The instructions given below mainly concern grants awarded from donations for thesis work.
A typical amount of a MSc thesis grant is 12000 eur for which a company has donated 15000 eur (10% of the gift is used to support the professor's research area and 10% is disbursed by the Foundation for its operational expenses.
Grant recipients and State financial aid (Kela) for students: Our tax-free grant is intended as a subsistence aid for students and graduate students while writing the thesis. It does not affect the amount of the Kela study grant. For additional information, please contact the Kela (the Social Insurance Institute of Finland) website.
Employment relationships of grant recipients: It should be noted, particularly in the case of thesis grants, that tax-free grants may only be awarded if the recipient is not in a contractual employment relationship with the giving company.
Pension insurance: The obligation to take pension insurance does not apply to grants for Master's thesis work. Postgraduate students need to apply for Mela pension insurance if their grant period is at least 4 months. Please see Mela's instructions on how to apply.
Payment of grant: The grants are paid in installments. Six-month grants are paid in three installments. The first installment is usually paid on the last day of the month in which the award decision was made, the second installment two months later and the third installment five months after the first. Eight-month grants are usually paid in four installments: the first installment on the last day of the month in which the award decision was made, the next installment exactly two months after the first, and the following ones after exactly 4 and 7 months (the last installment 7 months after the first). You may check the payment dates from the Office of the Foundation. In the case of grants for master’s thesis writers, a €335 deposit will be deducted from the first installment and paid to the recipient after the thesis is complete. For the deposit to be returned, the grant recipient must submit the abstract of the completed master's thesis to the Office of the Foundation. The abstracts must be certified by either the professor or the office of the School. You may also prove the completion of your thesis by providing a copy of the School Council decision on the approval of your thesis or a copy of the degree certificate.
Grants for other research are primarily awarded to holders of Master’s degrees who are in a contractual employment relationship with the University. They are not intended for funding student projects. The grant must always be associated with a study - usually one leading to a scientific publication - carried out independently or in a research group, a product development project or a publication produced for teaching purposes. Hence, the grants for other research are not to be awarded for research assistants or staff members in recognition of their achievements or as a bonus for fulfilling their official duties. The grant application must include a brief description of the scientific work to be carried out (research proposal) and of the outcomes of the study (a report, course handout, piece of laboratory equipment), and explain its relevance for the research activities of the professorship recommending the grant. The grants for other research are intended primarily for carrying out small-scale studies, hence they cannot be used for hiring key researchers for long-term projects.