Major research funding awarded to Uniarts Helsinki in 2025
Long-spanning time cycles and a forward-looking orientation connect our research projects that have received significant funding.
The number of research funding applications at Uniarts Helsinki began to grow in 2024 and continued to rise in 2025. Last year, we had more applications submitted to the Research Council of Finland and the Horizon Europe programme than ever before in Uniarts Helsinki’s history.
This work delivered an excellent result, as Uniarts Helsinki received its first-ever Horizon Europe funding, totalling over 200,000 euros. The funding enables an international top researcher position at Uniarts Helsinki.
The funding in question is made possible by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship programme, and it is awarded to Postdoctoral Researcher Borja Juan Morera for the project InChoir: Harmonising Participation in Choral Music. The Sibelius Academy project is led by Professor Heidi Westerlund. It began at the start of 2026 and will run for two years.
The InChoir project focuses on inclusive choirs and their capacity to address inequality, social exclusion and polarisation in constructive ways. Borja Juan Morera will carry out the project by studying inclusive choirs and interviewing European choral conductors.
Over one million euros from Kone Foundation for Uniarts Helsinki projects
Kone Foundation awarded eleven grants to members of the Uniarts Helsinki community, totalling more than one million euros. Among these, one of the most significant research grants was for the folk tradition project Kiistanalainen kansanperinne: yhteisöjen osallistaminen tulevaisuuden arkistotutkimuksessa. It is carried out by Outi Valo, a visiting researcher at the Research Institute, and her team. The three-year project received over 360,000 euros.
Postdoctoral Researcher Nina Liebenberg at the Academy of Fine Arts received more than 178,000 euros from Kone Foundation for her project Object Lessons, which examines various university collections of animals, plants and geological specimens as cultural artefacts. At the Theatre Academy, artist-researcher Simo Kellokumpu received nearly 125,000 euros for his project Embodying AI. The project explores how artificial intelligence is transforming the embodied practices and teaching in the field of performing arts, and what new skills and methods this requires.
Funding for doctoral research and studies
A significant grant from Kone Foundation was also awarded to doctoral researcher Luciana Garcia Alvarez for the project Unravelling Queer Sounds. The four-year artistic research project received nearly 150,000 euros to explore queer sound from Indigenous soundscapes to postcolonial musical movements and towards future hypertechnological sounds where body, machine and identity merge.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded 39 grants to members of the Uniarts Helsinki community, totalling 639,500 euros. Grants were awarded for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral studies as well as for artistic work, study trips and work-related equipment purchases. Most of the grants, 26 in total, went to the Sibelius Academy, eight to the Academy of Fine Arts and five to the Theatre Academy.