Purpose of the grant
The Kordelin Foundation supports research in the humanities, natural and technical sciences and social sciences. The purpose of the grants is to support newly graduated doctors on their career paths and enable them to advance in their careers. The grant enables them to work after completion of their doctoral degree to deepen and develop the results of their doctoral work further.
We fund work that has societal, scientific, educational or commercial development potential. The applicant can, for instance, pursue co-operation with different businesses or research groups, or the grant can be awarded for starting up their own operation in an innovation incubator, for example.
Who can apply?
Grants are awarded to recent PhD graduates and post-doctoral researchers at the early stages of their career, at most two years after finishing their doctoral degree (date of the diploma being less than two years past). The grant can also be awarded to those whose doctoral thesis is nearing completion (the applicant has permission for defence). Grants are not awarded for doing doctoral research or finishing a doctoral thesis.
Finnish citizens or private individuals working in Finland who have done their doctoral thesis at a Finnish university can apply for a grant. Science grants are awarded to private individuals only. For long-term work abroad, see The Finnish Foundations’ Post Doc Pool.
How are the applications evaluated?
Evaluation is based on the following considerations:
- What kind of scientific, societal, educational or commercial development potential does the work have?
- How will the work advance the applicant’s career, and what career path is the applicant pursuing?
- How will results or skills obtained during the work be utilised after the grant period?
We encourage applicants to pursue interdisciplinary co-operation, international activities and networking.
Grant applications will be evaluated in three pools:
Pool 1: Humanities
Pool 2: Natural sciences and technical sciences
Pool 3: Social sciences
Each applicant will select on the application form the pool in which the application will be assessed. If your application is interdisciplinary, select a pool based on the sector that you think it most represents.
The Foundation will not award grants for medical research for the time being. The Foundation supports research into children with heart disease from the Helinä Wähä Fund. Further information about the fund.
The evaluation process consists of 3 stages:
- Science division experts evaluate the applications in three pools.
- Applications selected for the next stage are assessed and funding decisions are prepared at a joint meeting of the pools.
- The board of the Foundation makes the final funding decisions.
Amount and duration of the grant
A working grant is intended for private individuals for full-time, continuous work for a specific time span. The grant is €45,000 and is intended to cover 12 to 18 months of work.
Both working costs and expenses can be included in the working grant. The expenses may cover materials and purchased services, for example. See the calculation formula for the working costs and expenses (PDF file). The grant also covers employment pension insurance, occupational accident insurance and group life insurance. For more information, please visit the Mela website. The grant cannot be applied for purely for costs and expenses.
Applying for a grant
The application period is from 15 to 31 August 2025. The application period ends on 31 August 2025 at 4 pm Finnish time. You can apply for the grant using the online grant service. Grant applications can be drafted and submitted using the service only during the application period. Applicants can preview the application forms in advance in PDF format: Science | Application Form (PDF).
Applying for a grant requires signing in with personal bank identifiers or a mobile ID. The application and its attachments must be submitted via the online grant service within the application period. The Foundation does not accept incomplete or late applications or attachments.
Attachments
- CV (mandatory). We recommend using the CV template for researchers created by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) where applicable.
- Work plan (mandatory). Maximum length five (5) pages.
- List of publications (mandatory)
- Doctoral diploma or permission for defence (mandatory)
- Statement from a research group leader or partner, for example (not mandatory). The statement provider will submit the statement to the Foundation’s statement service. See more Information.
- A recent doctoral graduate may attach a statement from the opponent (not mandatory).
Instructions for preparing and submitting attachments:
- Name the attachments in a way that describes their content, avoiding special characters.
- All attachments must be in PDF-format and must be submitted as individual files via the online grant service.
- The maximum size of each individual attachment is 3 MB.
- If the application is incomplete, the service will prevent it from being submitted until all the required information has been added.
General terms of the grant
The personal grant is intended for full-time work over a time span of 12 to 18 months. See the amount of part-time work allowed during the grant period.
The work or project can begin immediately after receiving a positive grant decision. The work must commence during the following calendar year. If, for instance, the grant is awarded in 2025, the work must commence during 2026.
Grants are not awarded retrospectively.
A report on the use of a previous grant received from the Kordelin Foundation must be submitted before applying for a new grant.
Grants and taxation
For further information please see our Grant Recipient Instructions. Tax regulations can change and interpretation of them may vary to some extent. The Kordelin Foundation accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of the information and provides no taxation advice. In case of doubt, the beneficiary should seek guidance directly from the tax authority (vero.fi).
Frequently asked questions
See also Frequently asked questions.
Decisions
The Board of the Alfred Kordelin Foundation will make decisions on grant awards in November. We will notify all applicants of the decisions via email during November.
