03-Feb-2022
Funding of 2 million euros from the Academy of Finland has been made available for Structural Biology Finland research infrastructure
The Finnish Research Infrastructure Committee at the Academy of Finland has decided on nearly 16 million euros in funding for the building and upgrading of national and international research infrastructures in the latter decision of the FIRI2021 call on 31st of January 2022. The Academy of Finland’s funding for research infrastructures supports the acquisition, establishment, strengthening and upgrading of nationally significant research infrastructures that promote scientific research.
Significant funding was granted to the national research infrastructure FINStruct and Instruct-ERIC Centre Finland. The funded FIRI2021 project is coordinated by the University of Helsinki and led by Sarah Butcher as director, Hanna Oksanen as coordinator, and Minna Poranen, Tommi Kajander and Markku Varjosalo as heads of service units. In addition, Lari Lehtiö from the University of Oulu, Anastassios Papageorgiou from the University of Turku and Tiina A. Salminen from Åbo Akademi University are involved in the funded project.
More than half of the 2 million euros funding goes to the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences and the Institute of Biotechnology of the Helsinki Institute of Life Science at the University of Helsinki. The funding will support and strengthen the coordination and management of the network and services in biocomplex purification, X-ray crystallography, and single cell mass spectrometry in Helsinki.
With the funding, FINStruct is securing operations in the coming years through replacement of ageing instruments and developments of new services and software for better data management; and enhancing the coordination of the national research infrastructure FINStruct and Instruct-ERIC Centre Finland, and further strengthening the embedding in Instruct-ERIC.
Director Harald Schwalbe commented, "In Instruct, we are very happy to know that Finland structural biology is further strengthened by these strategic funds. We congratulate the team led by Sarah Butcher, University of Helsinki, together with several other Universities in Finland, jointly benefit from this grant to support cutting-edge research in Finland."
Sarah Butcher of University of Helsinki commented, "We are so pleased that 5-year infrastructure funding for the Instruct ERIC Centre Finland and the Finnish national structural biology network was renewed by the Academy of Finland’s Committee for Research Infrastructure. International cooperation rules!"
Structural Biology Finland (FINStruct) is a joint project of the University of Helsinki, University of Oulu, University of Eastern Finland, University of Turku, and Åbo Akademi University on the Research Infrastructure Roadmap of the Academy of Finland (2021–2024).
