Two researchers from the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University are among the new winners of the Weave-UNISONO call. Their projects, prepared in cooperation with partners from Germany and Austria, will receive a total of 2.15 million zlotys in funding.
Dr hab. Małgorzata Sandowicz from the University of Warsaw, together with a group of scientists from Germany and Austria, will work on a project entitled DigEanna, which aims to collect and organise documents from the archive of the Eanna Temple, an ancient centre of worship and an important Babylonian economic institution. Drawing on the recent advances in cuneiform methodology and digital humanities tools, the research team are planning to collect all the documents into a dossier and distinct collections. Making the documents available in digital format will allow us to expand our knowledge of bureaucratic, economic, social and cultural changes in the ancient Near East in the first millennium BCE. The project will be conducted in cooperation with research groups headed by Prof. Michael Jursa from the University of Vienna and Prof. Johannes Hackl from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
Dr Renata Mężyk-Kopeć from the Jagiellonian University will work with Prof. Tobias Langenhan from the University of Leipzig on a project entitled Proteolytic processing of adhesion G protein-coupled receptors through proteases. The scientists want to study cell-to-cell communication, with a focus on the recently-distinguished aGPCRs (adhesion G protein-coupled receptors), which regulate a wide range of important processes, including cell migration, proliferation and differentiation. Disruptions in the function of these receptors underlie the development of nervous, immune and circulatory system disorders, as well as the development and progression of various types of cancer. The research team will investigate the process whereby NTF fragments of aGPCRs are released due to proteolysis by external proteases and study its effects. Depending on the results, the proteases studied in the project could emerge as new therapeutic targets in the treatment of diseases caused by impaired aGPCR activation.
The proposal submitted by Dr Renata Mężyk-Kopeć’s team was evaluated by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as the lead agency under LAP (Lead Agency Procedure), and later approved by the National Science Centre. The proposal submitted by Dr hab. Małgorzata Sandowicz was evaluated at the FWF (Austrian Science Fund), and approved by the NCN and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Weave-UNISONO
The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any discipline of science.
The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for merit-based review and the others simply accept the result.
Under Weave, partner research teams apply in parallel to the lead agency and their relevant domestic institutions. Their joint proposal must include coherent research programmes and clearly spell out the added value of international cooperation.
The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to carefully read the call text and submit their funding proposals.