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GRANT APPLICATION GUIDELINES

Application Round 1 June – 15 August 2025

Individuals and working groups may apply for a personal grant for the year 2026. The thematic special project Innovation, Commercialization, and Growth is open for 1–3-year projects starting in 2026. The research group grant is intended for a three-year period from 2026 to 2028.

In addition to the personal working grant, applicants may apply for a travel grant for one conference trip. Organizations may apply for a grant to organize a conference or seminar. Targeted (cost) grants may also be applied for other purposes specified in the application.

The grant application including the attachments must be submitted in the grant application system no later than August 15, 2025, at 24:00 (UTC+3).

Focus Areas

The focus areas confirmed by the Delegation of the Foundation for Economic Education Support Association are designed to support Finland’s long-term economic growth, entrepreneurship, and business development. The focus area is an optional section of the application where the applicant can also define their own emphasis, in line with the guidelines of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Read more about the focus areas

Thematic Special Initiative: Innovation, Commercialization, and Growth

The Foundation’s thematic special project addresses a key area for Finland’s competitiveness. The aim is to support high-quality research in business and economics, particularly related to the commercialization of companies’ innovations and services, as well as their successful scaling in international markets. The application must include a description of the practical contributions and relevance of the research to the growth of Finnish business and the economy.

Research Group Applications

The Foundation encourages research groups to conduct pioneering research and to compile and acquire new datasets and databases. Three-year research group grants may be applied for by teams led by a Principal Investigator (PI).

Special Fund Applications

In the special fund application round, applicants may direct their application to a specific designated-purpose fund or pool. Grants are awarded according to the criteria set by donors for specific fields of research or education. The designated-purpose pool for the 2025 round is Forest Bioeconomy, Circular Economy, and Clean Transition Value Chains.

Application Attachments

Attachments that complement the information in the application forms are an essential part of the application. The following three attachments are mandatory for all applicants:

1 Project Summary (1 page, A4): Describe your view of the project’s contributions and relevance to Finland’s business sector and economic growth. The impact may relate to the topic, expected results, and their significance for scientific research, business, or society at large. The summary must include a budget specifying the working grants and group’s expenses during the grant period.

2 Research and Funding Plan: The research plan should follow the generally accepted structure, including background, research questions, methods, and expected outcomes. The funding section must be based on the information provided in the application form and clearly indicate how the grant will be used within the project. A personal working grant is intended to cover the researcher’s living expenses and does not require a detailed breakdown. For the requirements concerning the research group’s plan, see: Research Group Application Guidelines – Foundation for Economic Education.

Length 2–3 pages / research groups 3–5 pages.
Literature references are not included in the page limit.
Target (cost) grants: A description of the specific purpose, e.g., an abstract of a conference presentation.

3 Applicant’s CV: For individual applicants or the responsible person of a team / PI of a research group (include CVs of all group members in one file) / responsible person of an organization or joint project.

Supervisor’s Statement

A statement from the supervising professor is especially important when applying for a grant for doctoral research. The statement must be submitted through the electronic reference system by August 31, 2025 (UTC +3). It may be written in Finnish or English.

Grant Purpose

You may apply for a working grant for doctoral research or postdoctoral research. In the case of a research group, the grant is intended for doctoral and/or postdoctoral researchers working within the group. In the thematic special initiative, the grant can be allocated to all categories listed in the application menu, except for conference travel and organizing a conference or seminar.

In addition to conference travel, targeted grants may be applied for research visits or study trips, as well as for organizing conferences or seminars. Organizations specifically can apply for grants for organizing conferences. Applicants may also define another specific purpose for the grant. We encourage the development of international research consortia or networks, particularly through the international collaboration of research groups.

Grant Period

Grants are awarded for projects to be carried out in 2026, either as working grants or targeted (expense) grants. The duration of personal working grants is 4–12 months. Applications for the thematic special initiative “Innovation, Commercialization, and Growth” may also cover longer periods (24 or 36 months).

Research group grants are awarded for a 36-month period from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2028. The Principal Investigator (PI) of the research group must specify the planned working periods of the group members, which may range from 12 to 36 months.

Targeted grants for conference travel, organizing conferences or seminars, and research visits may be used starting from October 1, 2025. Notice, however, that no preliminary decisions will be made regarding the grants to be announced at the end of November.

Grant Amounts

In the 2025 grant round, the full-time 12-month working grants available are:

Doctoral research: €26,000
Postdoctoral research: €30,000

Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers may also apply for one additional conference or travel grant through a separate application.

Three-year research group grant: €150,000–€300,000 (€50,000–€150,000 per year). The application must be submitted by the group’s Principal Investigator (PI).

Working grants include the statutory MYEL insurance and other costs related to the research work. Additional costs must be itemized in the application form and in the research and funding plan. The final amount of the awarded grant depends on the intended use, the length of the grant period, any official or study leaves, and other funding sources indicated in the funding plan.

Other Application Criteria

A research group’s plan may include data acquisition (e.g., statistics, market or industry development analyses). In other types of grants, data collection is typically part of the applicant’s own work (e.g., qualitative methods).
If the grant is applied for a project that already received funding from the Foundation in the previous round, an interim report must be submitted as an attachment (Attachment 4).
Virtual conferences: While traditional in-person conferences are preferred for organizing purposes, applying for a virtual or hybrid event (both in-person and online participation) may be justified in the application.

Application Review and Grant Decisions

Applications are reviewed in stages during the autumn of the application year by the Foundation’s scientific experts and regional committees. The Board of the Foundation makes the final grant decisions in November based on the proposal of the Grant Committee. The list of awarded grants will be published on the Foundation’s website by the end of November. Grant recipients will receive an electronic confirmation. The Foundation does not provide individual justifications for grant decisions.

Researcher Blog

It is important to communicate to a wider audience what is achieved with the grants awarded by the Foundation for Economic Education. The grantees are expected to write about their projects on the Fund’s blog. The blog increases the visibility and recognition of the project within the broader business and economics research community. When submitting the first blog post, researchers are asked to include a short introduction of themselves and their research, along with a photo. Additional illustrations may be submitted with the text if relevant.

Grant application help chat

During the application period in June and August, grant advisory is available via the chat service on the Foundation’s website (lsr.fi) on Mondays from 10:00 to 12:00, Wednesdays from 10:00 to 12:00, and Thursdays from 13:00 to 15:00 (UTC+3). At other times, a ticketing service is in use.