The NCN Council has modified the NCN panel list to better reflect the one in place at the European Research Council (ERC). The new classification will apply to most NCN calls starting in December.
The NCN Council has spent a long time discussing possible changes to the NCN panel list, especially in Life Sciences (NZ) and Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), to make its structure better reflect current research realities. In its deliberations, it was guided by the need to better align the list with the one in place at the European Research Council (ERC), as well as by the postulates raised by the Polish research community.
During a meeting held on 5 September, the NCN Council passed resolution no. 83/2024, which officially modified the NCN panel list used in the proposal review process. Resolution No. 83/2024, Annex.
The total number of discipline panels remains the same, i.e. there are 26 panels: six in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; eleven in Physical Sciences and Engineering; and nine in Life Sciences. What has changed is their internal structure.
In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), more precise identifiers (descriptors) were added to better describe panels, while some research areas were singled out or moved between panels to better match subpanels and individual descriptors. The previous division into six main discipline panels was maintained; more important changes were made to the descriptions of the HS3 panel, “The Study of the Human Past”, e.g. in the context of archaeological sciences, HS5 “Law and Political Science”, which will now include new technologies in law and public policies, as well as HS2 “Culture and Cultural Production” in the context of media and social communication.
NZ panels were modified to better align with the list in place at the ERC. Some panels were consolidated to reduce the unnecessary fragmentation of research areas and disciplines. Issues in neurobiology were all brought under a single panel, NZ5 “Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System”, while veterinary medicine was subsumed under NZ9 “Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering”. The number of discipline panels remains unchanged, but in seven of these, the number of subpanels was increased. These changes represent an important step toward a new vision of science that transcends the rigid boundaries between disciplines, and the application of ERC solutions will make it easier for researchers to draw up grant proposals across disciplines.
The NCN Council believes that changes in the structure of ERC panels should be continually monitored so that NCN panels can be adapted accordingly, including in the field of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This approach will help increase the odds of success of Polish researchers in ERC calls.
The new NCN panel list will come into force starting with the new rounds of international calls, BiodivTransform, IMPRESS-U and Weave-UNISONO, which will undergo peer review in 2025, and for domestic calls – starting with calls announced on 16 December 2024.