The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) facilitates the state subsidies for publication activities and international activities from the Ministry of Education and Culture to scientific societies. Subsides can also be granted to general scientific societies and science policy associations active in Finland for their high-quality publication activities expenses. The subsidies is granted for one year at a time.

Schedule for the Annually Distributed Grants

The application period for the annually distributed grants is in September. Applications for the year 2025 are to be submitted between 1-30 September 2024 via an online form, which is accessed using the society's user account password. Detailed instructions on logging in and filling out the application form can be found on the left under Application Instructions.

Granted subsidies will be announced on TSV's website. Those who receive a positive decision will be sent a request for additional information via email to the contact address of the society's user account. The society will provide additional information, such as contact details for the signatories of the electronic subsidy agreement and payment details, in the subsidy system.

The recipients of the subsidy commit to submitting a report on the activities funded by the subsidy by 15 April the following year. The state grant is intended as support in situations where the publication series' revenues are insufficient to cover costs. Therefore, the subsidy must be repaid if the difference between the revenue of the subsidized purpose and the approved costs exceeds 100 euros (starting from the 2020 subsidy year). An invoice for any repayment will be sent immediately after the reports have been reviewed.

An extension for using the publication support can be applied for by 31 October of the year the subsidy is used if there are significant reasons for the delay in completing the subsidized publication. The application with justification should be sent via email to avustukset@tsv.fi.

When deciding on publishing subsidies, the following matters are considered

• The publication series is a continuously published scientific series.
• Manuscripts are openly accepted for the series, and its scientific parts are peer-reviewed.
• The authors are experts in their fields and represent the series' scientific area and research diversely.
• The quality of the series' editorial work is good: The composition of the editorial board, the article processing procedure, and the editorial process of the publication are publicly described. It is recommended that the publication uses TSV's peer review label.
• The services of technical experts necessary for editing and/or printing work are competitively procured.
• If the series is jointly funded, the partner's role in relation to the series' publication should be clearly stated.
• The budget attached to the application should specify what the support is sought for and on what grounds.
• Support can be granted for the following reasonable costs:
  
  • Salaries and fees for editors, layout designers, and technical experts, printing and postage costs, which should be justified in relation to production costs. Salary costs should be shown upon request with a work plan, time log, or other work time reporting.
  • Communication costs of the publication.
  • Meeting and training costs of the editorial board.
  • General administrative costs of the applicant, up to 15% of the total publication costs. These costs must be shown in the accounting to be:
    
    • Clearly and justifiably allocated to the publication's purpose
    • Consistent with the publication's budget
    • Documented separately
    • Based on the same principles throughout the usage period.
• The series should have sales revenue or other support. For example, the subscription price included in membership fees or other payments supporting the journal should be recorded as the series' income. The application should show if no other revenue than the subsidy can be obtained for the journal.
• When determining the amount of support, the requested support is compared with the costs and any repayments of the previous three years.
• Significant increases in the requested subsidy amount must be justified.
• In the society's financial statements, the costs and revenues of publication activities must be separate from the society's other activities. If the society has several publication series, the sales and other revenues, as well as the costs related to each publication series, should be specified.
• The publisher commits to promoting the openness of scientific texts in an approved manner. Methods of openness can range from allowing delayed (with embargo) parallel publishing of manuscripts to full and immediate openness of the entire publication. The exact criteria are in the application instructions.

The recipients of the subsidy are encouraged to mention on their websites or publications that the activity has received state support from the Ministry of Education and Culture. For example: "This publication/journal/book has received support for scientific publication activities from the Ministry of Education and Culture through TSV."

International support is granted for:

• Membership fees of international scientific organizations. Membership must be mentioned in the annual report and the membership fee costs in the financial statement.
• Travel expenses for meetings of international scientific organizations when the society's representative is a member of the international scientific organization's board. Travel expenses must be shown in the society's financial statement.
• Travel expenses for meetings of the editorial boards of international scientific publications when the society's representative is a member of the scientific publication's editorial board. Travel expenses must be shown in the society's financial statement

The support is not granted for conference trips or for TSV membership fees. The support only covers travel and accommodation costs required by the meeting for 1-2 nights. Per diems are not covered.

• Further information

Subsidies for publishing and international activities: Science Secretary Kirsi Siitonen, tel.  +358 9 228 69 269, kirsi.siitonen(at)tsv.fi