National Science Centre (NCN)

The NCN is a government agency, supervised by the Ministry of Education and Science, set up in 2011 to support basic research in Poland.

Basic research is defined as empirical or theoretical endeavours undertaken to gain new knowledge of the foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any direct commercial use.

The NCN funds projects in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering. The NCN launches funding schemes dedicated to researchers at different stages of their career.

Between 2011 and 2022, the NCN has slated over 14 billion PLN to 28,000 Polish researchers. In 2022, 54% of that amount was dedicated to early-stage researchers, which is 3% more than in 2021, and 11% more than in 2016 when the value was first measured.

Our Principles

  • Identifying and funding best quality research
  • Openness to global science, internationalisation
  • Inclusiveness of offers and refraining from imposing research topics
  • Appreciating the role of younger researchers
  • Impartiality, transparent procedures, strict conflicts of interest procedures
  • Independence and political impartiality
  • Loyalty to the scientific community

NCN in figures

2011-2022

  • 27 876 funded research projects
  • 20 094 grant recipients
  • 14.39 bn PLN funding awarded
  • 53 708 applicants

More statistics (in Polish)

2022

  • 54% funding for early-stage researchers
  • 2136/9953 expert teams members/reviewers (85% of experts and 95% of reviewers are affiliated abroad)

2023

The greatest challenge for the National Science Centre is the fact that its budget has been frozen, hence sometimes very good proposals cannot be funded. The proposal success rate, i.e. percentage of researchers awarded funding, has decreased to 13%.

Funds for the National Science Centre from the state R&D budget has decreased to 3.87% in 2023, as compared to 5.12% in 2022.

Our goals

  • supporting excellent research projects in all fields of science and humanities
  • funding doctoral scholarships and post-doctoral internships
  • financing research projects carried out by experienced researchers aimed at implementing pioneering research important for the development of science
  • inspiring international cooperation in basic research
  • supervising the implementation of the awarded research projects
  • one of the priorities of the Centre is to support and develop the scientific careers of pre-doctoral and doctoral researchers about to embark on a career in research