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Research produces new knowledge and this knowledge produces new innovations and new resources that help produce new knowledge and solve problems in society. This was the key message of the speech delivered by Chairman of the FRIF Board, Mr Lauri Oksanen at the reception held for new FRIF funding recipients.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation awarded more than two million euros through its Tandem Industry Academia programme to support 11 new joint projects in 2021. The aim of the funding programme is to promote dialogue between academic research and industry and to advance the impact of cutting-edge research through cooperation with business and industry.

In his speech Chairman of the FRIF Board, Mr Lauri Oksanen stressed the fundamental importance of cooperation and collaboration in producing impact and in generating new innovations.

“Research produces new knowledge, and that goes for both basic and applied research. Private companies and public organizations can use this knowledge to produce new innovations,” Mr Oksanen said.

Research needs resources, which means hard money, to produce this knowledge, and innovations will again translate knowledge into money and other resources. This is how society works and prospers, and this is how challenges in society can be addressed and handled.

“In order to achieve impact we need both research and innovations,” Mr Oksanen said. 

The funding gap needs to be bridged 

In Finland, the Academy of Finland funds research in higher education, while the role of Business Finland is primarily to support business research activities. At the moment the target in Finland is to increase research and development expenditure from its current level of 2.7 % to 4 % of GDP. This effort is being promoted through national RDI roadmap activities as well as by the parliamentary RDI working group.

Mr Oksanen was keen to stress that Finland has long had an exemplary effective innovation system. Over time, however, a gap has opened up with respect to cross-sector cooperation.

In spring 2021 FRIF commissioned a survey on the current state of funding for joint industry-academia projects and discovered that the gap between businesses and academic research had widened. This was reflected in a declining trend of funding channelled through the business sector to universities in the 2000s: Finland now ranks below the average for OECD countries.

“The funding system must be viewed as a whole. If money is simply invested across different parts of the system, that won’t necessarily have the best effect on cooperation,” Mr Oksanen said. 

He compared the efforts to step up cooperation to getting the wheel in motion: “FRIF’s aim is to support cooperation and get the wheel of cooperation between research and innovation rolling more efficiently.”

“Getting that wheel rolling is beneficial for both parties. It is not only about funding individual projects, but the development of a culture of cooperation”, he concluded.

Download the slides from Lauri Oksanen’s presentation here »

Read the blog article on the statement by Minister of Science and Culture Antti Kurvinen here »

Research brings new insights, for instance, into machine learning in pharmaceuticals development and emissions from dairy production.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation has awarded more than two million euros to research projects where universities and research institutes are working in close collaboration with industry partners. This was the second call under the Tandem Industry Academia funding programme, which is aimed at enhancing the impact of research through increased cooperation with industry partners. The new funding decisions amount to the same level of investment that was made one year earlier in the previous call.

The newly funded joint ventures include projects to research and develop technologies for the measurement of small atmospheric particles; emissions from dairy production; the role of forests in climate modulation; highly repellent coatings; and prospects for machine learning and artificial intelligence in pharmaceuticals development and in sawmill processes.

The research teams involved in the 11 projects come from the University of Helsinki, Aalto University, the University of Oulu, Tampere University, LUT University and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The business partners involved in the projects bring to the table their R&D expertise and market know-how. The partner companies are Vaisala, Satellio Company, Orion Pharma, GE Healthcare, Finnos Oy, Valio, nLIGHT Oy, Danfoss Drives/Vacon, Finnadvance, Bluefors and Polar Electro.

One of the new projects is a joint effort of research teams from the University of Helsinki and Orion Pharma, who are breaking new ground in Finland by combining state-of-the-art chemistry technologies with machine learning in pharmaceuticals research. Their aim is to optimize the process of pharmaceuticals synthesis and to identify improved synthetic routes to drugs and thereby to accelerate pharmaceuticals manufacturing processes.

“FRIF funding means that we can proceed with our research which has definite impact potential. It’s also an excellent way of supporting and promoting scientific collaboration with business partners, which in a best case scenario can pave the way to wider cooperation,” says University of Helsinki Professor Jari Yli-Kauhaluoma, who is principal investigator of the project Optimizing synthesis of pharmaceuticals by machine learning.

More information on all the 11 projects funded »

The Foundation received 80 applications to the second Tandem Industry Academia funding call, which closed on 25 April 2021. The FRIF Board decided to award funding to 11 projects of the highest international standard that are expected to deliver greater impact by virtue of their collaboration with business partners. The projects involve precompetitive research, which will not only produce important scientific results but also strengthen Finnish industry and its competencies.

“The assessment commissioned by FRIF in spring 2021 made it clear that our work to deepen and strengthen academia-industry cooperation can indeed yield substantial benefits both in the short term and in the long term. The Tandem Industry Academia funding model plays an important part in supporting this effort,” says Lauri Oksanen, Chairman of the Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation.

“We again received a large number of extremely high-quality applications, which is obviously pleasing. The choices we had to make were not easy, but it will be exciting to follow the progress of the projects funded,” Mr Oksanen continues.

In projects funded under the Tandem Industry Academic model, academic researchers with a PhD will work for one year in the academic partner organization and another year more closely with the business partner.

“We expect that the projects will inspire the movement of new knowledge and competencies in both directions and in this way promote both scientific and commercial interests,” Mr Oksanen adds.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation is a research funding agency launched in spring 2019 by the Finnish government. It was given an initial capital stock of 60 million euros. FRIF’s mission is to promote the impact of Finnish cutting-edge research by strengthening collaboration between academia and industry.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation’s first Annual Report 2020 looks back at the events and highlights of our operations in the past year.

Read messages from the Chairman of the Board of Directors Lauri Oksanen and CEO Petro Poutanen.

The Annual Report also features interviews with Tandem Industry Academia projects’ partners!

Read the Annul Report here →

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.