The fourth edition of the EEA and Norway Grants has been officially initiated. The National Science Centre will once again act as the operator of the “Basic Research” programme. In this edition, we will place emphasis on the interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity of funded projects, the valorisation of knowledge, and the real impact of research on social and environmental policy.

One year after Poland joined the activities of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Federation, cooperation between EOSC nodes has entered a new stage of development. The national node has signed a MoU that formalises Poland’s participation in building the European Open Science ecosystem.

Prof. Grzegorz Pietrzyński from the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and NCN grantee, has been awarded funding for his project “Toward Autonomous Observatories” under the ERC Proof of Concept 2025 call. 

“The NCN is the best thing that has happened to the scientific community in free Poland,” says Prof. Jacek Jemielity. Stories of researchers implementing NCN-funded projects clearly illustrate how funding decisions translate into specific research projects and their real-world impact.

Polish scientists from the University of Gdansk and Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, together with their partners from Slovenia, will develop an innovative biomaterial to enhance bone healing as part of the Weave-UNISONO collaboration. 

The launch of the LUKE Joint Call for international research projects in cooperation with researchers from Ukraine has been rescheduled for 27 February 2026.

This year, the National Science Centre will celebrate its 15th anniversary. As usual, we will continue our hard work to support Polish researchers. We also wish to share the impact of basic research on the social, economic and national development.

In the first episode of our podcast this year, our guests today, Prof. Joanna Tyrowicz from the University of Warsaw and Prof. Łukasz Woźny from the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, discuss private research funding.

An international team of astronomers, among them researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw announced in "Science" the discovery of a new class of exoplanets: free-floating planets. These are objects that roam the Milky Way on their own, not gravitationally bound to any star. Research was co-funded by the NCN.

The first transnational Dioscuri Symposium in Krakow showcased the achievements of the Dioscuri Centres to date, and sparked discussions on the responsibility of science towards society, as well as science communication. The fifth Dioscuri call will be launched in the first half of 2026.