The last round of OPUS 26+ LAP/Weave results

Thirteen bilateral Polish-German projects and three trilateral projects conducted in partnership with scientists based in Austria and the Czech Republic were awarded funding under the OPUS 26+LAP/Weave programme. The total budget of Polish teams in these projects is approx. 29.8 million zlotys.

OPUS is the largest call for proposals in the NCN portfolio; in the autumn, it also opens a track for researchers seeking funds for projects carried out in cooperation with international partners under the Weave programme. The programme makes it significantly easier to apply for grants for bi- or multilateral research cooperation with researchers based in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders. As per its rules, proposals are only evaluated once in one of the partner countries, while the other funding agencies only approve the decision and award funding to their national research teams involved in the project.

The most recent LAP projects awarded funding under OPUS 26+LAP/Weave include bilateral projects conducted with partners in Germany and trilateral projects with the additional participation of Austria and the Czech Republic. The proposals were evaluated by the NCN experts alongside other OPUS 26 proposals in accordance with the Lead Agency Procedure. The decisions were then approved by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), which is going to fund German teams, as well as the Czech Science Foundation, for Czech teams, and the Austrian Science Fund, for Austrian partners.

Winners and their research

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, funding was awarded to 2 projects with a total budget of nearly 4 million zlotys. One grant went to a Polish-German project headed by Prof. Adam Izdebski from the University of Warsaw, which will look into why some societies have succeeded and survived for hundreds of years, while others have failed. The researchers will analyse the crisis and reconstruction of the social and ecological systems of Brandenburg and Greater Poland between 1200 and 1800, focusing on internal factors (institutions, cultural and material resources, political stability) and external factors that impact the state system, both environmental (climate, epidemics) and international (wars, markets).

In Physical Sciences and Engineering, funding was awarded to 11 projects worth more than 17.8 million zlotys. One project, entitled ”Continuous protein crystallization process”, headed by Prof. Dorota Antos from the Rzeszów University of Technology, will work in tandem with researchers based in Germany and Austria to develop a novel method of obtaining and purifying recombinant proteins (necessary, for instance, for diagnostic and therapeutic applications), based on crystallization, which will enable them to be produced efficiently and sustainably at a lower cost. The new method is expected to increase the availability of these proteins to low- and medium-income countries so that they can also reap the benefits of advancements in contemporary medicine.

In Life Sciences, funding was awarded to 3 projects with a total budget of nearly 8 million zlotys. One grant went to Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska from the Gdańsk Medical University, who will head a team of Polish researchers, in partnership with a German team, in a project entitled “Mechanisms in the pathogenesis of CNS diseases induced by viral infections”. Specifically, the researchers will try to determine whether an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection can be associated with the development of multiple sclerosis. Their research may contribute to our knowledge of how the virus leads to long-term problems in the central nervous system and potentially change our understanding of autoimmune diseases.

List of all 16 funded projects with partners in Germany, Czech Republic and Austria in .pdf

Ranking lists of all projects qualified for funding under OPUS 26+LAP/Weave with outlines

OPUS and OPUS LAP results

A total of 1737 proposals with a total budget of nearly 2.6 billion zlotys were submitted to the NCN under the OPUS 26+LAP/Weave programme. In the first round, grants worth 441 million zlotys were awarded to 267 researchers working on projects that did not involve any international cooperation under Weave. Results for OPUS LAP projects performed in cooperation with partners in Austria, Belgium-Flanders, the Czech Republic and Switzerland were announced in July, with 29 international projects worth more than 42.34 million zlotys joining the ranks of Weave winners. In August, a grant of 1.4 million zlotys went to one Polish-Luxembourgian project, and several months later, in early November, 5 more grants (worth more than 7.5 million zlotys in total) were awarded to teams working in tandem with Slovenian researchers.

These OPUS LAP results for bilateral projects carried out in partnership with German teams and, for trilateral projects, with Austrian and Czech teams, are the last announcements for the OPUS 26+LAP/Weave call. Funding was awarded to 11 projects from the original list and to 5 more from waiting lists. More about waiting lists.

	Polish-German projects		Polish-German-Czech projects		Polish-German-Austran projects
	First list	First list	First list	Waiting list	Waiting list
Projekty zakwalifikowane	10	3	1	1	1
Wartość (zł)	19 187 739	4 910 800	1 881 240	1 998 933	1 802 740

 

After tallying the results of all rounds held thus far, the final list of OPUS 26+LAP/Weave winners consists of 318 projects worth more than 522 million zlotys.

 

Decisions

Funding decisions for bilateral projects with partners from Germany and trilateral projects with partners from Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, recommended for funding under OPUS 26+LAP/Weave, were sent out on 15 November. Decisions issued by the NCN Director are delivered electronically to the electronic address indicated in the proposal. How are funding decisions delivered?