In January 2025, the National Science Centre is slated to start as the official coordinator of the European Social Transformations and Resilience (STR) partnership. The agency will be the only institution in this part of Europe to lead an initiative of this kind.
“This is more than just a prestigious role, this is a real opportunity to define the subject matter of future calls and shape the main objectives of the partnership so that they include Polish priorities,” says Dr Malwina Gębalska, who manages the STR team at the NCN.
Partnerships bring together the European Commission, public institutions and the private sector in a quest for answers to the most important challenges faced by Europe, including climate change, environmental pollution, the loss of biodiversity and digital transformation. They are a key element of Horizon Europe, significantly contributing to the development of the European Research Area and the achievement of EU’s political priorities.
The 2021-2024 period saw the rise of 50 such initiatives. Nine more are slated to take off in the years 2025-2027; this includes the Social Transformations and Resilience (STR) partnership. Apart from one cultural heritage protection initiative, the STR will be the only partnership in the field of humanities and social science. It will organise calls for international research projects in humanities and social sciences, as well as develop and test tools and policies designed to make countries more resilient to natural disasters and social challenges caused by climate change, demographic changes, technological advancement and unexpected crises such as wars and pandemics.
The initiative will support creating a research-based policy in four main areas: the modernisation of social security and basic services systems, the future of labour, education support and skill development and fair transition toward climate neutrality. The partnership will take the next two years to delineate these issues, creating documents such as the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, which will then be presented at the European Commission. The STR team coordinator at the NCN says that the strategy-making process will be very open-ended: “We want to determine what kind of research is really needed today in Europe: what we already know and what we still need to investigate, what issues deserve our attention and what social policy actions should be taken up”, Malwina Gębalska explains.
The partnership is currently made up of Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Italy and Poland. The goal is to include perhaps as many as approx. 100 entities, including, most importantly, government ministries and research-funding agencies. Partners and stakeholders will also include universities, research institutes, NGOs, associations and non-academic entities from several dozen countries.
“We are going to start off with a state of the research survey prepared by European scientists, and then carry out consultations via workshops and an online platform. The platform will be a place for researchers and other stakeholders to submit their feedback regarding the four subject areas”, adds Dr Gębalska. In the nearest future, the NCN will begin to issue invitations for humanities and social science scholars to join the strategy-making process.
Gębalska emphasises that Western European countries have a highly developed network of cooperation at the national level, as well as research groups with substantial experience in helping draft research agendas and national priorities. Countries in the Widening group, such as Poland, have much fewer resources and less experience. Now is the time to change that. “Our ambition is to have our perspective, both social, national and scientific, included in the agenda, especially in those areas where we already have strong research teams”, Gębalska says.
The preparatory stage will last until the end of 2026 and the partnership will go into full swing in 2027-2034. The European Commission is to bankroll the partnership with c. EUR 60 million, and an additional EUR 60-90 million will come from the budgets of EU member states and associated countries.
The European Commission gave special support to the NCN in taking on the role of coordinator, in recognition of its earlier experience in managing programs such as CHANSE and QuantERA ERA-NET Cofund, funded from the Horizon 2020 framework programme. The NCN also won the support of the Polish Minister of Science and the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance agreed to shift resources in the NCN’s budget to create an STR partnership team inside the agency. The Minister of Science signed an official mandate for the NCN to coordinate the partnership.
What benefits will the NCN’s coordination of the partnership bring to Poland?
- the support of the HS community and an opportunity to promote and fund research that represent its strongest assets,
- access to financial resources for cooperation with stakeholders from various sectors,
- a chance to promote those research areas that address Polish research priorities but are also important for Polish society,
- the achievement of the priorities of our region of Europe and the cooperation of the Widening Countries (EU13 + Greece and Portugal),
- a chance for the NCN to shape European HS research policy as well as its broader research funding policy,
- a stronger image of Poland as a science management leader at the European level,
- a close cooperation with the European Commission.
On 22 November, KPK NCBR will host a conference in Warsaw: SSH in Horizon Europe: Poland’s successes and future challenges in Cluster 2, offering an opportunity to present the Social Transformations and Resilience partnership.