Cultural Foundation’s October round of grant applications is now open
The Finnish Cultural Foundation’s October round of grants will be open for application between 1 and 29 October 2021. Working grants and expense grants may be applied for in all fields of academia and the arts, with working grants having a scope of up to four years.
In 2022, the Cultural Foundation will pay out approximately EUR 50 million in grants, of which EUR 27 million is open for applications in October. Most of the grants will be given out as full-year working grants of EUR 26,000, or EUR 30,000 for postdoctoral research
– There is a lot of uncertainty in the area of funding for academic and artistic disciplines at the moment. The Cultural Foundation has increased its grant sum, while keeping the criteria largely unchanged since last year, explains the foundation’s director in charge of grants, Juhana Lassila,
Academic grants are directed particularly at doctoral theses and postdoctoral academic work. For doctoral candidates, the Cultural Foundation offers an opportunity to combine the grant 50–50% with an employment period at a university or research institution, such that put together they form a full-time further education package.
In October, the Cultural Foundation will grant around EUR 1 million to research concerning nutrition and health. Applications are accepted from the fields of natural science, pharmacy, medicine and agronomy, as well as from multidisciplinary projects. The funding will be granted to at most five research projects and is intended for teams consisting of several members.
Artists may apply for grants for work or projects, while artistic communities may apply in relation to cultural projects. Within the arts, the Cultural Foundation is happy to accept applications for large-scale, multi-year projects.
– The Cultural Foundation has no specific areas of focus for large-scale projects. We are looking for high-quality projects within or between any artistic disciplines, Lassila says.
Specific grants open for applications within the October round are Eminentia, Art for Everyone and Dig It! archaeology initiative.
The Eminentia grant is intended for reflecting on and sharing one’s scientific or artistic life’s work and o the experience gained from it, to benefit others, either in one’s own field, other fields, in interaction between science and the arts, or more broadly, to promote the social significance of science or art. A prerequisite for the Eminentia grant is that the resulting work be published in writing as a standalone book, online publication or a series of articles.
Art for Everyone (previously known as Art for Institutions) is aimed at increasing the opportunities of people in need of care or support to experience high-quality art and, in this manner, promoting cultural equality. The art financed by the grant must be directed at people whose access to art is otherwise limited. Potential locales for implementing this kind of project include hospitals, prisons, reception centres, care units for substance abusers, child welfare institutions, sheltered homes, day centres, and care homes for the elderly. The minimum application sum in the October round is EUR 25,000.
The Dig It! archaeology grant is designed to create opportunities for primary and secondary school students to take part in archaeological activities in their local area, thereby promoting their awareness of and interest in scientific research methods, their own local heritage and history in general. Archaeologists, working groups run by archaeologists. and registered cultural heritage organisations – including museums and archaeological societies – are eligible to apply for Dig It! funding. The projects are implemented in cooperation with one or more local schools.
