finnish universities and research institutes produce a great deal of world-class research, and it is the foundation’s goal to further strengthen the impact of that work.

“We’re not just adding small amounts to the already substantial volume of basic research funding, but we are specifically committed to enhancing the impact of research,” Oksanen said.

Rerun of Tandem Industry Academia call scheduled for spring 2021

Under its first-ever funding call Tandem Industry Academia, FRIF awarded funding to 11 research projects jointly undertaken by research organisations and business companies. The call was held in spring 2020.

“Our funding is not intended as one-way support mechanism. We don’t just want to support the way that companies can benefit from leading-edge research, but also how companies can contribute to and boost the basic research that is done at universities and research institutes. It’s a two-way process of mutual benefit,” Oksanen stressed.

Given the positive response to the call, the FRIF Board has decided to rerun the funding call in spring 2021. Further information regarding the call will be made available on the FRIF website and through the Foundation’s newsletter and social media channels.

New call for research impact assessment to open in the autumn

FRIF is furthermore planning to promote awareness about different mechanisms and funding models for supporting the impact of research. In autumn 2020, the Foundation will be opening a call for proposals on an impact assessment project to monitor and follow-up the impact of research funded by FRIF itself. The purpose is to set up a multi-year project under a team specialising in research impact assessment with a view to gauging the impact of the Foundation’s funding. The call will be opened in October-November 2020; check the FRIF website for further information.

The Foundation will also be funding a report to compile the best up-to-date knowledge about funding sources available for supporting research impact. The results will be made publicly available in early 2021.

Watch Lauri Oksanen’s speech at the Grant Recipients’s celebration.