The NCN announces IMPRESS-U, a call aimed at supporting Ukrainian research potential and opening up new opportunities for cooperation between researchers from Poland, Ukraine, the USA and the Baltic states.
IMPRESS-U (International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine) is a call organised by institutions from six countries: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the US. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is the initiator and the lead agency, responsible for the merit-based evaluation of all submitted proposals.
The call is open to Polish researchers planning projects in cooperation with researchers from Ukraine or the US or, optionally, from any of the other participating countries.
“The main objective is to support high-quality projects, promote and stimulate the integration of Ukrainian researchers into the global research community and rebuild the research potential of Ukraine”, says Justyna Woźniakowska, Head of the International Cooperation Department at the NCN. The expert points out that IMPRESS-U also opens up avenues for Polish teams to cooperate with American partners. “In NCN grant programmes to date, such opportunities have been few and far between and usually restricted to specific research areas. This call facilitates cooperation in all the disciplines supported by the NSF”, she adds.
The American agency will fund research in any discipline except medical sciences and the humanities. Whenever the Polish team requests NCN funds, proposals submitted under IMPRESS-U will be accepted and peer reviewed by the NSF under the EAGER call and will thus be required meet its terms and conditions.
Polish PIs need to hold at least a PhD degree and their research teams may include students and PhD students, as well as post-docs.
Proposals will be accepted until the end of 2025. This period might be attenuated if funds at the NCN or any of the partner institutions run out earlier. The NCN Council has set aside 10 million zlotys in funding for Polish teams.
Partner institutions that will accept proposals from foreign partner teams include: the US National Academy of Sciences (US NAS) – for Ukrainian researchers, the Research Council of Lithuania (LMT), the Latvian Council of Science (LCS) and the Estonian Research Council (ETAG).
Polish researchers may also submit their IMPRESS-U proposals to the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). NAWA will fund those projects in which an American partner team applies to the NSF for so-called International Supplements, i.e. additional resources to support the internalisation of projects already in progress and supported by the NSF. For more information, go to the NAWA website.
To learn more about the idea behind IMPRESS-U and explore its terms and conditions, listen to the latest episode of the NCN podcast (in Polish), entirely devoted to NCN’s international cooperation.