The October round is the largest of the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s four annual application rounds. Based on applications from October 2022, the Foundation awarded grants for a total of EUR 31.5 million in February 2023. In the statistics, grants are allocated to the year in which the grant decision was made.

In October 2022, the foundation received nearly 10,000 applications, of which 1,080 were successful. The numbers of applications received have been growing in recent years, particularly in the arts.

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Of the awarded grant sums, the sciences accounted for 61% and the arts for 38%. This uneven distribution is due to the special themes of the application round, which in 2023 were focused on the sciences.

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In 2023, on average one in ten applications were successful. The acceptance rate varies depending on the discipline, however. because the distribution of grants is determined by the purposes specified by the Foundation’s donors.

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Green base with blue colons

 Measured in euros, the biggest proportion of grants goes to doctoral thesis work and artistic work. Grants in the “Research” category typically go to major projects run by teams of researchers.

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Green base with colorful lines

The Finnish Cultural Foundation has been aiming to increase the number of full-year and multi-year grants, which allow grantees to work full-time on their academic or artistic pursuits for at least a year.  In 2023, 464 full-year grants were awarded (compared to 447 in the previous year).  Of these, 159 (128) were multi-year grants, seven (3) of them being for four years. 

There were 310 (295) full-year grants in the sciences and 154 (152) in the arts. In the sciences, the Cultural Foundation particularly supports people in the early stages of their research careers. Of the full-year academic grants, 237 (216) were for thesis work, 56 (52) for post-doctoral research and 12 (25) for research.

The applicants’ backgrounds vary widely depending on the discipline, but on average 60 per cent of grantees are women. People based in Helsinki account for just over 40 per cent of grants, and those with non-Finnish citizenship for 12 per cent. Grants went to more than 90 municipalities in Finland; this number will increase significantly once the regional funds come into play with the January application round.

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 Grants were awarded to Finnish universities in 2023 as follows*:

  • Aalto University: 41 grants awarded, totalling EUR 1,150,000
  • University of Helsinki: 160 grants awarded, totalling EUR 5,030,000
  • University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu campus): 26 grants awarded, totalling EUR 838,000
  • University of Eastern Finland (Kuopio campus): 30 grants awarded, totalling EUR 983,500
  • University of Jyväskylä: 40 grants awarded, totalling EUR 1,386,500
  • University of Lapland: 13 grants awarded, totalling EUR 252,500
  • LUT University: 2 grants awarded, totalling EUR 95,000
  • University of Oulu: 34 grants awarded, totalling EUR 1,024,500
  • University of the Arts Helsinki: 40 grants awarded, totalling 624,000
  • Tampere University: 53 grants awarded, totalling 1,427,500
  • University of Turku: 79 grants awarded, totalling 2,501,000
  • University of Vaasa: 4 grants awarded, totalling 93,500
  • Åbo Akademi University: 4 grants awarded, totalling 82,000

*Statistics based on location information provided by applicants.