The National Science Centre has announced the Weave-UNISONO call for excellent international research projects covered by joint proposals submitted to and evaluated by foreign partner institutions acting as the lead agencies
The Weave-UNISONO call has been launched under the Weave programme which aims to simplify the submission and selection procedures of collaborative research projects submitted by researchers from two or three European countries or regions. Weave builds on the Lead Agency Procedure which means that joint international research projects will only be evaluated by a single funding organisation acting as the Lead Agency relevant to one of the teams participating in a project in the call that constitutes a permanent element of such agency’s offer. Therefore, the Weave initiative is open to NCN proposals covering all academic disciplines submitted under the Weave-UNISONO call (announced today) and under the OPUS call (to be announced in September 2020). As of 2021, the National Science Centre will continue to cooperate with the following partner institutions: Austrian Science Fund – Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) from Austria, Czech Science Foundation – Grantová agentura České Republiky (GAČR) from the Czech Republic, Slovenian Research Agency – Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije (ARRS) from Slovenia, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) from Switzerland, and German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) from Germany.
The Lead Agency is the institution relevant for the coordinating applicant determined by the teams involved in a given proposal. The Lead Agency evaluates proposals and communicates the funding recommendations to the other institutions involved. By simplifying the procedure, Weave seeks to make it easier for researchers to collaborate across borders in the manner they consider best for their respective research programmes, hence applying a brand new approach to the international project funding.
The Weave initiative has been launched by 12 European research funding organisations, with the support of Science Europe. It is the first time a large network of this scale has developed an initiative of this kind to enable bilateral and trilateral European research projects in all academic disciplines. In order to meet the needs of the future applicants, the Weave participants have developed, with the support of Science Europe, an interactive online tool that researchers can use to determine the relevant funding opportunities for their research projects. It is available at: https://weave-research.net/find-your-funding/ and can be used by anyone wishing to participate in the Weave-UNISONO call.
NCN funding proposals for research projects carried out under international cooperation and evaluated by the NCN as the Lead Agency can be submitted under the 22nd edition of the OPUS call to be launched in September 2021.