In 2020, NIH and the Research Council of Finland (RCF) established a partnership program to support collaborative research between investigators in the United States and Finland. Through the Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): RCF–NIH Partnership Program, U.S. institutions can submit investigator-initiated grant applications and, if selected for funding, RCF may fully fund the Finnish investigators.
Research areas RCF may support through this program are described in RCF’s Finnish Research Flagships and need to align with research areas that fall clearly within the missions of participating NIH institutes and centers. NIAID, for example, conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
Refer to Finnish Flagship Programme for examples of thematic areas that are supported by RCF like the Photonics Research and Innovation Flagship; Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence Flagship; and Inequalities, Interventions, and New Welfare State Flagship.
For funding consideration under this initiative, NIH applicants must include “NOT-OD-24-040" (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (Box 4B) of the SF 424 R&R form. Applications without this information in Box 4B will not be considered for this program. Keep in mind, NIAID participates in only two of the three parent announcements referenced in the NOSI: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01, Clinical Trial Required) and NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01, Clinical Trial Not Allowed).
Direct general inquiries about the RCF-NIH Partnership Program to Sarah Scharf in NIH’s Fogarty International Center at sarah.scharf@nih.gov or 301-496-4784.