“We can now confirm we are ready to launch funding procedures for projects that were put on waiting lists in OPUS 25, PRELUDIUM 22, MAESTRO 15 and SONATA BIS 13”, said NCN Director Krzysztof Jóźwiak, “this will be possible once the NCN has modified its financial plan”.
In November 2023, in connection with the NCN’s efforts to have its basic research funding budget increased, the NCN Council passed a resolution that allowed for waiting lists to be drawn up in the OPUS 25, PRELUDIUM 22, MAESTRO 15 and SONATA BIS 13 calls. This solution paved the way for the possibility of allocating any additional resources to research projects at Polish host institutions as early as 2024.
Projects that made it onto waiting lists were highly rated by experts and deserved to be funded but could not receive a positive funding decision because there were simply not enough resources in the NCN budget at the time when the calls were concluded.
All the calls in which waiting lists could be created by expert teams have now concluded. Their results have been published on the NCN website, and applicants whose proposals were put on waiting lists have received relevant decisions with a note to that effect.
On 14 February, Minister of Science Dariusz Wieczorek announced that, in 2024, the budget of the National Science Centre would be increased by 200 million zlotys. This means that researchers working at Polish institutions will receive more resources for their research projects as early as this year. This is very good news for the research community, which has appealed for greater investment in research funding via NCN grants. The minister’s decision will allow the NCN to launch funding procedures for projects on waiting lists, but for this to be possible, the NCN first needs to modify its 2024 financial plan. We are currently waiting for the Minister of Science to approve that modification.
Once it is approved, the NCN Council will pass a series of resolutions to increase the budgets of individual calls. Subsequently, available resources will be divided between different disciplines or discipline groups in accordance with the previous NCN Council resolution on the possibility of compiling waiting lists for OPUS 25, PRELUDIUM 22, SONATA BIS 13 and MAESTRO 15 calls. Proposals will be awarded funding in accordance with their ranking order on the waiting list until the budget allocated by the NCN Council is exhausted and the NCN Director will issue new funding decisions for the proposals in question. All decisions will be taken, and procedures will be launched, as soon as possible.