For early career academics, building international collaborations is often difficult, lacking institutional support and financial resources. The STUE Board members acknowledge this and now want to support future academic experts to create international connections. This Action Grant call focuses on supporting early career researchers’ international networks during the 2025–2026 academic year. The aim is to support working international collaborations and demanding research conducted abroad.
Sustainable Transformation of Urban Environments (STUE) aims to create and promote research-based solutions that transform cities into safe, resilient, and sustainable living environments for people of all ages, ethnicities, and capabilities.
The Action Grant application should connect and support at least one of the strategic research areas of STUE:
- Inclusive communities and practice-based politics
- Urban environments for health and well-being
- Resilient infrastructures and businesses
The Action Grant can be applied for by people affiliated with Tampere University:
- Student associations
- Doctoral students
- Post-doctoral researcher maximum of two years of graduation (breaks will be considered, e.g. parental leaves etc.)
The Action Grant may be granted for expected costs of:
- Fieldwork and data collection abroad (short and detailed description of the empirical research is required)
- Research visits to academic institutions abroad (an invitation from the host and the relevance of the visit is required)
- Summer schools of academic associations (details of the potential summer schools, working title and abstract is required)
- Urban sustainability excursions (details of the plan)
- Inviting researchers to Tampere to support its early-stage academic researchers (a description of the invited quest’s merits and planned activity. The Tampere University’s academic host should be an early career researcher but is expected to invite the foreign researcher to an active research group with a senior leader)
- NOTE! The Action Grant cannot be used for conference visits
How to apply
Send a short, free-form application, maximum of three pages, to STUE Research Coordinator Antti Wallin: antti.wallin@tuni.fi. The application period closes on April 1st, 2025, at 23:59 (EEST).
The maximum amount per application is EUR 6,000 (e.g. travel expenses, daily allowances, other costs). Action Grant cannot include salary costs. The funding must be used within the academic year of 2025–2026 (ending July 31st 2026).
The application (in English) should include:
- The name of the main applicant, contact information and position at Tampere University
- Title of the activity
- Public description of the initiative / visit for communications purposes (in English or Finnish, max. 300 characters including spaces)
- Purpose of funding and a short work plan
- What are the short- and long-term benefits, and why is the international collaboration important?
- Potential collaborators and research environment / network / team
- Depending on the activity, as additional attachment an informal Invitation Letter from the foreign research institute’s host
- A transparent and clear budget and timetable describing what the funding will be used for.
The Action Grant can cover:
- Travel expenses
- Accommodation costs
- Other costs (workspace costs, and other direct costs)
- Employees only: per diem travel allowances based on Tax Administrator’s instructions (see intranet).
- Non-employed travel grant applicants only: other daily living expenses (max. 50 euros/day)
- NOTE! Action Grant cannot include salary costs.
The evaluation of the received applications are made by the STUE board members based on:
- how well the activity fits in STUE’s research focus
- academic ambition, the short and long-term academic impacts
- feasibility of the plan (why would this activity strengthen collaboration and how will it be implemented in practice?)
- diversity of applications; different types of actions are considered.
The Action Grant recipients will be requested to showcase the activity in the Tampere Urban Research Perspectives blog and give a talk in the STUE research seminar.
More information:
Research Coordinator Antti Wallin, antti.wallin@tuni.fi