Funding for ESO and NOT observations

​Funding for accepted ESO, ALMA and APEX proposals

To increase the scientific return from the Finnish ESO membership, FINCA has a funding scheme, since ESO P101 and ALMA Cycle 5 semesters, where the PI of each ESO or ALMA proposal,  which is allocated observing time, will be eligible to receive funding that can be used e.g., to hire a student or a postdoc to timely analyse the data, or for travel expenses to visit/invite collaborators or to report the scientific results in a conference. The PI must be employed by one of the participating universities of FINCA. Concerning APEX, only projects with time allocated through the ESO OPC are eligible.

Rules of the program (revised by FINCA Board, September 2018; effective from ESO P102 and ALMA Cycle 6):

  1. Funding is not automatic, but the PI of a proposal that is awarded time is expected to justify, well ahead of time of the respective Board meeting, the need for funding and the required amount, e.g., based on the lack of already funded personnel to reduce the data. The Director then makes a proposal for approval by the Board, about which projects should be funded by what amount.
  2. Only one ESO and one ALMA allocation per PI per semester is accepted. The maximum amount of funding is 5 k€ per PI. The actual amount may, however, be smaller, depending on the success rate of proposals from Finland, as there is 20 k€ available per ESO semester (two each year) and per ALMA Cycle (one each year), i.e. annually 60 k€ in total. The awarded funding has to be spent within one year from the date when the last observational data for the project is delivered to the PI.
  3. There is no scaling of the funding based on e.g., the allocated number of observing hours, or the oversubscription factor of the requested telescope/instrument. However, Target-of-Opportunity programs will get funding only if they are triggered, i.e., actually receive observational data.
  4. In hiring personnel, the applicable rules and restrictions enforced by the University of Turku shall be followed.

Travel expenses for the NOT observations

FINCA has funding to compensate the PIs at Finnish institutes of accepted NOT proposals for: (1) in visitor mode, expenses covering travel, accommodation, car rental and subsistence for one observer, and (2) in service mode, to cover the night charges as determined by the NOT. This funding is available for all NOT projects that have data collected from the beginning of 2017.

For reimbursement of expenses in visitor mode, after your run, please use the enclosed invoice form (and the personal identification form, if you are a first time user of this programme) and return a scanned and signed copy, together with all receipts, boarding passes etc., by e-mail to the department secretary Sirpa Reinikainen sirpa.reinikainen AT utu.fi with a copy to the FINCA director.

Invoices from NOT regarding night charges in service mode should be asked to be sent via the University invoicing services. Instructions in Finnish can be found on intranet (under Ulkomaiset toimijat ): https://intranet.utu.fi/index/hankinnat/Sivut/Toimitusosoitteet.aspx
A pdf can be asked to be sent to purchaseinvoices_uni@xbs-salo.com with the following address information

University of Turku
P.O. Box 772
00074 CGI
FINLAND

The invoice should also mention FINCA and cost center 2609700 in the reference field.

Acknowledgements

In all publications and communications benefiting from this funding, one of the two following acknowledgements, as applicable, should be included:

We acknowledge funding to support the scientific use of our ESO/ALMA/APEX data from the Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), University of Turku, Finland (Academy of Finland grant nr 306531).

We acknowledge funding to support our NOT observations from the Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), University of Turku, Finland (Academy of Finland grant nr 306531).

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