The first Foundation grants for the academic year 2020-2021 have been awarded.
Nearly 30 scholars, teachers, students and professionals from Finland have been selected to travel to the United States to study, lecture, or to conduct research or professional projects. Additional awards will be made later in the year. The awards to the United States are supported by the KAUTE Foundation, University of Turku, University of Eastern Finland, University of Helsinki, University of Jyväskylä, the Technology Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation, the Finland-America Educational Trust Fund, and the Finnish and U.S. governments.
The evolving COVID-19 situation continues to create uncertainties for the grantees’ preparations for the upcoming program in the United States, and the Foundation is working closely with all of its awardees to assist them with their individual situations. The Foundation strives to create as much flexibility as possible for the awardees in view of the timing and other details of their grant terms.
Respectively, 45 U.S. scholars, students, and professionals have at this point been selected to come to Finland during the academic year 2020-2021. Additional awards are expected to be made later, primarily in the short-term Fulbright Specialist Program and the Inter-Country Travel Grant Program. The majority of the U.S. Fulbright grantees will start their grant terms in January 2021. The awards for U.S. Fulbright grantees are made possible by funding from Finnish universities and research institutions, private Finnish foundations, the Finland-America Educational Trust Fund, Finnish and U.S. governments as well as individual alumni and private donors.
See the list of the 2020-2021 Fulbright Finland Foundation Grantees.
Travel Grantees Create New and Strengthen Existing Collaborations
The Foundation also offers short-term travel grants for research collaboration and institutional partnership building. Among the 2020-2021 awardees there are five travel grant recipients, and this year’s cohort represents a variety of fields ranging from Research Development to Micro- and Nanosciences and Multidisciplinary Arctic Global Change Research.
Nelson Totah is Assistant Professor of Neurophysiology and Pharmacology at the University of Helsinki. He will use his travel grant to visit Rice University in the United States.
“Our collaboration will create ties between my host, Rice University, and my home institution Helsinki Institute of Life Science, and strengthen U.S.-Finnish interaction in state-of-the-art brain research,” Totah says.
Doctoral Candidate Ismo Heikkinen will visit Fulbright Finland alum Joshua Pearce’s research group at the Michigan Technological University to continue the collaboration that began when Pearce worked in Finland as the 2017-2018 Fulbright-Aalto University Distinguished Chair.
