Early-stage research funding call
DigiSus research platform aims to create holistic and cross-disciplinary insights into digitalization and sustainability as societal transitions. To support early-stage research in this area, we open a funding call to offer research funding that is to be used in 2025.
The call in a nutshell:
- Application period: December 2, 2024 to January 24, 2025
- Funding period: March 17 to December 31, 2025
- Amounts funded: 5,000 to 20,000 euros per application
- Total funding: approximately 110,000 euros
- Decisions on funding will be made by March 10, 2025
Funding criteria
The aim of the funding is to to support early-stage research, including the development of new ideas, forming new collaborations, initiation of bold new openings, developing research competences in new areas, or continuation of promising starts. Funded initiatives must be related to both digitalization and sustainability.
- The initiative must support the themes and objectives of DigiSus and the strategy of Tampere University.
- The main applicant must be a member of the Tampere University research community (career stage 2-4, i.e., at least a post-doctoral researcher), while the funding may cover the salaries of anyone in a work contract with Tampere University.
- Evaluation criteria: 1) relevance to DigiSus themes, 2) interdisciplinarity and interorganizational collaboration, 3) potential for long-term impact and legacy, 4) feasibility of the plan, and 5) consideration of sustainability aspects in the implementation of the initiative.
- The funding may complement the services or funding already provided by Tampere University, but it must not overlap with them (e.g., the support from other research platforms or the Preaward Team).
- The funded applicants are expected to contribute to at least one of the following general aims of DigiSus: producing a blog post about the funded initiative on the DigiSus blog; organizing a DigiSus event as part of their initiative; making a presentation at one of the DigiSus events; or something similar. This will be agreed separately with each recipient.
The funding can be used for:
- Salary expenses of Tampere University staff members (as working time allocations, see instructions on the intranet)
- Fees of persons outside Tampere University (see instructions on fees on the intranet)
- Travel expenses (see Travel Policy on the intranet)
- Billable domestic and foreign services and purchases (see invoicing instructions on the intranet)
- Reimbursement of expenses in cases where invoicing is not possible
The amount of seed funding is 5,000 to 20,000 euros per initiative.
The funding can be used for the salaries or hiring of people at Tampere University (confirm this from your supervisor/unit/faculty). Read through the procedures in the intranet already before submitting the application: employment relationships. Any contracts are made at your own faculty, and the costs are allocated to DigiSus.
A modest part of the funding can be used to pay the fees of researchers or collaborators at other universities and organizations (national or abroad), but only for justified reasons explained in the application.
How to apply
Send a short, free-form application, maximum two pages (no attachments), by email to digisus@tuni.fi. The language of the application can be either English or Finnish. The application period closes on 24 January 2025 at 23:59 (EEST).
The application should include:
- Title of the initiative in both English and Finnish.
- The name of the main applicant, contact information and position at Tampere University. Include a link to the main applicant’s public TUNI profile and ORCID identifier, if possible.
- Public short description of the initiative for communications purposes* (max. 300 characters including spaces).
- Purpose of funding and a short work plan.
- Why is the initiative important? What are the short-term and long-term objectives of the initiative? What results can be expected?
- How does the initiative relate to digitalization?
- How does the initiative address specific aspects of sustainability? What new insights into sustainability can be expected from the initiative?
- Possible collaborators and research environment / network / team.
- A clear budget and timetable describing what the funding will be used for. For salaries of Tampere University employees, add 20% indirect costs into the salary budget. Do not add overhead costs. When planning the application, remember that the funding must be used by the end of 2025.
* We inform about accepted applications on the DigiSus website, LinkedIn, and other channels of Tampere Universities.
Decisions
The applications are pre-screened by the DigiSus coordinators and evaluated by the members of the DigiSus management board. The DigiSus management board will make funding decisions at the end of February 2025 among the applications with the best reviews. Any conflicts of interest are taken into account in the evaluation and decision process. The applicants will be notified of the decisions by 10 March 2025.
More information
Kirsikka Kaipainen and Matias Nurminen, DigiSus coordinators
digisus@tuni.fi
You can meet us to discuss your ideas at selected dates and times during the application period (to be updated soon), and/or join the DigiSus Winter Feast on December 11 to share your interests and find collaborators.
Check out also the simultaneous TURNS platform’s call for seed and mobility funding related to urban studies!
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Sneak peek to future funding calls: a separate continuous call for community or societal impact initiatives will be opened in spring 2025, after this early-stage research funding call has closed. The funded amounts in the continuous call will be between 500 and 3,000 euros.
This page was last updated on November 12, 2024.