The post doc grant may be used to cover all expenses to the researcher and his/her family caused by living abroad. Instructions on how to draft a cost estimate are included in the section “How to Apply?” on the Pool’s home page: www.postdocpooli.fi. Online applicant info will be held on Aug 22th at 9-10 AM.
Säätiöiden post doc -pooli has two application rounds each year and awards some 35 post-doctoral grants in each round. The spring 2025 application round will most likely take place from 1 Jan until 31 Jan 2025.
The Säätiöiden post doc -pooli consists of thirteen foundations allocating altogether 3.25 million euro annually to the pool. The Pool’s foundations are now Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion, Ulla Tuominen Foundation and Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. The Pool aims to make Finnish research more international by offering young scholars flexible funding from one source that covers all expenses of a research period abroad.
The Finnish Foundations’ Post Doc Pool was founded in 2009 to support researchers and Finnish research in becoming more international. During this time, the Pool’s foundations have granted over 40 million euros to post doctoral researchers heading abroad from Finland. After twenty-nine application rounds, already over 770 scholars have received funding through the Pool. Over one third of the grants have been awarded for two-year periods.
Further information about the Pool and the application round is available on the Pool’s website at www.postdocpooli.fi, and by e-mail from info@postdocpooli.fi and from co-ordinator Mikko-Olavi Seppälä, tel. + 358 400 868 006.
Meri Toivanen, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years.
Finnish cultural history is a recurring theme in Meri Toivanen‘s paintings. She reinterprets imagery from Finnish post-war films through metaphors found in the gaming world.
The visual artist, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years. Toivanen feels that being away from her homeland has increased her interest in it.
“This new context has made me research my family’s history and Finland’s cultural history through films. Both have connections to the threat and uncertainty of the Winter War, which feels current again because of the war in Ukraine,” she says.
The 27-year-old Toivanen graduated two years ago with a master’s degree in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. It is where the great Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt studied history painting in the late 19th century with the support of a state scholarship.
Soon after graduating, Toivanen was offered a part-time position to teach figure drawing at the academy. At the same time, Toivanen is building her career as a visual artist.
So far, opportunities have been many. Toivanen has participated in duo and group exhibitions in Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, and Denmark. However, she acknowledges the challenges many artists experience at the early stages of their careers.
“The biggest fear for many young artists is the void following graduation. I had quite a good continuity; I built my network during my studies and held exhibitions. For me it was quite easy, but it has been challenging too trying to find my place in a new city,” Toivanen says.
Residency provides new opportunities
For the time being, Toivanen plans to stay in Antwerp. She enjoys the city’s diverse art scene, and feels that a degree in fine art is highly valued.
At the beginning of next year, Toivanen will take the next step in her career by starting a five-month residency at MORPHO in Antwerp, enabled by the Cultural Foundation’s Residency Programme.
Toivanen managed to build networks during her studies and held exhibitions already in the beginning of her career.
During this time Toivanen plans to work on a project titled Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie, where she explores the concept of power through metaphors and symbolism. At the end of the residency, Toivanen intends to hold her first solo exhibition.
In addition to delving into her own work, Toivanen looks forward to encounters with local and international artists and curators, and visits to local museums and galleries included in the programme.
“Studying was a wonderful social time. I’ve dreamed of being able to go back to an environment where there is a community feel. It’s great that I get to connect with other artists again and see their creative processes. A new environment will surely spark new ideas too,” she says.
Final outcome surprises
While in the residency, Toivanen wants to explore new working techniques too. She does not use an easel but often works on the floor, aiming to complete a painting in one sitting.
The paints Toivanen uses are often very fluid, which causes them to move and spread across the painting’s surface, making the final result hard to control.
“I have the right to fail when I paint, and during my studies I learned not to be attached to the outcome. The painting is done in one layer, and if I am not happy with it, I can just wipe everything off and start again. Painting doesn’t always succeed, which is also interesting,” she says.
In addition to oil paints, Toivanen uses self-made pastels, ink, gouache, and watercolours. During the residency, she also plans to create figurative sculptures. Ceramics is a new medium for Toivanen, who has explored its qualities during summers spent in Kajaani.
For her, one of the hardest things is knowing when a work is finished.
“As a student I was required to produce a lot at a fast pace. After graduation, I’ve had my own peace and space to work, and I haven’t felt the pressure to finish what I do within a certain time. Now I have the freedom to focus on the process in the moment, and that is the most important thing.”
Working alone is Jarkko Partanen‘s nightmare. Having discovered the world of dance when he was a teenage, Partanen realized early on that he specifically wants to collaborate with others.
He gained his bachelor’s degree in London, and later completed his master’s studies at the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy. Partanen quickly understood that he preferred creating performances rather than performing in them, and so he became a choreographer.
“It was liberating to realize that I don’t have to be a dancer. On the other hand, as a choreographer, I don’t have any particular practice that I want to develop from one production to another. If I had to work alone, and plan my own future projects by myself, my career would have ended a long time ago,” he says.
Creative commitment
Eight years ago Partanen co-founded the Wauhaus collective with four other artists. The group had previously worked together in various configurations and discovered that naming the productions after the director or choreographer did not reflect their way of working.
By committing to a mutual artistic future and its development, Wauhaus aims to create institutional structures that support their long-term and multidisciplinary work within the art field. This means building fulfilling partnerships and international relationships, and continuously developing their ways of working.
Partanen admits that teamwork is not always straight forward, and sometimes things don’t go as planned. Nevertheless, the mutual journey continues.
“The richness of working together is that no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be”, says Partanen. Photo: Laura Iisalo
“Art is difficult, creating performances is incredibly hard, and the work never gets easier. However, individual ideas become much better when they have been scrutinised, criticized, crafted, challenged, and deconstructed together from different perspectives. Ultimately, we arrive at something none of us could have imagined at the beginning. That is the beauty of working together,” Partanen says.
Internationality is a necessity
Wauhaus is based in Helsinki but tours globally. The Fluids performance, for example, premiered in Tallinn six years ago, and is still being performed in various countries. Partanen thinks internationality is a necessity in the field.
“Productions take many years to create. In terms of the lifecycle of the works, it feels completely unsustainable to show them only in Finland, where performance opportunities and contexts are limited,” he says.
The themes, compositions, proportions, and implementation methods of the Wauhaus productions vary. The collective has showcased their pieces on the main stage of the National Theatre, at the Helsinki Biennial, and in small Black Box theaters.
What ties the pieces together is their strong audiovisual and spatial thinking. The role and position of performers on stage have been collectively questioned, and Partanen has created choreographies not just for humans but also for robot dogs and excavators.
“Although we are a collective, people have different professional roles, educational backgrounds, and perspectives. We have learned that our strength lies in doing diverse things. When we get excited about an idea, we tend to dive deep into the theme, and suddenly I’m choreographing excavators,” he says.
Residency concretizes ideas
The Wauhaus collective prepares for their forthcoming show during a residency in Tallinn. Photo: Sofia Okkonen
In August, the Wauhaus team will head to the Kanuti Gildi Saal in Tallinn for two weeks, made possible by the Cultural Foundation’s residency program. In addition to Partanen, director Juni Klein, sound designer Jussi Matikainen, scenographer Laura Haapakangas, and seven visiting designers and performers will participate in the residency.
The group is already familiar with Kanuti Gildi Saal. They stayed in the residency ten years ago and created the Dirty Dancing performance, which Partanen considers the starting point of Wauhaus. This time, they will work on their forthcoming Renaissance piece, which premieres in Helsinki this December.
The five-performer performance is co-produced by the Helsinki-based Zodiak – Centre for new Dance, and it explores the themes of re-enchantment and transformation through mythical bodies that turn fantasies into flesh.
For now, the piece is in the early stages of planning. The residency period allows for the ideas to be taken from the drawing board to the stage, and for the group to be immersed in the world of the upcoming work.
The performance can go in many directions, and no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be. That’s the richness of working together, says Partanen.
“Working with others brings a diverse perspective, which is important and enjoyable for my own artistry as well.”
The winner of the 2024 Mirjam Helin competition is the Chinese mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu, who received a prize of €50,000. The German soprano Kathrin Lorenzen placed second, receiving €40,000, and the South Korean tenor Junho Hwang placed third and received €30,000. The Polish soprano Justyna Khil, the Armenian baritone Aksel Daveyan, and the Croatian soprano Josipa Bilić also participated in the final, and each of them received €10,000.
Jingjing Xu. Photo: Minna Hatinen.
“The standard of the competitors has been extremely high, and the audience fantastic. Furthermore, there has been a good spirit among the jury. It has been a great pleasure to be part of the competition,” says jury chair Soile Isokoski.
The €5,000 prize for the best Lied performance went to the German baritone Gabriel Rollinson for his Among the Fuchsias by Harry Burleigh. The €5,000 prize for the best performance of a Finnish song by a singer whose native language is neither Finnish nor Swedish went to the Hungarian soprano Renáta Gebe-Fügi for her interpretation of Minä metsän polkuja kuljen by Erkki Melartin.
The choice of the press jury was the Norwegian soprano Hedvig Haugerud. The press jury consisted of Anne Aavik from Estonia, Kikka Holmberg and Harri Kuusisaari from Finland, and Jürgen Otten and Michael Stallknecht from Germany.
The student jury chose the Chinese mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu as their favourite. The members of the student jury were Liisa Kouvonen from Turku University of Applied Sciences, Tanja Niemelä from the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, and Tiina Salminen from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
The Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle audience favourite award went to Kathrin Lorenzen.
The jury members were bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, pianist Keval Shah, baritone Bo Skovhus, mezzo-soprano Randi Stene, and soprano Dawn Upshaw. The jury was chaired by soprano Soile Isokoski.
You can find the presentations and repertoires of the finalists on our website:
Specialist, Adjunct Professor Timo Carpén wants to treat his patients as comprehensively as possible. That’s why he enjoys working in palliative care, meaning caring for patients with serious and terminal illnesses.
“Palliative care work is very wide-ranging, and it entails tight-knit teamwork with nurses and other professionals as well as the patient’s next of kin. I consider it to be the heart of a physician’s work,” Carpén says.
Palliative care affects many of us both directly and indirectly: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 75 000 people in Finland need palliative care every year, and the number is on the rise. The recipients of palliative care include patients with, for example, cancer and lung, kidney, and heart diseases; and the care has been shown to improve the patient’s quality of life, reduce the use of hospital services at the end of life, and considerably ease the burden on the patient’s loved ones.
According to scientific research, palliative care is the more beneficial the earlier it begins. Now, Carpén is going to the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada for a two-year fellowship period to study whether virtual symptom screening could be helpful in finding cancer patients with the most difficult symptoms and referring them to specialised palliative care efficiently and in a timely manner. The research compares virtual screening to the traditional route, which is a screening and evaluation by an oncologist.
Tied in with global phenomena
The research group’s work is linked to various global trends. The population is ageing both in Finland and other industrialised countries, resources in healthcare are being fiercely debated, and the covid-19 pandemic accelerated digitalisation, including in healthcare.
Currently, the challenge in targeting palliative care is to identify those with the highest symptom burden and who would benefit from care the most in a vast group of patients. The term symptom burden, Carpén explains, refers to mental, social, psychological, and physical suffering, such as anxiety, pain, and nausea.
A study previously conducted in Toronto has indicated that a well-functioning screening can help find patient groups that benefit most from palliative contact. Carpén will participate in a research group led by Professor Camilla Zimmermann and the second phase of the study, investigating the effectiveness of a virtual symptom screening in a randomised controlled trial.
Carpén believes that as the properly targeted virtual screening produces real-time information about patients and helps identify patients with the highest symptom burden, the care pathways can be significantly sped up and the patients’ quality of life improved. As palliative contact has been found to reduce the use of costly hospital and emergency services, the pressure on healthcare resources is also eased.
The number of people needing palliative care will not be reducing in the future. Carpén points out that patients range from small children to the elderly, and the population is constantly ageing.
Aiming for efficiency
Although the pandemic gave digitalisation a boost, Carpén thinks that there’s still plenty of room for development when it comes to digital healthcare tools. However, their limitations need to be taken into account, too.
“That’s why they must be used mainly with the kinds of patients and fields in which they have already been proven useful and efficient. More scientific evidence of their use is also needed,” Carpén adds.
If the research results show that virtual screening works, digital symptom screening can be utilised better in the future – including in Finland. According to an assessment by WHO, in an international comparison Canada is at the top and well ahead of Finland in palliative care. Hence Carpén deems it important that research expertise and new insights can be brought to Finland from abroad in order to help develop and improve the level of palliative care in the country.
Right now, Carpén is supervising several PhD students in a Finnish research project, led by Professor Tiina Saarto, studying the implementation of end-of-life care for adults who have died of chronic life-limiting illnesses nationwide. When his two-year stint in Canada comes to an end, Carpén is planning to set up his own research group in Finland.
“Organising the best possible care for patients whilst trying to allocate limited resources correctly is a big task, and there are various challenges that need to be tackled,” he says. “However, I still view the way the future is headed in a very positive light.”
Doctor of Medicine, Adjunct Professor Timo Carpén received a grant from the Finnish foundations’ post doc pool in 2024 for postdoctoral research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada. In his research, he studies the effects of virtual symptom screening on early access to palliative care.
The 2024 Mirjam Helin competition will take place on 3–12 June as follows:
Preliminary round 3–6 June at 11:00 and 18:00 The details of the contestants will be available after the order of performance draw on 1 June.
Semifinals 7–8 June at 11:00 and 18:00 Venue: Sibelius Academy concert hall, Pohjoinen Rautatienkatu 9, 00100 Helsinki
Final concert 12 June at 18:30 Six finalists and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra led by Sir Mark Elder Venue: Musiikkitalo concert hall, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki
Single tickets (from €17) and ticket packages (from €57) are on sale at Ticketmaster, as well as the Musiikkitalo box office. Single tickets can also be purchased at the door before each event.
All concerts will be streamed live on Yle Areena and will be available as recordings on our website. Streaming links will be published soon. Please note that the time zone in Helsinki is UTC+02:00.
Singing is for everyone – and so is the side programme of the competition
If you plan to attend the competition in Helsinki, make sure that you don’t miss the related programme in and around Musiikkitalo as well as on Espa Stage, between 10–12 June. On Monday 10 June at 15:00, there will be a masterclass taught by baritone Luca Pisaroni, and on Tuesday 11 June, there will be another by soprano Dawn Upshaw. In addition, there will be concerts, discussions, singalongs and opera karaoke.
Admission to the side programme is free of charge.
Maria Ylipää will host the Mirjam Helin competition in 2024. Photo: Petri Summanen
The competition will be hosted by the Finnish actress/singer Maria Ylipää, known for her numerous roles in musical theatre, film and TV. Ylipää is a versatile performer, at home on stage as a vocal soloist with jazz bands, big bands and symphony orchestras alike.
The source languages of the nine new books to be translated include Spanish, Ukrainian and German, and, as a first for this grant, Greek and Romanian – among others. Two of the grants went to dramatic texts in book form.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation created the Translating world literature into Finnish grant in 2022. Targeted at publishers, the funding aims to make world literature available in Finnish – particularly, works from source languages that are less frequently translated into Finnish.
The sum granted in 2024 was 100,000 euros. The total to be awarded over ten years, 1 million euros, will allow for one hundred high-quality works from around the world to be made available in Finland. A list of the books published until now can be found at www.skr.fi/maailmankirjallisuus.
Nine new books
Finnish translations of contemporary Greek literature are very rare, but the grant will allow the Enostone publishing company to release a translation of Η Άκρα Ταπείνωση (The Ultimate Humiliation) by Greek author Rhea Galanaki. Galanaki is a long-standing, highly regarded, award-winning writer, whose works have been translated into fifteen languages. The Ultimate Humiliation portrays the uneasy period sparked by the Greek financial crisis with humanity and wisdom.
Siltala will publish a Finnish translation of German author Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Lichtspiel. This psychologically astute, masterfully narrated story is situated in the world of film and propaganda in the Third Reich, also touching upon Hollywood and its cult of celebrity.
Sammakko will publish the novelІнтернат (The Orphanage) by Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan. Writer and rock star Zhadan is renowned not only in his homeland but around the world, and The Orphanage has already become something of a European classic. It describes the war-torn reality of a bleak and chaotic city, based on experiences of the war waged in Eastern Ukraine since 2014.
Two dramatic texts will be published in book format. Poesia received a grant for the translation of the Moldovan play Simfonia progresului (Symphony of Progress), which is about Eastern European migrant workers. The documentary-style play examines the treatment of these workers in Western Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic, at the same time shedding light on the problems related to seasonal work in Finnish agriculture from the perspective of a Moldovan picker. Another play, the autofictional Angabe der Person by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek will bereleased in Finnish by Teatterin Uusi Alkukirjasto.
Extensive efforts to support reading
The Finnish Cultural Foundation has long been working to encourage Finns to read more, providing millions of euros in funding to the nation’s literary field. Efforts made by the foundation in recent years have included encouraging parents of small children to read aloud, expanding the book selections of school libraries and making books in plain language available to lower secondary schools.
The grant that encourages publishers to have world literature translated into Finnish forms a part of this continuum, providing adult readers with access to books translated from languages that very few Finns can read in the original.
Recipients of the Translating world literature into Finnish grant, 2024
Aviador Kustannus Oy, for translating and publishing the novel Cometierra by Dolores Reyes (Argentina)
Moebius, for translating and publishing the novel Lacapacidad de amar del señor Königsberg by Juan Jacinto Muñoz Rengel (Spain)
Kustannusosakeyhtiö Sammakko,for translating and publishing the novelІнтернатby Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine)
Kustannusosakeyhtiö Siltala, for translating and publishing the novel Lichtspiel by Daniel Kehlmann (Germany)
Osuuskunta Poesia, for translating and publishing the playSimfoniaprogresului(Moldova) about Eastern European migrant workers
Oy Enostone Ltd, for translating and promoting Gelos, part two in the climate change trilogy by Ana Filomena Amaral (Portugal)
Oy Enostone Ltd, for translating and promoting Η Άκρα Ταπείνωση by Rhea Galanaki (Greece)
Tammi (Werner Söderström Oy), for translating and promoting the novel Efter åndemaneren by Kim Leine (Denmark)
Teattering Uusi Alkukirjasto ry, for translating and publishing the autofiction Angabe der Person by Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)
Read more
Works funded by previous rounds of the grant, which have already found their way into Finnish readers’ hands, include Haava by Oksana Vasjakina, En pelkää mitään by Beatrice Salvioni and Maailman kauhea vihreys by Benjamín Labatut. All the books published so far under the grant can be found on our website. (in Finnish)
Alaiset (De Ansatte), a novel by Danish author Olga Ravn, was one of the first books to be published with fundingfrom the Translating World Literature into Finnish grant. Read an interview with translator Sanna Manninen .
The next applications for the grant will be accepted in the foundation’s March 2025 round of applications. Read more about Translating World Literature into Finnish.
In 2022, the Finnish Cultural Foundation launched a new form of support aimed at translating and bringing world literature to Finnish readers, especially from those original languages which are currently underrepresented in Finnish translations.
Over the course of ten years, a total of EUR 1 million will be allocated, enabling the translation of one hundred high-quality contemporary books from around the world into Finnish. The translated works can include prose, poetry, or essays for adult readers.
For the years 2022 and 2023, the supported books’ original languages include Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, French, and Estonian. One of the first books released was Olga Ravn’s Danish novel De Ansatte – The Employees in English and Alaiset in Finnish – translated by Sanna Manninen.
“As a translator, I am delighted that the Finnish Cultural Foundation has launched such a major project related to translating literature, especially from languages less translated into Finnish,” says Manninen.
At university Manninen studied general literature and later translation studies. After graduating she worked for a publishing house before becoming a freelance literary translator. Initially translating from Swedish to Finnish, she soon added Danish and Norwegian, which she learned in practice by reading books.
“Becoming a literary translator is a learning-by-doing process, but various courses and seminars for translators have also been very useful,” Manninen notes.
According to Manninen, the best part of being a Finnish translator is the chance to work with books. “Translating fiction into Finnish is also a very creative task, and as a profession, it offers great freedom.”
Most often, Manninen translates the books which publishing houses offer her. “In the Nordic countries, Finnish publishing houses have extensive contacts, but in many other language areas, more assistance is needed from translators in selecting books.”
Books translated from English dominate the market for translated literature in Finland. According to the Fennica database, in 2022, over half of the fiction translations published in Finland were from English, and just under a fifth were from Swedish. The remaining share comprises all the other languages in the world.
Manninen speculates that English translations are so common because the culture is familiar to Finns. Books translated from English might be easier to approach, therefore more are published. The same applies to Nordic books.
The less a language is known in Finland, the more important it is to translate works from that language into Finnish, she emphasises. Even if you know a foreign language well, entering the world of a literary work is entirely different when reading it in your own native language, interpreted by a skilled translator.
In addition to the Translating world literature into Finnish grants, the Finnish Cultural Foundation annually supports translators with regular grants. Manninen has received several grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for translating Nordic literature into Finnish.
The financial significance of a grant is big. “Money means time, and time means quality,” describes Manninen. Thanks to a grant there are more opportunities to refine the work, resulting in a better translation. A grant also encourages and motivates professional development.
Author Olga Ravn is known in Denmark especially as a poet. She has stated that she is not particularly interested in traditional forms of the novel. De Ansatte is a fragmentary, poetic text, not a traditional narrative novel. It features, for example, descriptions of strange, inanimate objects that appeal to all of the senses.
It was a fascinating challenge to translate. “It is really difficult to try to describe in Finnish unusual objects that do not exist in the real world.”
The work became easier when Manninen learned that the novel was based on texts Ravn wrote for an art exhibition catalogue, describing the exhibited works. Some of the objects described in the book had been on display at the exhibition, and pictures were available. This helped to find the right expressions.
De Ansatte is a critique of capitalism in the form of speculative fiction. It is a kind of existential sci-fi, describes Manninen, adding that the work may not necessarily reveal much about Denmark and the Danes but rather the thinking of one contemporary Danish author.
“That’s what translated literature is: it not only tells us what life is like in other countries but also how people think elsewhere.”
You can find the books published with our translation grant so far on our book gallery (in Finnish).
A total of 116 postdoctoral scholars from all over Finland participated in the spring application round. This means that 19% of the applicants received a grant, comparing to 27% last year.
One of the grantees is Ph.D. Dipabarna Bhattacharya, who will travel to Stanford University in the United States. “Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease that affects millions worldwide. It’s characterized by the immune system attacking synovial joints, resulting in synovitis, acute joint pain, reduced mobility, and even mortality. My research is focused on understanding the pivotal role of CD8+ T cells in the development of RA. Recent findings from Prof. Satu Mustjoki’s lab at the University of Helsinki and Prof. Siddharta Jaiswal’s lab at Stanford University hint at a promising connection between CD8+ T cells and RA. I’m very excited to start collaborative efforts between the two labs, aiming to unravel the complexities of RA and enhance treatment strategies for those affected”, Bhattacharya says.
D.Sc. Most Kaniz Moriam received a grant for post-doctoral research on the recyclability of cellulose-based textile waste. “Synthetic textile fibers impose the biggest threat in the textile industry as they introduce an alarming amount of microplastics, eventually entering the environment and human food chain. Hence, the textile industry requires sustainable alternatives. I am working to improve the efficiency of the recycling of cellulosic wastes by investigating the viscoelastic properties of cellulose with or without a multipolymer matrix in an ionic liquid-based solution by applying advanced methodologies. I am working at the Non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics group at the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT”, says Moriam.
D.Sc. Mohamadamin Forouzandehmehr is also going to work in the United States. His research area is computer models that take into account gender differences in human myocardial cells and better diagnostics. “Mathematical models, particularly those that delve into the subcellular level, offer a fascinating glimpse into the mechanistic underpinnings of pathophysiological pathways. My current research focuses on the computational modeling of mitochondria, investigating their role in various cardiac diseases like heart failure, diabetic cardiomyopathy, mutation-specific hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and the potential for uncovering novel therapeutic targets. Recognizing the importance of sex-specificity in designing optimal treatments, I plan to integrate mechanisms within our models to simulate the sex differences”, Forouzandehmehr explains.
Why the Post Doc Pool?
The Pool aims at making Finnish research more international. After twenty-nine application rounds, over 770 scholars have received funding through the Pool for at least a one-year research period abroad. One third of the grantees have received a two-year funding.
From 2022 onwards, it has been possible to apply for funding even for shorter research periods abroad (i.e. outside of Finland) that last at least 6 months. The Pool’s next application round will take place from 15 August until 15 September 2024, when some 1.6 million euro will be distributed in grants. The results of this round will be published by December 2024.
Säätiöiden post doc -pooli has proven to be an important instrument of research funding, enabling young scholars with families to finance research periods at top universities abroad. The grants awarded by the Pool are determined flexibly in accordance with the applicant’s needs and they often include their family’s moving expenses and children’s day care or school fees.
The post doc grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation:
The Post Doc Pool of Finnish foundations was set up in the autumn of 2009. During the current three-year-period 2022-2024 there are thirteen foundations involved, allocating altogether 3.25 million euro annually to the pool. The foundations are the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, the Emil Aaltonen’s Foundation, the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Ulla Tuominen’s Foundation.
The prize was presented by the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Vice Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, Anne Birgitta Pessi and CEO Susanna Pettersson, and the Finnish National Ballet’s Artistic Director Javier Torres, who was also a member of the jury. Besides Torres, the jury comprised Leena Niemistö, Chair of the Board of the Finnish National Opera and Balletand Gita Kadambi, General Director of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet.
According to the jury’s rationale, Frans Valkama’s musical talent, precision, and determination have earned everyone’s respect and admiration from the outset of his career. These qualities have also enabled him to reach the very highest technical and artistic standards, and over the years, his passion for dance arts has only grown and deepened. In addition to performing lead roles in numerous classical ballets, he has showcased his talents in a wide range of contemporary works. Beyond his prowess as a dancer, Frans is highly valued by his colleagues and the entire Finnish National Ballet staff for his remarkable empathy, readiness to help, and his impeccable work ethic.
Frans Valkama joined the Finnish National Ballet in 2005. He was promoted to soloist in 2011 and principal dancer in 2014.
The Edvard Fazer Prize of the Finnish Cultural Foundation has been awarded at the Finnish National Ballet 20 times, since 1984. Earlier winners have been the dancers Aku Ahjolinna, Ulrika Hallberg, Maija Hänninen, Tommi Kitti, Jarkko Niininen, Juha Kirjonen, Barbora Kohoutková, Minna Tervamäki, Jaakko Eerola, Carolina Agüero, Timo Kokkonen, Nicholas Ziegler, Salla Eerola, Tiina Myllymäki, Samuli Poutanen, Michal Krčmář, Eun-Ji Ha, Linda Haakana, and Abigail Sheppard. The entire ensemble of the Finnish National Ballet shared the prize in 1994.
The Edvard Fazer Prize is a rotating trophy awarded biennially by the Finnish Cultural Foundation within the Finnish National Ballet for merits in promoting dance. The Edvard Fazer Prize was established in the 60th anniversary year of the Finnish National Ballet in 1982 and presented for the first time in 1984. The trophy is a silver cup, which was donated by the Titular Commercial Counsellor and Mrs. Roger Lindberg. It was originally gifted by the staff of the Finnish National Opera to their then Director, Edvard Fazer, for his seventieth birthday in 1931. In 1996, the Fazer Music Foundation transferred its assets to the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Fazer Music Fund was established. At that point, the award was renamed the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Edvard Fazer Prize. Today, the Fazer Music Fund is known as the Roger Lindberg Music Fund. Its purpose is to support Finnish music arts and to award the prize named after Edvard Fazer.
