Call open for FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES Partnership Support Instrument grants!

The FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES Partnership Support Instrument is now open for proposals! The Partnership Support Instrument offers small-scale financial support for building and maintaining the Finnish scientific community’s research and innovation cooperation initiatives with their peers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) addressing one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).

What can be applied?

The Partnership Support Instrument provides grants in three funding modalities:

• Open Travel Grants - max. 1700€: for participation in thematic conferences, networking meetings, international dissemination events, and other events strategic for strengthening research cooperation with partners from Africa, Asia, or LAC. The event should be relevant to one or more of the SDG’s.
• Event Grants - max. 3500€: for planning and holding workshops, seminars, conferences, or other types of events related to the SDG’s and science, technology, and/or innovation cooperation with the regions. The event can be held in Finland or abroad.
• Research Visit Grants - max. 3500€: for Finnish research institutions to invite partner researchers from the target regions for short-term visits. The invited expert should be either a senior researcher or staff member, and the joint activity should be relevant to one or more of the SDG’s.

Due to significantly reduced funding and a shorter project period for FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES, the following changes to the Partnership Support Instrument have been implemented:

• Project Preparatory Grants will not be available in the current phase. Proposal preparation is still supported through the other grant modalities.
• Funding thresholds have been reduced, and fewer grants will be awarded than before.
• Grants will only be available through this Call in 2019. Applications are evaluated on a first-come, first-served basis.
• The Rolling Call can be closed at any time when all the designated funds have been committed.
• The evaluation criteria for the awarding of grants have been updated to reflect the changes made in the focus of the project, and in particular the focus on the SDGs.

Note also that due to reduced funding, competition for the grants is likely to be higher than in previous phases. Preference is given to applicants who have not received FinCEAL funding before.

Who can apply?

All researchers (from early career to senior) that are in a contractual relationship with a Finnish higher education or research institution and reside in Finland.

When is the application period?

The call is open on a rolling basis during 2019 and will close once the designated funds have been committed. Applicants are advised to apply for funding at least 2 months before their planned activity. All funded activities must take place between April 1st – December 31st, 2019.

Want more information?

The full call text, including detailed eligibility criteria, and application forms is available here.

The BRIDGES team will also host a Virtual Info Session on Wednesday 13^th March from 14:00 to 15:30. The Info Session is open to anyone interested but requires registration by 12^th March at: www.unipid.fi/psi_forms/is_registration/ You are warmly welcome to join!

About FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES

The FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES project (2019-2020) is financed by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and implemented by the UniPID network. The project aims to support collaboration between the Finnish research community and their counterparts in Africa, Asia, and the LAC regions. The project strengthens Finland’s contribution to the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and the EU’s bi-regional policy dialogues with the regions, and supports the International Strategy for Higher Education and Research 2017-2025.

Picture credit: Flickr/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.