Fellows of the Fulbright Senior Award programme, organised by the Polish-American Fulbright Committee, will now be able to continue working with their US colleagues after their return to Poland thanks to NCN funding, as per an agreement reached between the two institutions.

In cooperation with the CHIST-ERA network, the NCN  is launching an international call for proposals in information and communication technology.

Three out of four projects selected under the ForestValue2 Call 2023 will involve Polish research teams. The scientists, who will receive more than 2.7 million zlotys in funding, will work on research problems concerning the use of forest resources. 

Prof. Krzysztof Fic from the Poznań University of Technology, member of the NCN Council, has just won a Proof of Concept grant, awarded by the European Research Council. This is the 80th ERC grant for a researcher based in Poland.

“The statements made by the Minister of Science and Higher Education failed to include any specific commitment to raising the budget of the NCN, whose steady decrease has been one of the chief threats to the development of science in Poland”, reads a statement from Professors Jan Ostrowski and Marek Konarzewski, who appealed for more funding for the agency.

Together with the JPIAMR we have launched a call for international research projects on antimicrobial resistance. Funds for Polish research teams sum up to 500,000 EUR.

Dr Michał Ślęzak from the Łukasiewicz Research Network – PORT in Wrocław will team up with German scientists for a research project selected under the Weave-UNISONO call. The Polish team will receive more than 2.2 million zlotys in funding.

This was a difficult year for the NCN and the grant system in Poland. The shaky political situation, our frozen budget, our struggle to defend the independence of the National Science Centre against the threat of reform and shutdown, and many months of waiting for the Minister of Education and Science to appoint the new NCN Director were but some of the things that claimed our attention in 2023.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for a wonderful New Year

The Sejm is working on the draft 2024 budget bill. During a debate on 21 December, Andrzej Domański, Minister of Finance, declared that the new state budget will include resources for the “important purpose” of increasing the budget of the National Science Centre.

“The core of our mission is to fund top basic research. This is so little and yet so much...In our current circumstances, we are hardly able to satisfy the needs of the research community”, says Prof. Robert Hasterok, President of the NCN Council, in an interview published by “Forum Akademickie”.