The Academy of Finland projects
The Academy of Finland offers NSF Graduate Research Fellows contacts with Finnish graduate schools and with projects run by the Academy of Finland's Centres of Excellence and Academy Professors.
The Academy of Finland is responsible for the national programmes for Centres of Excellence in research. A Centre of Excellence (CoE) is a premier research or researcher training unit that is at the international cutting edge of research in its field.
A CoE consists of one or more research teams. The unit shares a common set of research objectives and works under a joint management. A CoE may be composed of research teams operating both at universities and research institutes, also in cooperation with companies.
Academy professors
Academy Professors carry out their own research plan, supervise their own research team and provide guidance to junior researchers. Their duties also include supervision of thesis and dissertation writers in their own field and teaching related to their research.
Graduate Schools
The Finnish graduate school system was established in 1995 and has been gradually expanded ever since. A key goal is to secure the high quality of researcher training and to shorten the time used to work on a doctoral dissertation, thereby lowering the age of gaining the doctorate. Graduate schools are assigned the task to provide systematic teaching and supervision for the doctoral students involved.