Our achievements
Impact arises through a multiplier effect
The research we fund cannot be judged by the results of a single project. Its impact shows in the people who build their careers around that research, and in the chains where one funding decision leads to the next.
A doctoral researcher may go on to become a postdoctoral researcher, then the leader of a university research group or a key expert in a company. They train the researchers who follow, found companies, file patents, and advance their own specialist field in Finland. The Foundation’s role is to help at the start of this path, where funding is often hardest to find.
Our impact is therefore long term and spread across many places at once. A single funding decision sets in motion a development whose results may only become visible decades later as new companies, technologies and whole fields of research.
Where the funded researchers now
The researchers we fund go on with their careers either in academia or by moving into industry. Many have founded their own businesses and taken forward technologies that grew out of their research. Others build research groups at universities and institutes that train the next generation of researchers in the field.
This movement from academia into industry and wider society is one of the ways our impact can be seen in Finnish business and industry.
Funding is directed across several fields
Our funding goes to the fields that lie at the heart of the sustainable use of Finland’s natural resources. Those priorities have shifted over the years: a long-established forest and bioeconomy has been accompanied by critical minerals and the new industry growing up around them. Therefore the main fields we fund are:
- Forest and bioeconomy
- Mineral economy and critical minerals
- Cross-cutting themes such as the circular economy and resource efficiency, security of supply, and strategic autonomy
Examples of the funding’s impact
The following projects illustrate how the Foundation’s funding has worked in practice to advance the development of Finnish research and industry.
A cellulose based frother for mineral concentration
Research into cellulose based frothers opens a new way to replace fossil based chemicals in mineral concentration while improving the recovery of metals from copper smelter slags. For Finnish industry the project brings together bioeconomy and mineral economy research in a way that supports both the green transition of the mining industry and a new use for wood based raw materials.
PuREE: New methods for Pure Rare Earths
Research into methods for purifying rare earth metals supports Europe’s self-sufficiency in critical minerals and its green transition. For Finnish industry, work of this kind lays the groundwork on which the battery and technology sectors can be built.
Developing the scandium production process
The project advanced a production process for scandium that opens up possibilities for Finland in a new kind of mineral economy. Scandium is needed in lightweight metal alloys, and domestic production of it would strengthen both security of supply and the competitiveness of industry.