In its plenary session on Thursday 1 October, the Finnish Government decided on the thematic areas and priorities for strategic research in 2021.
The thematic areas are: Demographic changes – causes, consequences and solutions; environmental and social links to biodiversity loss, and pandemics as a challenge for society.
The Government also adopted Welfare as the cross-cutting priority of all themes for 2021, the government communications department said in a press release.
The Government made its decision on the key thematic areas and priorities for strategic research based on a proposal from the Strategic Research Council. In 2021, the proposed authorization for strategic research amounts to 55.63 million euros. The Strategic Research Council will announce the launch of the call for funding at a later date.
Challenges
Strategic research refers to high quality, long-term and problem-oriented research that contributes to social policy making and the development of society’s functions and aims to find solutions to the major challenges and problems facing Finnish society.
Matters decided by the Strategic Research Council include the research programmes, organisation of funding calls and selection of research projects, and it is also responsible for monitoring and impact assessments.
The projects to be funded are selected based on a review of their societal relevance, impact and scientific quality.
