Artikkelit

04.06.2025

Growing number of funding opportunities for future FIN-CAN research cooperations

For the past years, Canada has been aligning its research priorities with those of Europe and maybe especially with the Nordic countries. By joining Horizon Europe officially in July 2024, Canada has now gained the access to one of the largest funding instruments for research and innovations, enabling Canadian researchers to collaborate more extensively with the Europeans on various scientific projects related to current global challenges. Additionally, Canada has associated with NordForsk through collaborations on specific research initiatives, especially linked to the Arctic and sustainability.  This engagement with the European and Nordic programs enhances not only the Canadian and European research fields but also promotes science and technology globally. As Finland and Canada share many similarities, cooperations between our countries are expected to expand significantly along the increasing number of funding opportunities and geopolitical changes. The current research funding landscape is introduced in the following chapter. 

Recently opened funding opportunities for FIN-CAN research cooperations

Horizon Europe
Research cooperation potential between Finnish and Canadian researchers is gaining momentum – country similarities, joint scientific problems, a need to form new partnerships with trusted allies and new funding opportunities are all factors that support new collaboration openings around urgent scientific problems. One of the major funding forms, promoting these new collaborations, is Horizon Europe. Horizon Europe is the European Union's flagship funding program promoting excellent research and innovation activities with a total budget of €95.5 billion for years 2021-2027. The Horizon Europe program focuses especially in addressing climate change and supporting sustainable development. It also aims in enhancing the competitiveness and growth of EU countries. Canada officially joined this program as an associated country in July 2024 and can now act under “Pillar II” on equal terms with the EU countries. The association of Canada to Horizon Europe has opened exciting possibilities for Canadian researchers to expand their international collaborations for addressing global challenges. Pillar II of Horizon Europe, forms funding-wise the largest pillar in the whole program and its budget is €53.5 billion for 2021-2027. This pillar focuses on advancing new technologies and current global challenges, which are divided into six subclusters: Health; Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society; Civil Security for Society; Digital, Industry and Space; Climate, Energy and Mobility; Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment.

Participation to the funding calls is open to legal entities from the EU and the associated countries, like Canada now. So, Finnish researchers participating in this program can partner with the Canadian institutions in the above-mentioned topics. Before formally joining Horizon Europe, Canada participated in Horizon 2020 and other EU research initiatives, which were important in paving its way for the current association. Canada has recently also named Horizon Europe National Contact Points, NCPs, in the country for various specific fields, and they can advise in any issues related to funding calls or finding the appropriate international partners for collaborations. 

NordForsk
NordForsk has played an important role in promoting research collaborations between the Nordic countries. Canada has also been included in NordForsk funding calls through specific funding initiatives and partnerships that have enabled Canadian researchers to apply funding for Nordic collaborations. Northern location of the countries and many mutual interests has encouraged joint projects related to sustainability, arctic & climate research, and social sciences to tackle complex global challenges together. Previously NordForsk-funded projects have been linked to oceans, freshwater, biodiversity, over-tourism and minerals, and these projects involved participants from the Nordic countries, USA and Canada. The initiatives have also aimed in incorporating indigenous perspectives to the studies.

In 2025, the Government of Canada has again participated in NordForsk's international research initiative, which is focused on the sustainable development of the Arctic. Canadian government has committed to invest up to $20 million for this project. The 2025 funding call involves research funding organizations from several countries, including the U.S. and various Nordic nations, also Finland. The initiative aims to address the unique challenges faced by the rapidly changing Arctic region. Integration of indigenous perspectives and interdisciplinary research also plays an important role in this call. The funding from Canadian side will be administered by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (of Tri-Council), through the New Frontiers in Research Fund, NFRF, which supports innovative and high-impact research projects. Canada has expressed deep interest and commitment to enhance research cooperation with the Nordic countries, and the arctic/climate cooperation is expected to grow also between Finland and Canada in the future. 

Alliance International
NSERC's (Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada) Alliance International program is a significant funding opportunity that supports specifically Canadian researchers in their partnerships with international researchers, also Finnish researchers. Alliance International has two main funding forms that can both be utilized for promoting collaborative research projects, and also for mobilizing Canadian researchers abroad to start these collaborations and share resources. The smaller and shorter funding form, Alliance International Catalyst grants, provide funding for one year to support Canadian researchers in initiating international research collaborations in the partner´s research institute. The research must fit into the disciplines of NSERC. The grant is about 25 000 Canadian dollars and is basically meant for exploring, identifying and initiating new cooperations abroad. The grants could therefore be used for instance for visiting a Finnish counterpart to start new joint projects. Alliance International Collaboration grants provide more opportunities for researchers with totally 300 000 Canadian dollars for 3 years. The collaborators for Canadian researchers are expected to have already own, secured funding from their national funding agency and the Canadian partners must be identified in their research proposal as a partner. For Instance, in the Research Council of Finland´s calls, the Canadian partners could be included and if after the international peer-review process the funding is granted for the Finnish Principal Investigator, Canadian partner can get the International Collaboration Funding from NSERC. So, the eligible Canadian researchers, participating in this international project can apply for the Collaboration grant to cover their own expenses for participating in the project. The funding that the international partner is receiving, must be at least equal or more to the amount that is requested from NSERC by the Canadian researcher. Again, it is expected that the research fields align with the focus areas of NSERC (natural sciences & engineering). Canadian government is providing also specific guidelines for international research cooperations for instance in the “National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships”. NSERC also approves only academic collaborators, so non-academic collaborators and partner organizations are not permitted. Alliance International is an excellent opportunity for FIN-CAN research collaborations but it has been relatively unknown among the researchers and should be more utilized in the future.  

What´s next? More to come
Canada’s engagement with Horizon Europe and NordForsk programs have given excellent opportunities to facilitate collaborations between researchers across the Atlantis. This spring, the Research Council of Finland also added Canada as its partner country in the special funding call for international collaboration in HPC. This was the first time Canada was included in this call, and it opens opportunities for joint data intensive projects. In the future, even more funding opportunities are expected to appear to support the growing number of collaborations on various fields, tackling the complex challenges of our time. Examples of potential future multilateral funding calls that could also support FIN-CAN research projects, include T-AP, Trans-Atlantic Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities and NFRF, New Frontiers in Research Fund. Researchers from Finland and Canada – and many other selected countries – can leverage these funding mechanisms to promote cooperation, knowledge exchange as well as innovation activities for driving scientific advances and societal progress.

Sari Tojkander, Counsellor for Science and Higher Education, Los Angeles 

References: 
https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/innovate-innover/AllianceInternational-AllianceInternational/index_eng.asp
https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/horizon-europe 
https://www.nordforsk.org/research-areas/sustainable-development-arctic 
https://www.canada.ca/en/research-coordinating-committee/news/updates/2024/03/government-of-canada-joins-international-research-initiative-on-sustainable-development-of-the-arctic.html
https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/nfrf-fnfr/index-eng.aspx 
https://www.nordforsk.org/arctic
https://www.aka.fi/en/about-us/whats-new/press-releases/2025/pre-announcement-rcf-call-to-support-international-cooperation-in-high-performance-computing-coming-in-spring-2025/   
https://www.nordforsk.org/arctic
https://www.aka.fi/en/about-us/whats-new/press-releases/2025/pre-announcement-rcf-call-to-support-international-cooperation-in-high-performance-computing-coming-in-spring-2025/
https://www.transatlanticplatform.com/ 

Text: Sari Tojkander

Picture: Sari Tojkander, 2025. Funding opportunities for joint FIN-CAN research projects have increased significantly for the past two years and more available funding instruments are likely to appear in the future. Picture from the Headquarters of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada in Ottawa, where Ministry of Education and Culture, RCF and CSC representatives had the opportunity to discuss cooperation interests last January.