What’s in it for your company?
PoDoCo is a matchmaking program supporting long term competitiveness and strategic renewal of companies. It increases employment of young doctors in the private sector. The duration of PoDoCo period is 1-2 years and it consist of two phases: research period and targeted research period. PoDoCo program is funded by PoDoCo foundation pool and companies participating in the program. PoDoCo foundation pool offers research grants for the research period. After the research period the company hires the Post doc to deepen the research results and to create company specific insight for a period of time equivalent to the period of the grant period. The result is a win-win situation where academic research is supporting the long term competitiveness and strategic renewal of Finnish companies and young doctors get industrial experience.
For companies PoDoCo program offers an opportunity to investigate new strategic openings with the help of talented and practically oriented post docs, who are familiar with scientific analysis and synthesis methods.The programme will assist companies by:
- Helping companies to find highly-skilled and talented young postdocs to investigate new strategic openings
- Offering a research grant that covers the costs of a postdoc during the research period
Who can participate?
PoDoCo program is aimed for all branches and private sector companies operating in Finland are welcome to join the PoDoCo Program. Please note that publicly owned/financed companies cannot be collaboration partner, such are state owned/funded research institutes and city owned public utilities.
In order to benefit most from PoDoCo program companies need to have strategic vision and desire to search opportunities beyond the current strategic horizon of the company. In addition, the company should appoint adequate resources in order to perform the actions needed, such as guiding the research and analyzing the results of the research.
The commitment to the program is indicated by a letter of intent which is signed by the company and attached to the grant application. With the letter of intent the company declares its interest towards the selected research topic and intent to hire the post doc for a period of time equivalent to the period of the grant applied. However, a Post doc is not legally committed to work for a company after the research period and the company is not legally committed to hire the Post doc. Instead, the letter of intent serves as a sincere aim for an employment relationship to take place after the grant period and a serious commitment by both parties to try to make it happen.
How to participate?
The application process is simple:
1) Describe your /your organisation’s research interests by filling in PoDoCo profile here
- PoDoCo program makes continuous analysis by scanning the information and offers matching suggestions to your company
2) Select a postdoc with whom to collaborate
3) Agree on collaboration with the postdoc and sign LoI (Letter of Intent)
4) Prepare together with the postdoc a project plan (max 5 pages) describing the objectives of the project as well as an explanation of the main activities and expected results foreseen. It is important that the impact of the project for the company and the company’s renewal is included in the project plan.
5) The postdoc applies a grant by filling in the electronic application form and uploading required attachments at PoDoCo website. The electronic application must be sent within the application period.
