On Wednesday, 11 October 2023, we will present the NCN Awards for 2023. As many as 44 candidates are in the running for this top distinction this year.
11th edition
The NCN Award is given to researchers under the age of 40, who are affiliated with Polish research institutions and boast a strong basic research and publication record in one of the following three panels: Arts, Humanities and Social sciences (HS), Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST), and Life Sciences (NZ). The main criteria for the selection process are scientific excellence and international recognition.
The jury consists of NCN Council Members and the NCN Director. This year, nearly 700 people were eligible to nominate candidates including, e.g., previous NCN Award winners, former NCN Council members and other outstanding researchers.
Each eligible researcher can only name one candidate. An important condition is that they have not collaborated, taken part in any joint endeavours or published a paper together in the past 5 years. In addition, they should not have any familial or professional relationship and researchers cannot nominate their current or former PhD students.
This year, the NCN received 53 nominations, including 44 candidates (some were nominated by more than one person). Nominees include 20 researchers in Physical Sciences and Engineering, 16 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and 8 in Life Sciences. Winners will be officially announced on 11 October 2023 during the 2023 NCN Award ceremony held in the Gallery of 19th-century Polish Art in the Sukiennice, part of the National Museum in Kraków. As always, the ceremony will be hosted by Grażyna Torbicka.
The event will start at 6 p.m. and will be streamed live. In the weeks that follow, winners will deliver a series of lectures, which can also be watched online.
The most prestigious award for the young
The award was first given in 2013; to date, it has already gone to 30 talented researchers. Last year’s winners emphasise that it has given them a great opportunity to promote their research nationwide.
“The award has helped me disseminate my research on how human behaviour impacts climate change. I feel we tend to marginalise the impact of our behaviour and consumer choices on climate change, while even small changes can help us counteract these phenomena”, says Prof. Karolina Safarzyńska from the University of Warsaw, winner of the 2022 NCN Award for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
“When I won the award, I was literally inundated with requests for lectures, which makes me very happy. I focus on a rather neglected aspect of forest demography: seed production and recruitment, and it’s important to me that so many people can now hear why it’s worth looking into these phenomena”, says Prof. Michał Bogdziewicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, the winner of the award for Life Sciences.
Prof. Piotr Wcisło from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, the winner of the award for Physical Sciences and Engineering, points out that the award can also have a positive effect on the overall image of researchers and interest in academia as a career. “Today, we are witnessing a crisis of interest in research. The world offers many attractive options, so it’s important to shape a positive image of researchers: not as solitary, older men holed up in an office, but as modern entrepreneurs who use ultra-advanced technologies, enjoy interesting career opportunities, and travel the world. It seems to me that this is exactly the image that this award paints”, he argues.
General audience lectures and research projects
As part of NCN’s cooperation with the Copernicus Foundation, winners of the 2022 NCN Award delivered lectures that were streamed for a general audience on YouTube. Interestingly, the lectures also attracted new research proposals! “I really think these lectures are a great idea”, says Prof. Bogdziewicz, “I received a lot of questions, and I was even asked to write several popular science articles. I also got an invitation to work on creating a computer game. I can’t really say much about it just yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed”. Prof. Piotr Wcisło’s lecture has been watched by more than 135,000 people thus far. “The event has really good viewership, especially for a lecture in quantum mechanics! The initiative has also attracted the attention of people in the community of physicists, chemists, and engineers”, he comments.
Prof. Safarzyńska is currently starting out on a new NCN project under the SONATA BIS scheme. She will build a new team to work on critical social points that may prevent climate change.
Prof. Bogdziewicz heads the Forest Biology Centre at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, working on a project funded from an ERC (European Research Council) grant he won last year.
Prof. Wcisło is involved in two big grant projects: the ERC Starting Grant and NCN’s SONATA BIS. The ERC grant will allow him to trap hydrogen molecules for the first time to validate quantum theory with a high degree of precision. His SONATA BIS project, on the other hand, is almost entirely devoted to theoretical research on quantum descriptions of molecular collisions.
Online lectures by previous winners
Media support
