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French Institute Nordic Award 2024 Digital Health

The 2024 edition of the FINA Prize is launched!
Young researchers, send your applications until 30 April 2024.

Each year, the French Institutes of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden jointly award a prize to five young researchers from the Nordic region in recognition of their outstanding achievements. The so-called French Institute Nordic Award (FINA) aims to foster scientific cooperation on a theme of shared interest from both the Nordic countries and France. This year’s theme is Digital Health. The recipients will be invited to join a one-week visit to the Paris area and Normandy region, where they will be introduced to promising research and development initiatives of France’s strategy to accelerate Digital Health by 2030.

Theme 2024

Should your research interests connect with Digital Health, should you be willing to strengthen your international network while visiting France, the French Nordic Institutes invite you to participate in the FINA mobility, a short mobility programme of scientific networking that combines visits to university or research institutes laboratories, programme presentations and scientific exchanges. Visits are conducted in English.

The theme of the 2024 edition of the FINA Prize is Digital Health. According to the WHO, Digital Health is defined as “the use of information and communication technologies in support of health and related areas in the concept of e-health. It is an umbrella concept that includes eHealth, mobile health, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.”

Digital Health, combining tools, clinical interventions, and data, aims to promote, protect and improve health in the clinical, management, research and public health fields. As an interface between health sciences, humanities and social sciences, and information technology, it encompasses the life cycle of Digital Health, with developments related to Big Data and the transformation of health systems.

Since the WHO resolution in 2005, more than 120 Member States have adopted policies on Digital Health. WHO and India’s G20 Presidency have launched a Global Digital Health Initiative to implement the Global Digital Health Strategy 2020-2025. While Digital Health offers opportunities in terms of empowerment, efficiency of health systems and better health coverage, it also raises questions about care delivery, access, and security of sensitive data.

In France, deployment of Digital Health is the subject of a National Acceleration Strategy and is supported at the research level by one of the Priority Research Programs and Equipment (PEPR) of France 2030. This programme is jointly coordinated by Inria and Inserm.

Conditions to apply: FINA Prize, a prize for doctoral students and young researchers 

The conditions to apply are the following:

  • Carry out research activities within a Finnish institution (university, research institute…);
  • Enrolled in a doctoral program or holding a PhD for less than two years;
  • Research interests connected with Digital Health;
  • Agree to present your research work to the French Institute of Finland.
Selection procedure

One laureate will be selected in each of the participating countries (Estonia, Danemark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) by a selection committee composed of the Directors and Scientific attachés of the five French Institutes.

Selection criteria

The selection criteria will be as follows:

  • The relevance of the research work in relation to the theme
  • The originality of the researcher’s approach
  • The motivation of the candidate to receive the award
  • The complementarity of the selected profiles and research themes
Award

The FINA recognises the quality and relevance of the work carried out by the laureate. It consists of scientific mobility in the Normandy region (Caen and Rouen) and in Paris. The objective is to enable the laureates to network with colleagues in France by visiting French laboratories, meeting and developing scientific cooperation with their French counterparts. The visit will take place in September 2024.

Timeline
  • April 30, 2024: Call deadline 
  • End of May: Announcement of the laureates,
  • June: Preparation webinar with five laureates
  • June: Award ceremony
  • September 23-29: Mobility in France.
Application procedure

All applications must be sent to mathieu.girerd@france.fi:

The application in English should include at least all the following documents:

Document 1 (PDF):

  • First page: Name, email, phone number, organisation, research unit, professional address, research interests, if PhD student: Advisers and expected completion date, remarks
  • Short biography
  • CV
  • Motivation letter
  • Main publications

Document 2 (PPT):

  • One slide presenting your current research.