The October round is the largest of the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s four annual application rounds. Grants are awarded in all fields of science, the arts, and culture.
Based on applications received during October 2023, the foundation awarded grants worth a total of 30 million euros in February 2024. The October 2023 application round marks the first time the foundation received over 10,000 applications; 1 in 10 was awarded a grant.
The need to support artistic work has grown steadily in recent years. This round also saw a high number of applications to produce non-fiction books, which is reflected in the large number of science-related applications compared to previous years.
The years in the graphs below refer to the year of the grant decision.
In this round, 43% of the grant funds were directed to the arts and 57% to science. The larger percentage of funds allocated to science reflects the interest of the majority of the foundation’s donors in providing support to scientific fields.
In 2023, the share of science-focused applications that received support was higher than usual due to the availability of certain special-purpose grants at the time. On top of the grants awarded, the October round total shown in the table below includes the reserves for multi-year grants.
In 2024, on average 1 in 10 applications were successful. However, the acceptance rate varies depending on the field, as the distribution of grants is influenced by the interests of the foundation’s donors.
Most grants are awarded for doctoral theses and artistic work. Grants in the “research” category below are typically for larger projects by research teams.
The foundation awards a large number of grants that allow grantees to work on science or art full-time. In this round, 460 full-year grants were awarded, of which 168 were multi-year grants. The proportion of multi-year grants increased in 2023 compared to the previous year.
The grants were distributed to more than 90 municipalities in Finland. Nearly half (46%) of the grantees live in Helsinki, and 13% are not Finnish citizens.
The applications are reviewed by more than 150 experts in various fields of science and the arts. The group of experts who review the grants changes every year.
Grants were awarded to the following Finnish universities in 2024, based on information provided by grantees.
Grants were awarded to the following Finnish universities in 2024:
Statistics are based on information provided by applicants.
- Aalto University: 30 grants awarded, totalling EUR 1,150,500
- University of Helsinki: 140 grants awarded, totalling EUR 4,112,000
- University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu campus): 22 grants awarded, totalling EUR 1 039,500
- University of Eastern Finland (Kuopio campus): 22 grants awarded, totalling EUR 787,000
- University of Jyväskylä: 38 grants awarded, totalling EUR 864,500
- University of Lapland: 5 grants awarded, totalling EUR 105,000
- LUT University: 1 grants awarded, totalling EUR 30,000
- University of Oulu: 18 grants awarded, totalling EUR 494,500
- University of the Arts Helsinki: 37 grants awarded, totalling 594,000
- Tampere University: 67 grants awarded, totalling 1,738,000
- University of Turku: 64 grants awarded, totalling 1,884,500
- University of Vaasa: 5 grants awarded, totalling 172,000
- Åbo Akademi University: 4 grants awarded, totalling 90,500
