On this page, we have put together an information package about our activities. This hopefully makes it easier to jump into the activities of the Young Academy Finland. Welcome aboard!
What is Young Academy Finland?
The Young Academy Finland (YAF) was founded in 2017. YAF aims to promote science and the status of research, especially from the perspective of young researchers. The YAF emphasizes multidisciplinarity and open science in its activities. The YAF is independent in its activities and opinions, but we work in cooperation with the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, which founded the YAF. There are also three other science academies in Finland and a cooperation council of the academies, the Council of Finnish Academies. The academies are independent scientific societies that invite distinguished researchers to become members, and they should not be confused with the Academy of Finland, which is part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s administrative branch and a governmental body that mainly distributes research funding. Before the establishment of the YAF, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters ran the Young Academy Club. Young researchers were invited to the club’s activities for one year at a time, and the content of the activity was the monthly club meetings, where the members gave presentations about their research. The YAF was founded on the basis of the Academy Club, and the club’s tradition is still reflected in the activities of YAF in that each member is expected to give a presentation on their research during their first year as a member.
Members and alumni
The members of the YAF are invited by the board of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. New members are invited every year, and membership lasts for four years. Members who finish their four-year term become alumni of the YAF.
The Board
The activities of the YAF are managed by the board, which is elected to its position for one year at a time. The selection will be made at the autumn meeting. According to the rules, the board must have members from all “year courses”, i.e. members are also chosen from among those selected for the academy. At its organizational meeting, the board chooses a chairman and a vice-chairman from among themselves, and assigns tasks to the board members, e.g. as leaders of the action task groups of the YAF. We wish that all members would participate in the activity, not just the board. We are all in a very busy career and life phase, so naturally, the scope and activity of our activities adapts to these realities. However, there are quite a few of us, so when we all do a little, together we can achieve a lot.
Internal communications
In addition to e-mail, we use Slack for our internal communications. You can join our Slack workspace here. In Slack, the conversation is divided into different channels. Each group and activity block has its channel, and channels are also established and closed as needed. You can join the channels you want according to your interests.
Academy Clubs
Academy Clubs are the core of our membership activities. Academy club days are organized approximately every other month in the premises of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters in the center of Helsinki. Club events last the whole day (e.g. from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.), and each meeting has an interactive program that brings added value to the membership: in connection with club days, for example, mentoring activities or training are organized, statements are worked on and new members’ presentations are heard. Club days are the most central part of the Youth Science Academy’s activities, and it is important that many members attend. At each meeting of the YAF, typically 4–5 presentations from different disciplines are given, and then they are discussed together. The presentations are meant to be general. The discussion after the presentations is a good interdisciplinary exercise. Presentations are videotaped and posted online, and members can use these videos as their “calling cards.” The presentations can be found here and the “old-fashioned” Academy Club presentations here. The presentation can be given in Finnish or English.
You may read more about our activities (In Finnish) for new members here.