DigiSus funding for community or societal impact
- Application period: at any time from 10 March until 30 September 2025 (or when all funds have been distributed)
- Funding period: Funding must be used by 31 December 2025
- Amounts funded: 500 to 3,000 euros per application
- Total funding available: 25,000 euros
- Decisions on funding: Within 3 weeks from application submission date (except during summer holidays in July)
- Before applying, please check what DigiSus is and what are the aims of this community
Types of projects
Community impact projects can be, for example, events or activities aiming to nurture the DigiSus community and support cross-disciplinary research culture at Tampere Universities and beyond. This can include one-time events as well as series of events (e.g., workshops, meetups, open guest lectures, campaigns, public engagement). The events can be organized for the university community, local stakeholders, the international audience, as well as the general public. Ideally, the activities would be inclusive and available for anyone to join in.
Societal impact projects aim at creating or increasing impact of research results in society. This can include, for example, implementing research findings in practice, creating dissemination materials that popularize research, developing guides or resources for educators, producing policy briefs, disseminating results through white papers or workshops to inform industry practices, or research-to-business activities. Societal impact projects must reach beyond Tampere universities and involve other stakeholders (e.g. public sector, NGOs, industry, citizens).
Funding criteria
- The project should be related to the themes and goals of DigiSus.
- The main applicant must either
- have a work contract with Tampere Universities when applying and during the project implementation, or
- be a guild/association within Tampere Universities.
- The funded applicants are expected to write a brief blog text about their project. The blog texts will be published on the DigiSus website during 2025.
The funding can be used for:
- Billable services and purchases (see purchase invoice instructions on the intranet)
- Fees for persons not employed at Tampere University (see instructions on fees on the intranet)
- Working time allocations (i.e. salary costs) of Tampere University staff members (see instructions on the intranet)
- Travel expenses (see Travel Policy on the intranet)
- Reimbursement of expenses in cases where invoicing is not possible
How to apply
Send a short, free-form application, maximum two pages (PDF file, no attachments), by email to digisus@tuni.fi. The language of the application can be either English or Finnish.
The application should include:
- Title of the project in both English and Finnish.
- The main applicant’s name, contact information and position at Tampere University. Include a link to the main applicant’s public TUNI profile, Curriculum Vitae and/or ORCID identifier, depending on what info is relevant for the applied project.
- Which type of project you are applying for (Community impact or Societal impact)
- Public short description of the project for communications purposes* (in English, 300 characters including spaces).
- What are the short-term and long-term goals of the project, and what results can be expected?
- How is the project related to digitalization and sustainability? Which of the DigiSus goals is the project connected to?
- Who are the communities / collaborators / target groups / stakeholders involved in the project? How will be project benefit them?
- A clear budget, timetable and work plan describing what the funding will be used for and what will be done in practice. For salaries of Tampere University employees, add 20% indirect costs into the salary budget. Do not add other overhead costs or personnel side costs. Remember that the funding must be used by the end of 2025.
* We publish the titles and short descriptions of accepted applications on the DigiSus website, LinkedIn, and other channels of Tampere Universities.
Decisions
The DigiSus coordination team will evaluate the applications case by case with the support of the DigiSus management board members. We aim to make decisions within 3 weeks of receiving the application, except during the summer holiday period (July). The projects can start as soon as funding is granted, and the funding must be used by 31 December 2025.
More information
Kirsikka Kaipainen and Matias Nurminen, DigiSus coordinators
Thomas Olsson and Sanna Kumpulainen, DigiSus academic directors
digisus@tuni.fi