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SONATA BIS 15

Read more about SONATA BIS 15

16 June 2025

The National Science Centre (NCN) is launching the SONATA BIS 15 call for researchers with a PhD degree conferred within 5 to 12 years before the proposal submission year who intend to create a new research team to conduct basic research.

The budget call is PLN 170 million.

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system available at https://osp.opi.org.pl, in compliance with the proposal submission procedure. The proposal form will be available in the system on 18 June. The deadline for the submission is 16 September 2025, 14:00 CEST.

Significant changes:

researchers who had their PhD conferred in the year of employment in the project or within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project can apply for the post-doc position (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks);
review panels have been changed.

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pursuant to a Resolution adopted by the NCN, proposals submitted to the National Science Centre must not provide for any collaboration between Polish and Russian entities. Where any such collaboration is planned, the proposals shall be rejected as ineligible.

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Who may submit proposals?

The call is open to the entities identified in the NCN Act:

university;
federation of science and higher education entities;
research institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, operating pursuant to the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796, as amended);
research institute operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 534);
international research institute established pursuant to separate Acts, operating in the Republic of Poland;
- 5a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 925 and 1089);
- 5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;
- 5c. Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education operating pursuant to the Act on the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 570 and 1897);
Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
other entity involved in research independently on a continuous basis (not listed in sections 1-6);
group of entities consisting of at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company;
scientific and industrial centre within the meaning of the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2022, item 498);
research centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences within the meaning of the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796);
scientific library;
company operating as research and development centre within the meaning of the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovative Activity of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws of 2021, item 706 and of 2022, item 1079);
legal entity with their registered office in Poland
- 13 a. President of the Central Office of Measures;
natural person;
company conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13a.

Who may act as the principal investigator?

The principal investigator must be a researcher with a PhD degree conferred within 5 to 12 years prior to the proposal submission year (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the call).

Academic and research track record should cover the period of the last 10 years prior to the proposal submission year (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the call).

What are the restrictions on submitting proposals for research projects under NCN calls?

The principal investigator must be a person employed at the host institution for the entire project duration period pursuant to at least a part-time employment contract (the foregoing does not apply to persons receiving a pension under the social insurance scheme).

The principal investigator must reside in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration period and be available to the host institution for the project (the foregoing obligation does not apply to evidenced project-related business trips or holiday, time off work and other excused absence at work governed by the applicable laws).

A person may manage a research project funded under SONATA BIS only once.

A person named as the principal investigator in a proposal submitted to the OPUS call for which the funding decision has not become final must not be named as the principal investigator in a proposal submitted to the SONATA BIS call. The foregoing does not apply to principal investigators named in the OPUS LAP proposals.

In one edition of calls, i.e. in calls for proposals closed on the same day (in this edition these are MAESTRO 17 and SONATA BIS 15), the same person may be named as the principal investigator in one proposal only. If the same person is named as the principal investigator in more than one proposal submitted in a call edition, the proposal submitted to the OSF submission system at an earlier date will be accepted.

In one edition of calls, no proposal may be submitted with overlapping research tasks.

The total number of NCN projects managed by a researcher and proposals submitted to the NCN, which are pending evaluation or have been recommended for funding, in which the researcher is named as the principal investigator, must not be more than two. The limit may be extended to three if the researcher:

manages at least one project funded under an OPUS call within the framework of LAP cooperation or under a call launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies or
is named as the principal investigator in at least one proposal submitted to the NCN that is pending evaluation or has been recommended for funding under an OPUS call within the framework of LAP cooperation or a call launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies.

The table below illustrates the eligible funding requests.

Number of the research projects I manage¹ and the proposals I have submitted²			Can I submit another proposal?
Total	Research projects OR proposals in domestic calls³	Research projects OR proposals in International calls⁴	In a domestic call	In an international call
0	0		YES	YES
1	1		YES	YES
2	2	0	NO	YES
2	1	1	YES	YES
2	0	2	YES	YES
≥3	3		NO	NO

¹ Project management applies to the period from the date of signing the funding agreement under NCN calls until the date of submitting the final report on the project performance.

² The limit applies to proposals pending evaluation or recommended for funding.

³ Research projects or proposals under NCN calls: OPUS, PRELUDIUM, SONATINA, SONATA, SONATA BIS, MAESTRO and research projects under HARMONIA, SYMFONIA, COVID-19.

⁴ The calls launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies:

calls launched under programmes co-funded by the European Union – ERA-Net and European Partnership (UNISONO, POLONEZ, POLONEZ BIS);
calls launched by the networks of research-funding institutions, which are not co-funded by the European Union, including within the framework of LAP cooperation (OPUS LAP/WEAVE, WEAVE UNISONO, IMPRESS-U);
bilateral calls of the NCN and foreign partner institutions (GRIEG, POLS, IDEALAB, BEETHOVEN, BEETHOVEN CLASSIC, BEETHOVEN LIFE, CEUS, MOZART, ALPHORN, DAINA, SHENG).

The limits do not apply to:

PRELUDIUM BIS, DIOSCURI, TANGO and ARTIQ projects/proposals,
MINIATURA research activities/proposals,
NAWA research components/proposals,
FUGA and UWERTURA fellowships,
ETIUDA scholarships,
NCN Programme for researchers from Ukraine to continue research in Poland and NCN special scholarship programme for Ukrainian students and early-stage researchers.

What is the subject-matter of the call?

Basic research proposals may be submitted to the call in any of 26 NCN panels. The panels comprise the three groups:

HS – Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences;
ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering;
NZ – Life Sciences.

What is the project duration?

Funding may be requested for projects lasting 36, 48 or 60 months.

What are the types of positions for research team members?

In research projects, in addition to the principal investigator, research tasks may be carried out by post-docs and persons in specialist supporting position, PhD students and students, as well as by other co-investigators. The involvement of PhD student(s) for the total period of at least 36 months is obligatory.

The research team members other than the principal investigator must not hold an academic title, title of professor, habilitation degree or equivalent degree or title and must not have cooperated in the implementation of a research project funded following a call for proposals (the condition must be met on the last day of submitting proposals under the call).

A post-doc position is a full-time post, scheduled by the project’s principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree in the year of employment in the project or within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the section on the costs of the regulations on awarding funding).

A post-doc must be a person who has been awarded their PhD degree by another institution than the host institution for the project or has completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in another institution than the host institution for the project and in another country than the one in which they have been conferred their PhD degree. A post-doc in the project must be recruited in an open call procedure.

A specialist supporting position is a full-time employment position, scheduled by the principal investigator for a person providing support to the project, such as lab manager, senior technician, statistical analyst.

PhD students/students, who will be NCN scholarship recipients in the project, must be recruited in an open call procedure.

The terms and conditions of the call do not specify the maximum number of research team members. However, the rationale of employment of particular members of the research team in the project will be evaluated by the Expert Team. The competences and tasks to be performed by particular members of the research team must be described in the proposal.

For more information on the budget for salaries and scholarships, please refer to the section on the costs of the regulations on awarding funding.

How should the project budget be planned?

The budget is an important aspect of the proposal, which is the subject to an eligibility check and a merit-based evaluation.

The budget must be well justified as regards the subject and scope of the research and based on realistic calculations. The terms and conditions of the call do not specify the minimum or maximum amount of the project budget, however, the proposal may be rejected if unreasonable costs are planned.

The project budget (eligible costs) includes direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include::

full-time remuneration for the principal investigator;
remuneration for co-investigators in the project:
- full-time remuneration for post-docs,
- full-time remuneration for a person in specialist supporting position,
- salaries and scholarships for PhD students and students,
- additional remuneration for research team members; if the principal investigator is not employed full-time in the project, their remuneration is paid for from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;
purchase of research equipment, devices and software;
purchase of materials and small equipment;
outsourced services;
business trips, visits and consultations;
compensation for collective investigators;
other costs crucial to the project which comply with the regulations on awarding funding.

Indirect costs include::

indirect costs up to 20% of direct costs, which may be spent on costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data,
indirect cost of open access up to 2% of direct costs, which may be designated only for the cost of open access to publications or research data.

In the case of entities applying for state aid, indirect costs, including indirect costs of open access and other indirect costs, must not exceed a total of 20 % of direct cost.

During the project performance, the host institution shall arrange with the principal investigator for the distribution of at least 25 % of other indirect costs. These expenses must be eligible.

For more information on the eligibility of the costs, please refer to the section on the costs of the regulations on awarding funding.

Open access to research results

Pursuant to the NCN Open Access Policy, all research results must be made available in full and immediate open access.

The policy does not apply to monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works.

The NCN recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with the policy:

publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ);
publication in subscription journals (hybrid journals in which some of the articles are open access and some require payment of a publication fee), as long as the Version of Record (VoR, i.e. a version of record published in a journal with its own typeface and branding; other terms: published version or publisher’s pdf), Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, i.e. the final manuscript version created by the author, including all the revisions introduced after the peer review, and accepted for publication in the journal; other terms: postprint) or preprint (if AAM and VoR are embargoed) is made available in the repository registered in OpenDOAR immediately upon the article’s online publication (in case of preprints, once the embargo period is over, AAM of the same work must also be made available in the repository);
publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements, which must be inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry), as long as the article has been published or accepted for publication before 31 December 2025 (Decision of the NCN Director of 15 December 2024 extending route 3 of the transformation agreements under the NCN’s Open Access Policy).

Articles must be published using the following licences:

route 1: CC BY 4.0 licence;
route 2: a preprint must be made available in the repository using CC BY 4.0 licence upon the article’s online publication on the publisher’s website (once the embargo period is over, the AAM of the same paper can be made available using any licence);
route 3: the following licences can be used: CC BY 4.0; CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0.

Eligibility of Article Processing Charges:

route 1: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0 licences are used;
route 2: costs are not eligible and must not be covered by NCN funds;
route 3: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0 licences are used.

The data underpinning the scientific publications resulting from the projects must be well-documented pursuant to the standards of the machine or manual findability, accessibility, interoperability or reusability (the so-called FAIR Data). Where possible, data must be made available in the repository using CC0 (dedicating to public domain) or CC BY 4.0 licence. Other licences can also be used as long as they ensure an equivalent level of data openness as CC0 or CC BY 4.0.

The NCN understands “data” to be both collected and unprocessed data, as well as generated and processed data, other than scientific publications. The definition comprises all forms, both digital and non-digital.

What should be included in a proposal?

Proposals shall include information specified in the proposal form in the OSF submission system, the template of which is provided in the call text, including, among others (in English, if not specified otherwise):

research project title (in Polish and in English);
research project abstract;
research project abstract for the general public (in Polish and in English, one page for each);
research project descriptions, which shall include scientific goal of the project, significance of the project, general concept and work plan, research methodology and project literature (project literature does not count towards the page limit):
- short description (up to 5 pages),
- long description (up to 15 pages);
work plan presenting research tasks (in Polish and in English);
information on the research team:
- information on the principal investigator, including, among others:
  - academic and research career,
  - the list of one to ten most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; one to three of the papers referred to above must be annexed in pdf format,
    for research in art, the list of one to ten most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) or artistic achievements and achievements in research in art in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; if one or more publications are specified, one to three of them must be annexed in pdf format,
  - information on research project management or other research funding awarded under NCN calls in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year,
  - information on research project management awarded under other national or international calls in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year (up to five projects);
  - description of the most important research achievement;
(the period of 10 years referred to above may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the call)
- information on the required qualifications and scope of work planned of each co-investigator in the research project;
research project budget;
if applicable: information on international cooperation as well as description of related advantages;
information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of a research project;
information on the ethical aspects of the project, including any consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the project in compliance with generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline;
in the case of research projects which include clinical trials with a medicinal product or a medical device, a detailed justification of the non-commercial nature of the trials.

In the section Individuals identified in the proposal, please enter the data of all the persons who have been involved in the preparation of the proposal or will be involved in the project implementation. The persons whose data (name, affiliation) have been entered in any other part of the proposal should be mentioned here. The principal investigator is required to notify such persons that their details have been disclosed in the proposal and will be processed by the NCN.

Can proposals in this call include application for state aid?

Proposals in the call may include an application for state aid, except where funding is requested by a natural person. For more information, please refer to the page containing the information on the state aid.

What is the proposal evaluation procedure?

Proposals are subject to an eligibility check followed by a merit based-evaluation.

Eligibility check

An eligibility check of proposals is performed by Coordinators. Only complete proposals that comply with all terms and conditions of the call can undergo a merit-based evaluation. A proposal may also be rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the eligibility criteria during the merit-based evaluation.

Merit-based evaluation

A merit-based evaluation of proposals is carried out by the Expert Teams, whose members are selected by the NCN Council, and by external reviewers who are not Expert Teams members. A merit-based evaluation is performed in two stages.

Stage I: Evaluation by an Expert Team based on information provided in the proposal and annexes to the proposal, except for the full project description. Individual reviews are drafted by two members of the Expert Team acting independently. In the case of proposals which contain at least one auxiliary NCN review panel other than the one to which the proposal has been submitted, the Chair of the Expert Team may decide to seek additional individual review from a member of another Expert Team (the so-called interdisciplinary proposals). Then, during the first panel meeting, the Expert Team, based on the individual reviews by members and the discussions, compiles a list of proposals recommended for stage II of evaluation.

Stage II: Proposals are submitted to at least two external reviewers who draft their individual reviews based on information provided in the proposal and annexes to the proposal, except for the short project description.

During the second panel meeting, the Expert Team conducts the interview with the principal investigator. The Expert Team, based on the individual reviews by external reviewers, the interview, and the discussions, compiles a ranking list of proposals recommended for funding.

For more information on evaluation process, please refer to the proposal evaluation procedure for the Expert Teams.

What is reviewed in the merit-based evaluation of proposals?

The evaluation of proposals shall focus in particular on the following aspects:

compliance with the basic research criterion;
quality of research and innovative nature of research or tasks to be performed;
project’s impact on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
evaluation of feasibility of research;
scientific achievements of the principal investigator;
reasons and manner of the new research team formation;
evaluation of other projects carried out by the principal investigator and funded by the NCN or from other sources;
relevance of the costs to the subject and scope of the research;
development of the proposal and compliance with other requirements of the call text.

The proposal evaluation criteria are described in detail in the regulations on funding awarding.

Who performs the merit-based evaluation of proposals?

A merit-based evaluation is performed by the Expert Teams based on the terms and conditions of the call and the proposal evaluation criteria defined by the regulations on funding awarding.

The Expert Teams are selected by the NCN Council in compliance with the rules of establishing and appointing of the Expert Teams. Experts are outstanding Polish and foreign researchers who are at least PhD holders. Expert Teams are established for each call edition. The composition of the Expert Team is subject to the number and topics of proposals submitted to each panel.

The proposals are evaluated by inter-panel Expert Teams (HS, ST, NZ). The principal investigator selects the panel. The panel cannot be changed once the proposal has been submitted and the proposal may be rejected if an incorrect panel is selected.

When and how are the call results announced?

The call results will be published on the NCN website and delivered in the form of the NCN Director’s decision within 6 months of the proposal submission date, by March 2026 at the latest.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements related to actions performed by the NCN, the applicants may lodge an appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council.

Where can additional information be found?

For more information, please visit the page containing the information for applicants.

Should you have any more questions or queries, please contact us by e-mail: informacja@ncn.gov.pl.

Useful information

If you are intending to submit a proposal:

read all the call documents, in particular:
- terms and conditions of the call,
- regulations on awarding funding, including the section on the costs,
- proposal form template, where you can find out about the information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in the OSF submission system,
- proposal submission procedure,
- guidelines for applicants to complete the proposal in the OSF submission system;
obtain data from the host institution for the project that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (cost planned in the project, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
if the applicant is a group of Polish entities, draft a research project cooperation agreement;
prepare acceptance letters from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section includes papers accepted for publication that have not been published yet).

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in the OSF submission system by pressing the “Sprawdź kompletność” (“Check completeness”) button does not guarantee that all information has been entered correctly and that the required annexes have been attached;
check if all tabs have been completed in the correct language according to the proposal form template;
disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the entity;
upload the signed confirmation of proposal submission.

Once the proposal has been completed and the required annexes attached, use the “Wyślij do NCN” (“Send to NCN”) button to submit the proposal to the NCN electronically via the OSF submission system.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

evaluation of proposals will be carried out;;
after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision by the NCN Director will be communicated;
if the proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into;
the project will be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement and regulations.

Call documents:

Terms and conditions of the call
Regulations on awarding funding
Panels
Regulations for awarding scholarships
Costs in research projects
Proposal form template
Research project cooperation agreement (obligatory when a group of entities applies; in Polish)
State aid
Guidelines for applicants to complete the proposal in the OSF submission system
Guidelines for applicants to complete the data management plan
Guidelines for applicants to complete the ethics issues form
Open science
Code of the NCN on research integrity and applying for research funding
Proposal submission procedure

Documents applicable to the evaluation of proposals:

Documents to be read before commencing projects:

Agreement template (draft version that may be amended when the agreement is signed with the NCN)
Procedure for auditing
Guidelines for auditors of research projects
NCN Council Resolution on collaboration with the Russian Federation within the framework of NCN-funded grants
Information on personal data processing

MAESTRO 17

Read more about MAESTRO 17

16 June 2025

The National Science Centre (NCN) is launching the MAESTRO 17 call for research projects for well-established and outstanding researchers aiming to conduct pioneering research, including interdisciplinary research, which is significant for the development of science, goes beyond the current state-of-the-art and may result in scientific discoveries.

The budget call is PLN 25 million.

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system available at https://osf.opi.org.pl, in compliance with the proposal submission procedure. The proposal form will be available in the system on 18 June. The deadline for the submission is 16 September 2025, 14:00 CEST.

Significant changes:

researchers who had their PhD conferred in the year of employment in the project or within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project can apply for the post-doc position (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks);
review panels have been changed.

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Who may submit proposals?

The call is open to the entities identified in the NCN Act:

university;
federation of science and higher education entities;
research institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, operating pursuant to the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796, as amended);
research institute operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 534);
international research institute established pursuant to separate Acts, operating in the Republic of Poland;
- 5a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 925 and 1089);
- 5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;
- 5c. Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education operating pursuant to the Act on the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 570 and 1897);
Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
other entity involved in research independently on a continuous basis (not listed in sections 1-6);
group of entities consisting of at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company;
scientific and industrial centre within the meaning of the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2022, item 498);
research centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences within the meaning of the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796);
scientific library;
company operating as research and development centre within the meaning of the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovative Activity of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws of 2021, item 706 and of 2022, item 1079);
legal entity with their registered office in Poland
- 13a. President of the Central Office of Measures;
natural person;
company conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13a.

Who may act as the principal investigator?

The principal investigator must be at least a PhD holder who, in the proposal submission year or within the last 10 years (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the call):

has had at least five papers published in renowned Polish or international academic press/journals;
has acted as the principal investigator in at least two research projects funded under national or international calls for proposals (acting as the principal investigator also means managing/coordinating the work of a research group in international research projects or programmes);
meets at least three of the following criteria:
- has been a member of a scientific committee of at least one prestigious international conference,
- has published at least one monograph,
- has presented papers at prestigious international conferences,
- has received an international award or prize,
- has been a member of prestigious associations, international scientific organisations or academies,
- has other significant scientific achievements,

for research in art, a person who is an author of works of art of international significance or works significant for the Polish culture and has actively participated in international exhibitions, festivals, artistic events in fine arts, music, theatre and film.

The principal investigator who has managed a research project funded under MAESTRO may submit a funding proposal for another research project under MAESTRO as long as they meet at least one of the following conditions:

they are the European Research Council (ERC) grant winners,
they have submitted a grant proposal to the ERC over the past five years which has been evaluated at least in stage I of the call.

What are the restrictions on submitting proposals for research projects under NCN calls?

No person may manage more than one project financed in the MAESTRO call at the same (project management applies to the period from the date of signing the funding agreement under NCN calls until the date of submitting the final report on the project performance).

In one edition of calls, no proposal may be submitted with overlapping research tasks.

manages at least one project funded under an OPUS call within the framework of LAP cooperation or under a call launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies or
is named as the principal investigator in at least one proposal submitted to the NCN that is pending evaluation or has been recommended for funding under an OPUS call within the framework of LAP cooperation or a call launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies.

The table below illustrates the eligible funding requests..

Number of the research projects I manage¹ and the proposals I have submitted²			Can I submit another proposal?
Total	Research projects OR proposals in domestic calls³	Research projects OR proposals in International calls⁴	In a domestic call	In an International call
0	0		YES	YES
1	1		YES	YES
2	2	0	NO	YES
2	1	1	YES	YES
2	0	2	YES	YES
≥3	3		NO	NO

¹ Project management applies to the period from the date of signing the funding agreement under NCN calls until the date of submitting the final report on the project performance.

²The limit applies to proposals pending evaluation or recommended for funding.

³Research projects or proposals under NCN calls: OPUS, PRELUDIUM, SONATINA, SONATA, SONATA BIS, MAESTRO and research projects under HARMONIA, SYMFONIA, COVID-19.

⁴ The calls launched by the NCN in collaboration with foreign research-funding agencies:

calls launched under programmes co-funded by the European Union – ERA-Net and European Partnership (UNISONO, POLONEZ, POLONEZ BIS);
calls launched by the networks of research-funding institutions, which are not co-funded by the European Union, including within the framework of LAP cooperation (OPUS LAP/WEAVE, WEAVE UNISONO, IMPRESS-U);
bilateral calls of the NCN and foreign partner institutions (GRIEG, POLS, IDEALAB, BEETHOVEN, BEETHOVEN CLASSIC, BEETHOVEN LIFE, CEUS, MOZART, ALPHORN, DAINA, SHENG).

The limits do not apply to:

PRELUDIUM BIS, DIOSCURI, TANGO and ARTIQ projects/proposals,
MINIATURA research activities/proposals,
NAWA research components/proposals,
FUGA and UWERTURA fellowships,
ETIUDA scholarships,
NCN Programme for researchers from Ukraine to continue research in Poland and NCN special scholarship programme for Ukrainian students and early-stage researchers.

What is the subject-matter of the call?

Basic research proposals may be submitted to the call in any of 26 NCN panels. The panels comprise the three groups:

HS – Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences;
ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering;
NZ – Life Sciences.

What is the project duration?

Funding may be requested for projects lasting 36, 48 or 60 months.

What are the types of positions for research team members?

In research projects, in addition to the principal investigator, research tasks may be carried out by post-docs, senior researchers and persons in specialist supporting position, PhD students and students, as well as by other co-investigators. The involvement of post-doc(s) or PhD student(s) for the total period of at least 72 months is obligatory.

A senior researcher position is a full-time employment position, co-financed by the host institution to provide employment at this position and scheduled by the principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree at least 7 years before the proposal submission date and has expertise, unique competencies and experience necessary to perform the tasks in the project.

PhD students/students, who will be NCN scholarship recipients in the project, must be recruited in an open call procedure.

For more information on the budget for salaries and scholarships, please refer to the section on the costs of the regulations on awarding funding.

How should the project budget be planned?

The budget is an important aspect of the proposal, which is the subject to an eligibility check and a merit-based evaluation.

Direct costs include::

full-time remuneration for the principal investigator;
remuneration for co-investigators in the project:
- full-time remuneration for post-docs,
- full-time remuneration for a senior researcher,
- full-time remuneration for a person in specialist supporting position,
- salaries and scholarships for PhD students and students,
- additional remuneration for research team members; if the principal investigator is not employed full-time in the project, their remuneration is paid for from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;
purchase of research equipment, devices and software;
purchase of materials and small equipment;
outsourced services;
business trips, visits and consultations;
compensation for collective investigators;
other costs crucial to the project which comply with the regulations on awarding funding.

Indirect costs include::

indirect costs up to 20% of direct costs, which may be spent on costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data,
indirect cost of open access up to 2% of direct costs, which may be designated only for the cost of open access to publications or research data.

In the case of entities applying for state aid, indirect costs, including indirect costs of open access and other indirect costs, must not exceed a total of 20 % of direct cost.

During the project performance, the host institution shall arrange with the principal investigator for the distribution of at least 25 % of other indirect costs. These expenses must be eligible.

For more information on the eligibility of the costs, please refer to the section on the costs of the regulations on awarding funding.

Open access to research results

Pursuant to the NCN Open Access Policy, all research results must be made available in full and immediate open access.

The policy does not apply to monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works.

The NCN recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with the policy:

publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ);
publication in subscription journals (hybrid journals in which some of the articles are open access and some require payment of a publication fee), as long as the Version of Record (VoR, i.e. a version of record published in a journal with its own typeface and branding; other terms: published version or publisher’s pdf), Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, i.e. the final manuscript version created by the author, including all the revisions introduced after the peer review, and accepted for publication in the journal; other terms: postprint) or preprint (if AAM and VoR are embargoed) is made available in the repository registered in OpenDOAR immediately upon the article’s online publication (in case of preprints, once the embargo period is over, AAM of the same work must also be made available in the repository);
publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements, which must be inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry), as long as the article has been published or accepted for publication before 31 December 2025 (Decision of the NCN Director of 15 December 2024 extending route 3 of the transformation agreements under the NCN’s Open Access Policy).

Articles must be published using the following licences:

route 1: CC BY 4.0 licence;
route 2: a preprint must be made available in the repository using CC BY 4.0 licence upon the article’s online publication on the publisher’s website (once the embargo period is over, the AAM of the same paper can be made available using any licence);
route 3: the following licences can be used: CC BY 4.0; CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0.

Eligibility of Article Processing Charges:

route 1: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0 licences are used;
route 2: costs are not eligible and must not be covered by NCN funds;
route 3: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0 licences are used.

What should be included in a proposal?

research project title (in Polish and in English);
research project abstract;
research project abstract for the general public (in Polish and in English, one page for each);
research project descriptions, which shall include scientific goal of the project, significance of the project, general concept and work plan, research methodology and project literature (project literature does not count towards the page limit):
- short description (up to 5 pages),
- long description (up to 15 pages);
work plan presenting research tasks (in Polish and in English);
information on the research team:
- information on the principal investigator, including, among others:
  - academic and research career,
  - the list of five to ten most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year, including at least five publications published in prestigious Polish or international academic presses/journals; one to three of the papers referred to above must be annexed in pdf format,
    for research in art, the list of two to ten most important artistic achievements of international significance or works significant for the Polish culture and the list of up to ten the most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; if one or more publications are specified, one to three of the papers referred to above must be annexed in pdf format,
  - information on research project management or other research funding awarded under NCN calls in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year,
  - information on research project management awarded under other national or international calls in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year (up to five projects);
  - description of up to three most important research achievements,
  - keynote speeches and presentations delivered at prestigious international conferences; in case of research in arts, active participation in international exhibitions, festivals, artistic events;
- if applicable: information on the senior researcher, including, among others:
  - academic and research career,
  - the list of one to ten most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year,
    for research in art, the list of one to ten most important papers published or accepted for publication (letter of acceptance required) or artistic achievements and achievements in research in art in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year,
  - other significant research achievements,
  - justification of their employment as a senior researcher;
(the period of 10 years referred to above may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the call)
- information on the required qualifications and scope of work planned of each co-investigator in the research project;
research project budget;
if applicable: information on international cooperation as well as description of related advantages;
information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of a research project;
information on the ethical aspects of the project, including any consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the project in compliance with generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline;
in the case of research projects which include clinical trials with a medicinal product or a medical device, a detailed justification of the non-commercial nature of the trials.

Can proposals in this call include application for state aid?

What is the proposal evaluation procedure?

Proposals are subject to an eligibility check followed by a merit based-evaluation.

Eligibility check

Merit-based evaluation

For more information on evaluation process, please refer to the proposal evaluation procedure for the Expert Teams.

What is reviewed in the merit-based evaluation of proposals?

The evaluation of proposals shall focus in particular on the following aspects:

compliance with the basic research criterion;
principal investigator’s compliance with the criterion of well-established and outstanding researcher;
quality of research and innovative nature of research or tasks to be performed;
project’s impact on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
evaluation of feasibility of research;
scientific achievements of the principal investigator;
evaluation of other projects carried out by the principal investigator and funded by the NCN or from other sources;
relevance of the costs to the subject and scope of the research;
development of the proposal and compliance with other requirements of the call text.

The proposal evaluation criteria are described in detail in the regulations on funding awarding.

Who performs the merit-based evaluation of proposals?

A merit-based evaluation is performed by the Expert Teams based on the terms and conditions of the call and the proposal evaluation criteria defined by the regulations on funding awarding.

When and how are the call results announced?

The call results will be published on the NCN website and delivered in the form of the NCN Director’s decision within 6 months of the proposal submission date, by March 2026 at the latest.

Where can additional information be found?

For more information, please visit the page containing the information for applicants.

Should you have any more questions or queries, please contact us by e-mail: informacja@ncn.gov.pl.

Useful information

If you are intending to submit a proposal:

read all the call documents, in particular:
- terms and conditions of the call,
- regulations on awarding funding, including the section on the costs,
- proposal form template, where you can find out about the information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in the OSF submission system,
- proposal submission procedure,
- guidelines for applicants to complete the proposal in the OSF submission system;
obtain data from the host institution for the project that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (cost planned in the project, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
if the applicant is a group of Polish entities, draft a research project cooperation agreement;
prepare acceptance letters from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section includes papers accepted for publication that have not been published yet).

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in the OSF submission system by pressing the “Sprawdź kompletność” (“Check completeness”) button does not guarantee that all information has been entered correctly and that the required annexes have been attached;
check if all tabs have been completed in the correct language according to the proposal form template;
disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the entity;
upload the signed confirmation of proposal submission.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

evaluation of proposals will be carried out;
after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision by the NCN Director will be communicated;
if the proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into;
the project will be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement and regulations.

Call documents:

Documents applicable to the evaluation of proposals:

Documents to be read before commencing projects:

Agreement template (draft version that may be amended when the agreement is signed with the NCN)
Procedure for auditing
Guidelines for auditors of research projects
NCN Council Resolution on collaboration with the Russian Federation within the framework of NCN-funded grants
Information on personal data processing

Call 2025 Pre-Announcement

In September 2025, the QuantERA III Consortium will launch a Call for Transnational Research Proposals – Call 2025.

The Call 2025 will support projects in the area of:

Quantum Phenomena and Resources,
Applied Quantum Science.

Projects that will be awarded funding must address at least one of the following topics:

Quantum communication,
Quantum computing,
Quantum simulation,
Quantum sensing and metrolog,
General quantum science.

Proposals may be submitted by international consortia consisting of at least three partners eligible for funding from at least three countries participating in the Call. The standard consortium comprises 3 to 6 partners.

To support the creation of research consortia, applicants are encouraged to use the Partner Search Tool designed for projects seeking partners and partners seeking projects.

For more information on the call, visit the QuantERA website.

Contact: quantera@ncn.gov.pl

QuantERA is a network that brings together research funding organisations from over 30 European countries, as well as Israel, Turkey, and South Korea. Since 2016, first as QuantERA I and II, and now as QuantERA III, it has been advancing quantum technologies and driving technological innovation by funding international research projects. The network actively promotes cross-border collaboration, monitors European strategies in this field, and develops guidelines for responsible research conduct. QuantERA is coordinated by the National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland. The QuantERA Call 2025 will involve 29 countries.

Suspension of the call for proposals under IMPRESS-U

The National Science Centre was notified by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) that funding to support Ukrainian research teams under IMPRESS-U was unavailable. Therefore, acting pursuant to Point 3 (4) of the NCN Council Resolution on the terms of the International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine (IMPRESS-U) call for research projects carried out as multilateral collaboration under the IMPRESS-U programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure, the NCN Director has decided to suspend the IMPRESS-U call for proposals until 30 September 2025.

If the US NSF receives funding to support Ukrainian research teams by 30 September 2025, the NCN call for proposals will be reopened. Otherwise, the IMPRESS-U call for proposals will be discontinued pursuant to Point 3 (5) of the Resolution, of which you will be notified on the NCN website.

IMPRESS-U Call Announcement

IMPRESS-U funded projects

Effective Collaboration with Decision-Makers

Report on Use of Social Research in Public Administration

The report “Understanding end-users of social research in Polish public administration” was drafted by Dr. hab. Karol Olejniczak and Dr hab. Dominika Wojtowicz, both engaged in designing effective public policy solutions on a daily basis. The report was commissioned by the National Science Centre as part of the Science and Society initiative supported by EEA and Norway Grants.

Research in the area of humanities and social sciences is particularly important against the backdrop of societal challenges, such as climate change, demographic shifts, economic inequality, and public health crisis, when hard data must be supported by insight into the attitudes, motivations, and values of various social groups offered by knowledge in humanities and social sciences.

The report shows how researchers specialising in humanities and social sciences may effectively transform their work into practice. The key is to understand public administration, its working rhythm, decision-making processes as well as political and information challenges faced by civil servants. “We would like to help them understand decision-makers and explain why, for example, they don’t always read lengthy books or comprehensive analyses,” says Karol Olejniczak.

The report is also addressed to the National Science Centre. “Evidence-based policy-making is a challenge across Europe, which is why we need to learn how to support the use of research findings in the public policy-making and evaluation processes,” says Barbara Świątkowska from the EEA and Norway Grants Team and Social Transformations and Resilience European Partnership Team.

Dr Malwina Gębalska, STR coordinator points out that for the NCN that cooperates with researchers on a daily basis, the report is “the first step to learn the decision-makers’ perspective which can let us better design our future efforts to support collaboration between the two communities, for example in international calls.”

Surveys and Interviews

15 representatives of public administration and 13 former prime ministers were interviewed. The team’s former research and literature review were also used. “We wanted to interview people across different levels of decision-making system, including principal investigators, high-level strategists and those bridging the gap between political priorities and public policy. We did not focus on ensuring a wide range of representatives but wanted to explore various perspectives,” says Karol Olejniczak.

Five factors determine the use of social research by public administration. “For knowledge to be useful and contribute to decision-making, one must understand the mechanisms behind it, although some things are beyond the researchers’ control. Firstly, one needs to understand the problem addressed by the public policy. Secondly, it is necessary to identify the decision-making environment and information needs of policy-makers, and thirdly, their communication preferences and ways to use knowledge,” says Karol Olejniczak.

Problems

The problems of public administration are hardly ever clear and simple as conflicting goals need to be navigated, access to data is limited, and decisions are often taken in uncertain circumstances. These are the so-called wicked problems that are hard to define and cannot be definitively solved, but require ongoing adaptation rather than one-time solutions. Therefore, instead of offering simple answers, researchers should promote the process of learning by supporting efforts to understand the challenges of life, understand stakeholder priorities, and explore potential courses of action.

Decision-Making Process – Stages

Decision-makers need all types of knowledge, depending on the stage of decision-making process. Research findings can help them notice the problem, understand the reasons behind it, compare possible solutions or support implementation and evaluation of policies. “Sometimes, decision-makers need immediate input right away to confirm or challenge their initial assessment, and sometimes they look for technical recommendations that are ready to be put into practice,” says Karol Olejniczak.

Target Audience

Research knowledge is used by people who have different tasks, experiences and types of work, including senior politicians, policy designers and implementers with different needs and expectations as regards the form and contents of information.

Communication

Some might find short summaries, diagrams, narratives and example-based content more appealing than detailed elaborations.

Dialogue and Trust

The authors point out that successful collaboration between science and public administration depends on the quality of research as well as trust and strong working relations. Public servants more likely use the reports and analyses prepared by persons and institutions they already know and have head positive experiences with. “Effective communication starts with a dialogue. If we want research findings to truly support policy-making, we need to know more not only about the contents but also the format, timing and target, and remember that trust and relations must come first, before knowledge can be shared,” says Karol Olejniczak.

Recommendations for research-funding agencies include the development of cooperation platforms, e.g. networks addressing specific challenges combined with enhanced communication skills of researchers: training courses addressing ways of talking about research and creating brief summaries and diagrams with data addressed to specific audience.

Full text of the report in .pdf

Research on the effect of light on plants

Researchers from the University in Toruń in cooperation with researchers from Austria will carry out a research project under Weave-UNISONO. They will analyse the processes triggered by the absorption of light energy by photoreceptors.

Dr hab. Krzysztof Jaworski from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń is the principal investigator of the project “Light signalling via cAMP/cGMP second messengers in plants” carried out in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria headed by Prof. Jiří Friml.

The Polish and Austrian research teams will study signal transmission within the cell or between neighbouring cells that determines the survival of the plant organism.

The ability of the cell to receive signals depends on the presence of appropriate receptors that are activated in response to a stimulus. This triggers a sequence of physico-chemical reactions of transmitting information to the effector and triggering a physiological response adequate to the stimulus. This process, called signal transduction, has been relatively well studied and documented. The recent studies of the research team shows that there are elements in the structure of these proteins and in the transduction of the light signal which still need to be discovered and considered. In the project submitted to Weave-UNISONO, the researchers will focus on the characteristic sequences encoding adenylate and guanylate cyclases, i.e. enzymes responsible for the synthesis of cyclic nucleotides (cNMP), cAMP and cGMP, molecules referred to as secondary messengers.

The proposal was evaluated by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and their outcome was approved by the National Science Centre under the Weave collaboration. The NCN will provide funding of over PLN 1 million to the Polish research team, while the Austrian team will fund by FWF.

Weave-UNISONO ranking lists

Ranking list No. 13/2024 (pdf)

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure

Weave-UNISONO is launched within the framework of multilateral cooperation between research funding agencies associated in Science Europe. The programme aims to simplify the submission and selection procedure of research proposals in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The selection process relies on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) according to which a full merit-based evaluation is performed by one partner institution, whilst the other partners approve its results.

Under the Weave programme, partner research teams submit their funding proposals to the lead agency as well as their respective research-funding agencies. Joint proposals must include a coherent research programme and identify the added value of international cooperation.

Weave-UNISONO is carried out on an ongoing basis. Research teams intending to cooperate with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to read the cal text and submit their funding proposals.

Weave-UNISONO ranking lists

Weave-UNISONO Call Announcement

Your Voice on the Future of Education

Contribute to a new survey on the future of education and skills development in the face of green and digital transformation. The future of education is one of the impact areas of the candidate European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience.

As part of the initiative, a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) is being developed to guide the Partnership activities as of 2026.

By completing the survey, you will help us validate key trends and assess their impact on the future of work as well as identify any missing trends or overlooked developments. Share this survey with relevant stakeholders in your country, in particular researchers, government ministries, NGOs, public institutions and think tanks.

The survey will take 5 – 20 minutes to complete, depending on how much information you choose to share. The responses are anonymous and will only be used for research purposes.

The survey is open until 16 June 2025.

Podcast No 4, 2025: Ambassadors for Science

Why is seeking grant funding a smart move? What are the barriers facing Polish researchers? What steps should be taken to enhance the position of science in Europe? Prof. Justyna Olko and Prof. Michał Tomza, NCN and ERC grant recipients discuss the role of ambassadors for the ERC.

Prof. Justyna Olko, historian, sociolinguist and ethnologist, heads the Centre for Research and Practice in Culture Continuity at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw. She is a recipient of two ERC grants. Prof. Michał Tomza specialises in the quantum description of matter at ultralow temperatures, including interactions and collisions between ultracold atoms, ions and molecules. He works at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. Prof. Tomza is a former NCN Award winner and ERC Starting Grant recipient.

Prof Olko and Prof. Tomza are among Ambassadors for the European Research Council that funds groundbreaking research projects. Apart from encouraging grant applications, 32 ambassadors from 26 countries are anticipated to foster knowledge exchange, elevate the role of science in society and support efficient research funding.

“The ambassador role is still evolving,” says Prof. Michał Tomza, adding that it is a grassroots initiative that builds on collaboration with other researchers, institutions and research community. “We want to exchange experience, encourage grant applications and highlight the vital role of independent science. GPS, Internet, electricity, much of what we use today, comes out of sheer curiosity. This is why it’s essential to build an ecosystem that enables research to flourish, even when its potential application remains uncertain,” he says.

Prof. Justyna Olko emphasises that it is the ambassadors’ obligation to promote research against the backdrop of current social, political and economic challenges. “Science does not exist in a vacuum but helps us understand social dynamics, respond to climate challenges and build resilience against disinformation. It is more than just technological innovations. Knowledge in the humanities, culture and education matters, although in a different dimension,” she says.

My guests emphasise that the strict division between basic and applied research is often misleading. “History, anthropology, cultural studies often equip us with tools to understand reality and anticipate threats. In that sense, they are just as applicable,” explains Prof. Olko.

Why are Polish researchers rarely among ERC grant recipients?

In the history of the ERC, over the past 18 years, researchers working in Poland have received less than 100 grants, which is clearly below Poland’s average scientific potential. The ambassadors point to several reasons, such as slow career progress (the system fails to encourage the development of early career researchers), insufficient institutional support, lack of trust and excessive bureaucracy. How can that be changed? “We need to support young talent that drives the system forward. The NCN has done a lot already but further encouragement is necessary,” says Prof. Olko. My guests emphasise the importance of mentoring support and advocate for participation in such programmes as ERC Mentoring Initiative or Excellence in Science Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

At the end of our interview, both ambassadors share some tips for future applicants.

Interview hosted by Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz.

The podcast is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and on YouTube.

Selected quotes

Professor Justyna Olko:

“The role of [ERC ambassadors] was introduced for the first time at the initiative of the Association of ERC Grantees. We are expected to have responded to the challenge in order to promote the ERC in view of the current social, economic, political and other challenges facing the world.”

“As far as I am concerned, the division between basic and applied research is artificial. Each research project, given enough time, has the potential to influence non-academic reality.”

“The ability to apply and implement research findings must not be mistaken for commercialisation. Social, educational and cultural demands, including environmental knowledge and protection of resources, require accessible knowledge and application, not necessarily in the commercial context.”

„Structurally, for me the most important aspect [of the ERC] is the confidence it places in researchers. Trust faces strong headwinds everywhere, yet the ERC allows grants to be adjusted thoughtfully and as needed, in response to new challenges.”

“On the other hand, we must wonder how to use the knowledge, lessons learnt from projects and discoveries for reflection, to find time to disseminate the knowledge so that it makes its way into education and public awareness.”

Professor Michał Tomza:

“I hope that with the label of ambassadors, we will be able to discuss and convince Polish policy-makers about the importance of basic research funding more efficiently and perhaps even officially.”

“The first and perhaps most fundamental aspect of research is that its direction and outcomes are usually unpredictable. As a physicist, I can point to numerous examples: GPS, internet, transistors or even electricity. Most of them initially involved basic research, with no direct industrial motivation or clear application in mind at the time.”

“If we want to develop startups or other highly commercial projects knowing how to turn scientific discoveries into products, we need a pool of talent and potential that is generated at the fundamental level. Without them, competitive economy and technologically advanced applications are simply out of reach.”

“NCN grants are absolutely priceless. It is obvious that most ERC grant recipients are former NCN grant winners. As far as I am concerned, if not for many projects funded by the NCN pre-ERC, I would have stood no chance at all in ERC grant calls.”

“An ERC project must be very ambitious. What is important, it must tackle new and interesting topics that are of genuine interest to the applicant.”

Ambassadors of the European Research Council, photo ERC

Research and ERC evaluation process have already been addressed in our Podcast No 2/2025, when we talked to Prof. Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, art historian and Prof. Ewelina Knapska, neuroscientist, as well as in Podcast No 4/2024 in an interview with prof. Artur Obłuski, archaeologist and Prof. Piotr Sankowski, computer scientist.

A story that works

“Narratives provide us with the tools so sorely lacking in traditional forms of science communication,” says Prof. Wojciech Małecki. The researcher explores how narratives – literary and media – influence our attitudes and behaviour. He talks to Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz about how a good story can attract attention and increase engagement, but also lead to unexpected outcomes.

Wojciech Małecki, photo Alina Metelytsia Professor Wojciech Małecki – a literary scholar from the University of Wrocław – combines a humanistic approach with the tools of experimental psychology. He is interested in how stories influence our perception of the world.

His first NCN-funded project explored how narratives shape people's attitudes towards animals and their welfare.
He is currently examining how literature affects the way we think about climate change. Around 20,000 people from three continents will participate in the research envisaged by this project.
He also conducts research on gender stereotypes in science – previously as head of a study involving 800 Polish high school students, and now as a member of an international team investigating these phenomena in academia.

Experiment with Matilda

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz: When we developed the Gender Equality Plan at NCN, I assumed that promoting women in male-dominated fields – and men in feminised fields – could help break down stereotypes and promote gender equality. In light of your research, is it an effective strategy?

Wojciech Małecki: Such activities, i.e. highlighting women's presence and achievements in science as a way of promoting equality, fall in line with well-known psychological theories, such as social learning theory or the so-called stereotype inoculation theory.

Our experiment showed that the impact of such messages can be more complex than is usually assumed. A few years ago, we conducted a survey among high school students in which we wanted to find out whether these kinds of messages really affect the attitudes of the audience.

There are many programmes in operation today aimed at breaking stereotypes and encouraging women to choose science and technology, so we were interested to see what effect they actually produce. We also wondered whether the effectiveness of such messages depends on the field – will there be different effects in feminised areas as compared to those where women are still very scarce.

As part of the experiment, we examined whether highlighting women's contributions to a given field – in our case, mathematics, psychology, philosophy and biology – could increase high school girls' motivation to pursue these areas and strengthen their interest. It turned out that messages explicitly stating that women made the described discoveries had the opposite effect than assumed – they discouraged both girls and boys from engaging in the given field. They also made the area in question seem less interesting.

How did you check the impact of such messages?

In each of the fields analysed, we created three versions of narratives about important and interesting scientific achievements: one in which they were attributed to women, one in which they were attributed to men and a third – a neutral one, without indicating the author – where only the research outcome mattered.

Unfortunately, it was the versions with female scientists as protagonists that proved least effective – they evoked less interest in the field and proved to be discouraging.

We called this result the Reverse Matilda Effect. The classic Matilda Effect refers to a situation where – if a given field is valued and prestigious – women's contributions to its development are often diminished, overlooked or entirely erased. There are many historical examples of this phenomenon, especially in the context of awarding prizes. The most famous is the story of Rosalind Franklin, whose breakthrough data, according to various experts, enabled the discovery of the structure of DNA, but it was Watson, Crick and Wilkins who received the Nobel Prize for this discovery.

In our study, we are dealing with the opposite: whenever women's contributions are explicitly highlighted, the field begins to be perceived as less important, less prestigious. That's why we called it the Reverse Matilda Effect.

This was surprising, yet on the other hand, there are data showing that as a profession feminises, wages in it unfortunately decline. In other words, when women's participation increases, the social valuation of this work often decreases.

So, does this mean that such campaigns are basically a waste of time?

On the contrary. This serves as an argument for more and more comprehensive campaigns to promote women's participation in science. We are like the crew of a ship sailing across the ocean that must be rebuilt while still at sea. We don’t abandon it but rather transform it – refining and improving what already exists.

Our research – or at least our interpretation of its results – suggests that there are still deeply rooted beliefs about who can be perceived as a “good scientist”. There is a clear discrepancy here between the stereotype of the scientist and the stereotype of the woman.

On the one hand, we have the image of the scientist as a cool, rational, analytical person – an objective mind. On the other, there is the stereotype that psychologists refer to as women are wonderful, that is, of women as empathetic, emotional, caring people. And it just doesn't add up for people.

When someone hears that it is women who are successful in a field, and this does not fit the established image of the scientist, they may start to question the significance of the field itself. They might start to see it as less serious, less scientific – reflecting existing stereotypes rather than the actual value of the discipline. This is a very troubling mechanism.

If emphasising gender can have unintended consequences, perhaps it's better to focus solely on the discoveries themselves? But then, how do we avoid women disappearing into the shadows once again?

First, it's still crucial to highlight women's contributions to science. For years, these contributions were simply erased and that's not an opinion, but a fact. Acknowledging this is the first step. Secondly, we need narratives that showcase diversity and challenge established patterns. Without this, it is easy, even in good faith, to reinforce the belief that men are the “natural” leaders in science, with women in supporting roles.

It is important that such messages reach the youngest audiences, at an early stage of education. Children should see women active in science, successful and present in the public space as experts.

It is also important to remember that high school students constitute a very specific group, so conclusions should not be drawn for the whole population. The results of this study show only a piece of reality. Similar messages may be perceived differently in other groups.

You are now involved in similar research in academia. How do the results differ from the earlier research?

Our research involved hundreds of people from different countries and continents: female students, male and female PhD students and female researchers. Only a comparison of the results from different environments will allow for a better assessment of whether we are also dealing with a similar mechanism here.

It may be assumed that reactions in academia will be different – primarily because awareness of the existence of bias against women in science is significantly greater here. Students and doctoral students know that the problem of inequality still exists, and stereotypes still influence the functioning of science; for instance, in recruitment processes or in the representation of women at conferences, especially among plenary speakers. Thus, it can be expected that messages highlighting women's contributions to a given discipline will be received differently in this environment than by high school students, who do not yet possess the knowledge or tools to recognise and counteract such mechanisms.

Are there campaigns that you, from the perspective of a researcher and a citizen would consider well designed?

I can say that I have not seen any that appear completely missed. There are many examples, particularly in the United States, where there are activities targeted at the youngest audiences. And these are truly necessary initiatives. It is also worth remembering that, in addition to campaigns, there are major scientific projects that aim to complete the history of particular disciplines – so as to restore the memory of women's contributions. These activities are equally important.

Fiction stronger than the graph?

In your first NCN project you analysed the impact of narratives on attitudes towards animals, and now on attitudes towards climate change. Can literature influence the way we think about our planet?

Communication sciences and media psychology increasingly emphasise that traditional ways of communicating scientific information, such as statistics or dry descriptions, have limited impact. That’s why there is a growing interest in more engaging forms – such as narratives: stories and literary works, but also video games, films and series. These types of messages, concerning climate change, among other things, are present in many media today and, as research shows, are really necessary.

Is a fictional story more persuasive than data, figures or a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

Narratives help to deal with one of the key problems of climate communication, i.e. the lack of attention. Many people are not interested in climate change for various reasons. Some do not believe in it, and some, even if they recognise it as a real threat, do not see it as something that affects them directly. Psychologists speak here of a “limited resource of concern”: each of us has a limited amount of attention that we can devote to worrying about various things, so we tend to focus on what concerns ourselves, our environment and the immediate future. And climate change often fails to meet these criteria. That's why we're more worried about a broken phone than extinction of species.

Notably, each of us knows this mechanism from our daily experience – if we want to stop worrying about something, the most effective method is to find an even bigger worry. But seriously now, there are studies that confirm the limited pool of worry effect in the context of climate change. We see that when there is a major social problem – such as the economic crisis in 2008 or a pandemic – the level of public concern about climate change drops. Attention shifts to where a new, more absorbing threat has just emerged. There are, for example, interesting analyses that have shown how the number of mentions of climate change on Twitter decreased as the number of posts about pandemics grew.

Narratives, including fiction, but also other forms of storytelling, can help us because they have a remarkable ability: they can literally make any subject fascinating, no matter how boring or daunting it would seem in another context. If something is told in an attractive narrative form, it gains a whole new dimension.

We have plenty of examples in the literature. Proust, for example, who made the madeleine-eating scene something that has fascinated millions of readers for decades. And exactly the same can be done with topics such as climate change.

The classics of this literary trend include The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver and Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi. Will these books change our relationship with the planet?

The Water Knife is one of my favourite examples. It is an internationally successful, award-winning sci-fi thriller with climate change and its impact on water access in the southern United States at the centre of its plot. It is a book read by thousands, perhaps millions of people, many of whom probably had no interest in climate at all before. But thanks to this narrative form, the topic became engaging and understandable for them.

This shows that narratives can overcome the first, fundamental problem of climate communication, i.e. the lack of attention.

And is that enough?

There's also a second aspect in which narratives prove exceptionally helpful. Broadly speaking, it is a deficit of imagination. Even if we do manage to get someone interested in climate change, we still have trouble imagining it in specific, sensory terms.

Climate change is a complex process occurring simultaneously on the macro and micro scales – global temperature changes, local weather events, changes in the functioning of ecosystems or individual organisms. They are very difficult to grasp through experience. You can see this, for instance, on social media: all it takes is a winter storm in one part of the world for someone to ironically comment, "There you go, there's your global warming”.

Evolutionary psychologists point out that we are not biologically equipped to think in terms of either very large or very small scales. Our imagination works best with “medium-sized” objects: trees, chairs, people. This is why it is so difficult for us to understand astrophysics or quantum physics, for example. Colloquial language is not enough; we have to resort to the language of mathematics to convey the complexity of these phenomena.

And this is precisely where the role of narratives emerges. They can translate complex processes into concrete events and images. Narration allows you to “experience” the process in question, to empathise with the protagonist's situation, to get close to their experiences. In this way, we can indirectly experience, for example, the monstrous heatwave in India, as described, for example, in The Ministry for the Future.

This is something that conventional scientific discourse will not provide. And that's precisely why I focus on narratives – they give us tools that are so desperately missing in traditional forms of scientific communication.

Covers of selected climate change novels Which of these classics in particular allows you to “experience” climate change?

Among those I've read myself, I'd definitely emphasise The Ministry for the Future. This novel is part of the debate about which narratives are more successful: apocalyptic or utopian. Typically, catastrophic stories dominate, as it's much easier to grab an audience's attention by showcasing dramatic events, apocalypse or dystopia.

Writing convincing utopias is much more difficult because it requires presenting a whole range of concrete solutions: political, economic or technological. This can often be tedious and difficult to show in an attractive way. Kim Stanley Robinson, however, has managed this brilliantly, skilfully dosing the catastrophic and positive elements. The novel begins with a description of a monstrous heatwave in India that claims millions of victims. Critics emphasise that this chapter hits like a punch in the face – incredibly powerful, even stunning.

In the following sections, the author presents a series of global and local changes that lead to positive outcomes. Importantly, once again, this is a matter of narrative – we observe all these processes from the perspective of the people whose stories emotionally engage us. These changes are tangible, portrayed through the eyes of the characters we root for. The entire narrative takes the form of a dynamic, energetic manifesto. It makes you want to get up and do something.

And Robinson achieves all this in one book of around six hundred pages. For me, this is a model example of how to create effective narratives.

The assumption about the impact of literature has one rather fundamental limitation – the alarmingly low level of readership, at least in Poland. The National Library data shows that almost 60 per cent of us did not read a book last year.

Climate fiction is one of the hottest, nomen omen, literary trends today. Novels of this type win prestigious awards, are translated into many languages and are highlighted by literary critics, politicians and opinion leaders. One example is Richard Powers' Letters, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. This is a really important trend that deserves to be highlighted.

And when it comes to readership, of course, certain forms are losing popularity, but new forms are taking their place. Just look at the development of independent publishing platforms. The book market is still functioning; there are many bestselling authors. Moreover, when discussing the impact of literature, not only the number of readers matters, but also who is reading. Consumers are often people with important social roles – teachers, educators, people of culture. Even if the audience is narrow, its impact can be significant. Intuitively, although I don't have hard data to back this up, I would say that such people take this content further, reaching a wider audience. Therefore, when it comes to literature, I remain cautiously optimistic.

It must be added, however, that the mechanisms we explore in the context of literature also apply to other narrative forms. Our results can in all likelihood also be applied to other media – films, series, audiovisual narratives. And in their case, no one doubts anymore that they reach a much wider audience.

You mentioned that Kim Stanley Robinson's book is 600 pages long, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour is not much less. The audiobook I listened to lasted almost 17 hours. How do you find readers?

Normally, the impact of whole novels is not studied; this would prove experimentally impossible. We use extracts from novels or short stories. In doing so, we assume that the effects of reading the entire book would probably be even stronger, as longer contact with the text tends to increase the impact of the message. This method is standard.

We conduct research online, using special platforms that provide access to research panels from many countries.

We run them in Poland, the US and India. One common limitation of communication research is its focus on Western populations. We are trying to remedy this by conducting experiments with populations from the Global South, where there is still relatively little such research.

How does such an experiment work?

For example: in one part of the project, we address a question that is widely discussed in climate communication research – what kind of emotions should accompany such messages? Does a fear-based message – for example, apocalyptic visions of the future – work better, or rather a message based on hope, showing a positive goal and the way forward? There are arguments on both sides. On the one hand, it is said that fear can mobilise, but on the other, it can paralyse, exacerbate climate anxiety and deprecate mental health without leading to real changes in behaviour. On the other hand, a positive message, focused on hope, also rises concerns: it can create a sense of complacency, a mindset of "everything will be fine", so nothing actually needs to be done.

There are other methods of studying the impact of narratives – those concerning behaviour. For example, participants receive a certain pool of funds that they can distribute among various NGOs, including those working on climate protection. This makes it possible to check whether a given narrative translates into real decisions rather than just declarations.

We determine the size of the sample using statistical methods, which ensures that the survey has adequate power. This allows us to determine precisely which narrative produces a stronger impact, under what conditions and with what effect.

And how are the people selected for such a study?

Our project is based on an assumption that currently dominates climate communication, which is that there are different audience segments with different attitudes towards climate change, so messages should be tailored to the specifics of these groups. Here we use a classification developed by researchers at the Yale Climate Communication Center, known as the “Six Americas”. These researchers distinguish six types of audience: from those who are very concerned (“alarmed”) to those who reject climate change altogether.

In the experiments on utopian and catastrophic narratives, we were particularly interested in respondents from the “alarmed” and “concerned” groups, as these are the groups concerned about the climate, but their real activity in this regard is relatively low.

Is it confirmed then that an indirect message is the most effective, i.e. a combination of a narrative indicating a threat and an optimistic message?

Yes, we have confirmed a hypothesis consistent with what is described by the so-called Extended Parallel Processing Model. It points out that the best persuasive effects and the greatest motivation for action are achieved when the narrative contains both negative and positive emotions. In other words, it is more effective to integrate the element of a threat with hope than to use only a catastrophic vision or utopian “hopium”, a kind of an opium of hope.

#NCNInterview

We have recently discussed research and research career with Karolina Zielińska-Dąbkowska, architect, Krzysztof Szade, biochemist Zuzanną Świrad, geomorphologist, Anna Matysiak, demographist and economist and Różą Szwedą, polymer chemist.

The interview was originally given in Polish and later translated into English by a third-party translator.

Results of autumn round of NCN calls

Over 708 million zlotys was awarded for basic research projects submitted to OPUS 28 and SONATA 20. Funding will go to 441 researchers.

OPUS is addressed to a wide range of researchers whose scientific achievements must include at least one research paper published or accepted for publication. Scientists are not required to have any specific academic degree or title or research experience. Proposals may cover domestic projects, projects involving foreign participation and use of international research equipment by the Polish research teams. Much like in the past, OPUS 28 is also open to funding proposals for projects involving international cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) under the Weave Programme, in collaboration with research teams from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium-Flanders that apply to their respective research funding agencies under the Weave Programme.

2,039 proposals for a total of over 3.2 billion zlotys were submitted to OPUS 28+LAP/Weave, including 1,823 domestic proposals for a total of nearly 3 billion zlotys and 216 LAP proposals for over 320 million zlotys. The success rate of domestic proposals was ca. 12.8%.

The ranking list of OPUS 28 included 234 domestic projects recommended for funding for over 448 million zlotys. NCN expert teams also evaluated LAP proposals but their evaluation results must be approved by partner institutions form countries cooperating with the NCN under the Weave Programme. The ranking lists of LAP proposals will be published in the coming months (Call Timeline).

SONATA 20, another call for proposals that has been launched, is addressed to researchers with a PhD degree conferred within 2 to 7 years before the proposal submission year who are at the onset of their career in innovative research studies. 1,179 proposals were submitted to the call, for a total of over 1.3 billion zlotys, of which 207 projects (for a total of 260 million zlotys) were recommended for funding. SONATA 20 success rate was 17.6%.

The lists of projects recommended for funding under OPUS 28 and SONATA 20 as well as abstracts for the general public, are available on the website of the call results.

Ranking lists (.pdf): OPUS 28, SONATA 20

Prof. dr hab. Agnieszki Basty-Kaim from the Maj Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences is one of the winning applicants of OPUS 28. Funding will go towards her project on a new concept of inhibiting the progression of Alzheimer's disease based on the modification of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) properties by pro-resolving compounds. She will focus her research on finding new targets for potential drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative brain diseases. The proposed innovative and highly promising strategy has the potential to significantly slow down neurodegenerative processes. The researchers anticipate that the results of this approach will not only contribute to expanding basic knowledge about the effectiveness and mechanism of action of unique compounds on BBB properties but also open new horizons in the treatment of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr Asha Thomas from the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology will lead a project funded under SONATA 20, concerning human-artificial intelligence interactions and redefining knowledge creation and sharing for sustainable human resource management. The project aims to understand, develop, and redefine Human Resource Management (HRM) by exploring the integration of human-AI ecosystems within knowledge-intensive organizations across India, Poland, the UK, Malaysia, and Italy for cross-country comparisons. She will study how counterproductive knowledge behaviours such as knowledge hoarding, hiding, and withholding manifest in knowledge-intensive, international organizations.

Service of decisions modified

Decisions by the NCN Director are served on the applicants only and are not communicated to the principal investigators, if entities described in Article 27 (1)-(7) and (9) of the NCN Act, apply. If individuals apply, decisions are not communicated to the participating entity. More on service of decisions.

Ranking Lists

Ranking Lists (.pdf): OPUS 28, SONATA 20

OPUS 28 Call Text

SONATA 20 Call Text

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Fiction stronger than the graph?

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