SONATINA 7: grants for early-stage researchers awarded

38 researchers at the onset of their research career have been awarded grants under the SONATINA 7 call for proposals. The NCN has allocated over PLN 32 million for two- or three-year research projects.

The objective of the call is to support the career development of early-stage researchers. The seventh edition of the call has been addressed at individuals who have been granted their PhD degree between 1 January 2020 and 31 June 2023. The projects will foster performance of basic research or applied research and full-time employment in Polish research institutions other than the ones from which they have earned their PhD degree. During the project, the principal investigator will be expected to complete a foreign fellowship of 3 to 6 months enabling them to gain valuable knowledge and experience in first-rate foreign research institutions.

185 proposals have been submitted to the NCN under the call, for a total of nearly PLN 150 million. In the course of a two-stage evaluation procedure, the NCN experts have recommended 38 projects for funding, for a total of over PLN 32 million. The numerical success rate was 20.5% and the financial success rate was 21.5%. 11 grants will go to Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), 9 grants will go to Life Sciences and 18 grants will go to Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST).

List of projects funded under the SONATINA 7 call

List of projects funded under the SONATINA 7 call (.pdf)

Current challenges for human civilisation among the subjects of the winning projects

The winning projects under SONATINA 7 include projects responding to the challenges relating to the progress of civilisation and population ageing.

In the area of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Magdalena Chułek from the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw will address the issue of ageing in locations theoretically unsuitable for housing and yet inhabited. As a result of climate change, floods and long-lasting drought in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia force local populations to search for new, safe places to live, which often leads them to slums in the local cities, i.e. areas of poverty. Dr Chułek will study how older inhabitants of slums cope with the conditions they live in and adapt to them and how their strategies of coping with and adapting to slum conditions are affected by their perception of their surrounding environment and attachment to their place of origin (and vice versa). She will conduct her research based on the slums in Nairobi and Dhaka.

Jagoda Płaczkiewicz, PhD from the International Centre for Transitional Eye Research (ICTER) at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences will conduct a research project in Life Sciences entitled "Chimeric Rhodopsin as a novel optogenetic tool”. Together with her research team, she will study therapy strategies in retinal diseases. Visual impairments are affecting millions of people worldwide, and the number of visually disabled people is increasing due to the aging of the population and chronic diseases. Gene therapies based on adeno-associated viruses have already been developed and approved worldwide, and clinical trials are underway using various variants of light-sensitive opsins (glycoproteins found in the retina involved in vision). Gene therapies have been developed and approved worldwide and clinical trials have been performed focusing on opsins that perform their function in high light intensities (glycoproteins in the retina involved in the vision process). Nevertheless, there is still a need to design an optogenetic tool that would be successfully activated by relatively low light stimulation. Dr Płaczkiewicz’s research focuses on the development of new opsins with exceeded functionality. Chimeric RecRho variants may constitute a new gene therapy strategy in retinal diseases.

Agata Sotniczyk from the National Centre for Nuclear Research will carry out a research project in Physical Sciences and Engineering, entitled “Novel metastable titanium beta-phase alloys based on the Ti-Mo system for applications in the modular total hip replacements”. Degenerative diseases of hip and knee joints have been ranked at the 11th place of the most frequent health disabilities observed worldwide. In case of patients who experience chronic pain and severe limitation of their mobility, Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) gives a chance to significantly improve the quality of their life. Work is constantly underway to improve the materials used to manufacture hip replacements that could increase their safety and longevity. Researchers study a new generation of titanium-based materials that contain only biocompatible chemical elements, however metastable β phase alloys turn out to demonstrate insufficient wear resistance. Dr Sotniczuk will try to fabricate a new metastable titanium β phase alloys based on Ti-Mo system that will demonstrate the desirable combination of high mechanical strength and ductility.

Evaluation of proposals

Proposals submitted to SONATINA 7 are subject to a merit-based evaluation performed by the Expert Team in two stages. During stage I, proposals are evaluated by at least two Research Team members. Then, proposals are recommended for stage II based on the decision of the Expert Team taken at the meeting, following a decision on the evaluation of each proposal. At stage II, a review is drafted by at least two external reviewers, interview with the principal investigator, the final decision is taken, and a ranking list is established by the Expert Team.

Under SONATINA, proposals are evaluated by three inter-panel teams comprising experts appointed under particular research domains, i.e. Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST) and Life Sciences (NZ). Experts are selected by the NCN Council among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers holding at least a PhD degree. The proposal evaluation procedure applicable to SONATINA 7 is laid down in the call text (the “Proposal evaluation procedure” tab).