The largest editions to date of the OPUS and SONATA calls for research projects in NCN's history have now been concluded. More than five hundred basic research grants, with a total value of almost PLN 912 million, will go to Polish research institutions.
- Record number of proposals. More than 3,700 proposals were submitted to the OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 calls – almost 15 per cent more than a year earlier.
- Record budget. We are allocating a total of nearly PLN 912 for project funding– the highest amount in the history of these calls.
- More funded projects. A total of 522 projects will receive funding (this figure does not include LAP proposals). A year earlier, at the same stage, we had funded 441 projects, and 485 in 2024.
- The growing scale of NCN calls. Researchers are submitting more and more proposals to NCN, which are processed by the same number of staff as several years ago.
The calls were announced in mid-September last year. OPUS has a broad formula and is open to all researchers, regardless of age, academic degree or career stage. Grants are available for projects carried out at Polish research institutions and lasting 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. The autumn edition of the call also includes the LAP track, through which applicants may seek funding for research carried out in cooperation with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium-Flanders under the Weave programme; the maximum duration of these projects depends on the partner country. There are no budget limits for individual projects in this call. The budget may cover, among other things, salaries, scholarships and the cost of research, including the purchase of apparatus, equipment, software and materials, outsourced services, travel, and access to international research facilities. The principal investigator may be a researcher with at least one research paper published or accepted for publication or, for research in art, at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.
SONATA is a call aimed at a specific group of researchers at an early stage of their careers. In the edition just concluded, proposals could be submitted by researchers who had been awarded their PhD degree between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2023. As in OPUS, principal investigators are required to have published research papers or have had artistic achievements or achievements in research in art. SONATA projects may last 12, 24 or 36 months. The budget may include salaries for the principal investigator and co-investigators, research costs (equipment, services, materials, travel and so on) and costs related to reducing the obligatory teaching load.
Funded projects
More than 3,700 proposals were submitted to NCN under the OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 calls. This is an unprecedentedly high number: in 2025 we received five hundred fewer proposals, and in 2022-2024 we received around three thousand proposals each time for this configuration of calls.
Proposals are subject to an eligibility check at NCN premises, performed by the coordinators. Merit-based evaluation is carried out by Expert Teams made up of researchers appointed by the NCN Council separately for each NCN review panel; because of the large number of proposals, two separate teams are appointed for some panels. In the first stage of merit-based evaluation, each proposal is reviewed individually by the team members, and the decision to shortlist it for the next stage is taken collectively by the team at its first panel meeting. The second stage of merit-based evaluation involves obtaining at least two individual reviews from external reviewers. Final decisions on whether or not to recommend a proposal for funding are taken by the Expert Team after a discussion at the second panel meeting, taking the individual reviews into account. The record number of proposals in the calls just concluded has affected the organisation of NCN's evaluation process and extended its duration.
A total of 279 OPUS projects and 243 SONATA projects have been recommended for funding, for a total of nearly PLN 912 million. The success rate by number of proposals was 13.34% in the OPUS call (excluding LAP proposals) and 18.02% in the SONATA call.
The number of OPUS 30 grant winners will increase further: today's results do not include the results for OPUS LAP proposals, that is, projects carried out by Polish research teams in international cooperation with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium-Flanders. NCN evaluated these proposals as the lead agency; now, in line with the principles of the Weave programme, the partner institutions must approve the results. We will publish information on the winning projects as approvals come in, in line with the timeline set out in the call announcement.
| OPUS 30 (without LAP) | OPUS 30 LAP | SONATA 21 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proposals submitted | 2092 | 267 | 1348 |
| Value of proposals submitted | 3,561,688,103 | 451,123,558 | 1,679,013,310 |
| Proposals recommended for funding | 279 | Awaiting approval of the evaluation results by the partner institutions | 243 |
| Value of proposals recommended for funding | 570,688,128 | 341,165,943 | |
| Success rate (by number) | 13,34%* | 18,03% | |
| Success rate (by funding) | 16,02%* | 20,32% | |
| * * The final success rates for the OPUS 30+LAP/Weave call will be known in the autumn, once the last results for LAP proposals have been published. | |||
Full lists of projects recommended for funding, together with popular-science summaries:
- OPUS 30 AND SONATA 21 RANKING LISTS
- Ranking lists for download (PDF): OPUS 30 (without LAP), SONATA 21
Decisions and resubmitting a proposal to subsequent NCN calls
Decisions will be sent out on 11 June (rules on the service of decisions). Applicants who did not receive funding under OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 and wish to apply again in subsequent calls should remember that, where the research tasks overlap with those in a previous proposal, a new proposal may be submitted only once the NCN Director's decision refusing funding has become final. This occurs once the 14-day appeal period has expired. In order to submit a new proposal in time for the calls open until 16 June, an applicant must waive the right to appeal before that deadline expires. Once such a declaration has been delivered to NCN, the decision becomes final, making it possible to resubmit the proposal in the new calls.
Applicants should submit a written declaration to NCN at ul. Twardowskiego 16, 30-312 Kraków, or electronically (signed with an advanced or qualified electronic signature in PAdES format) to the ESP: /ncn/SkrytkaESP or to the electronic delivery address: AE:PL-30168-16398-EHSIE-12.
Should you have any questions or queries, please contact the officer responsible for your proposal, as indicated in the OSF system.