The largest editions to date of the OPUS and SONATA calls for research projects in NCN's history have now been concluded. More than five hundred basic research grants, with a total value of almost PLN 912 million, will go to Polish research institutions.

1. Record number of proposals. More than 3,700 proposals were submitted to the OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 calls – almost 15 per cent more than a year earlier.
2. Record budget. We are allocating a total of nearly PLN 912 for project funding– the highest amount in the history of these calls.
3. More funded projects. A total of 522 projects will receive funding (this figure does not include LAP proposals). A year earlier, at the same stage, we had funded 441 projects, and 485 in 2024.
4. The growing scale of NCN calls. Researchers are submitting more and more proposals to NCN, which are processed by the same number of staff as several years ago.

The calls were announced in mid-September last year. OPUS has a broad formula and is open to all researchers, regardless of age, academic degree or career stage. Grants are available for projects carried out at Polish research institutions and lasting 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. The autumn edition of the call also includes the LAP track, through which applicants may seek funding for research carried out in cooperation with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium-Flanders under the Weave programme; the maximum duration of these projects depends on the partner country. There are no budget limits for individual projects in this call. The budget may cover, among other things, salaries, scholarships and the cost of research, including the purchase of apparatus, equipment, software and materials, outsourced services, travel, and access to international research facilities. The principal investigator may be a researcher with at least one research paper published or accepted for publication or, for research in art, at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.

SONATA is a call aimed at a specific group of researchers at an early stage of their careers. In the edition just concluded, proposals could be submitted by researchers who had been awarded their PhD degree between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2023. As in OPUS, principal investigators are required to have published research papers or have had artistic achievements or achievements in research in art. SONATA projects may last 12, 24 or 36 months. The budget may include salaries for the principal investigator and co-investigators, research costs (equipment, services, materials, travel and so on) and costs related to reducing the obligatory teaching load.

Funded projects

More than 3,700 proposals were submitted to NCN under the OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 calls. This is an unprecedentedly high number: in 2025 we received five hundred fewer proposals, and in 2022-2024 we received around three thousand proposals each time for this configuration of calls.

Proposals are subject to an eligibility check at NCN premises, performed by the coordinators. Merit-based evaluation is carried out by Expert Teams made up of researchers appointed by the NCN Council separately for each NCN review panel; because of the large number of proposals, two separate teams are appointed for some panels. In the first stage of merit-based evaluation, each proposal is reviewed individually by the team members, and the decision to shortlist it for the next stage is taken collectively by the team at its first panel meeting. The second stage of merit-based evaluation involves obtaining at least two individual reviews from external reviewers. Final decisions on whether or not to recommend a proposal for funding are taken by the Expert Team after a discussion at the second panel meeting, taking the individual reviews into account. The record number of proposals in the calls just concluded has affected the organisation of NCN's evaluation process and extended its duration.

A total of 279 OPUS projects and 243 SONATA projects have been recommended for funding, for a total of nearly PLN 912 million. The success rate by number of proposals was 13.34% in the OPUS call (excluding LAP proposals) and 18.02% in the SONATA call.

The number of OPUS 30 grant winners will increase further: today's results do not include the results for OPUS LAP proposals, that is, projects carried out by Polish research teams in international cooperation with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium-Flanders. NCN evaluated these proposals as the lead agency; now, in line with the principles of the Weave programme, the partner institutions must approve the results. We will publish information on the winning projects as approvals come in, in line with the timeline set out in the call announcement.

Full lists of projects recommended for funding, together with popular-science summaries:

• OPUS 30 AND SONATA 21 RANKING LISTS
• Ranking lists for download (PDF): OPUS 30 (without LAP), SONATA 21

Decisions and resubmitting a proposal to subsequent NCN calls

Decisions will be sent out on 11 June (rules on the service of decisions). Applicants who did not receive funding under OPUS 30+LAP/Weave and SONATA 21 and wish to apply again in subsequent calls should remember that, where the research tasks overlap with those in a previous proposal, a new proposal may be submitted only once the NCN Director's decision refusing funding has become final. This occurs once the 14-day appeal period has expired. In order to submit a new proposal in time for the calls open until 16 June, an applicant must waive the right to appeal before that deadline expires. Once such a declaration has been delivered to NCN, the decision becomes final, making it possible to resubmit the proposal in the new calls.

Applicants should submit a written declaration to NCN at ul. Twardowskiego 16, 30-312 Kraków, or electronically (signed with an advanced or qualified electronic signature in PAdES format) to the ESP: /ncn/SkrytkaESP or to the electronic delivery address: AE:PL-30168-16398-EHSIE-12.

Should you have any questions or queries, please contact the officer responsible for your proposal, as indicated in the OSF system.

On 2 June 2026, representatives of European institutions, research organisations, research infrastructures and scientific communities gathered in Brussels to discuss one of the increasingly strategic issues for European research and innovation: how to build a research data ecosystem that is secure, resilient, interoperable and sovereign. The policy discussion Research Data in Europe: Security, Sovereignty and Resilience was hosted at the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the European Union and jointly organised by the Permanent Representation, the National Science Centre Poland (NCN) and the PolSCA Office of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Brussels.

The meeting took place at a particularly important moment for Europe. As highlighted during the opening remarks, research data has become a strategic resource not only for scientific excellence but also for Europe's competitiveness, technological sovereignty and capacity to respond to major societal challenges. In the context of ongoing discussions on the future Framework Programme (FP10), the role of research data, digital infrastructures, open science and AI readiness is gaining increasing prominence. The event brought together approximately 50 participants representing various elements of the R&I ecosystem in Europe.

Research data at the heart of Europe's strategic ambitions

The meeting was opened by Magdalena Kula (Research Attaché, Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the EU), Krzysztof Jóźwiak (Director of the National Science Centre) and Tomasz Poprawka (Director, PolSCA Office of the Polish Academy of Sciences).

The first session provided a policy perspective on research data security and sovereignty in Europe. Michael Arentoft (European Commission, DG RTD), Lidia Borrell-Damian (Science Europe) and Daniel Wójcik (European Brain Council and Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS) reflected on the growing importance of research data for scientific collaboration, innovation and evidence-based policymaking. The discussion emphasised that Europe’s research data landscape remains fragmented and that stronger coordination, trusted infrastructures and long-term investments are needed to unlock the full value of data across borders and disciplines.

A recurring theme throughout the event was the need to understand data security in a broad sense. Participants agreed that security is not limited to technical protection or cybersecurity measures. It also encompasses legal and ethical safeguards, responsible governance, long-term preservation of critical datasets, and the ability to ensure trust throughout the entire data lifecycle: from collection and stewardship to sharing and reuse.

Building a trusted and resilient research data ecosystem

The panel discussion, moderated by Klaus Tochtermann, President of the EOSC Association, brought together perspectives from European and national research communities. Representatives of SURF in the Netherlands (Ron Augustus), CSC – IT Center for Science in Finland (Irina Kupiainen), EMBL (Plamena Markova) and the Institute of Oceanology PAS (Sławomir Sagan) discussed how Europe can strengthen resilience while maintaining openness and international collaboration. Panellists highlighted the importance of interoperability, sustainable digital infrastructures, data stewardship skills and trusted partnerships across the European Research Area.

Particular attention was devoted to the role of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Speakers noted that EOSC demonstrates how openness and security can reinforce rather than contradict one another. By federating distributed research data resources and promoting common standards, EOSC contributes to building a European environment based on trust, responsibility, interoperability and high-quality data management. As several participants stressed, data sovereignty should not be understood as isolation, but as the capacity to cooperate on European terms while maintaining control over critical resources and infrastructures.

The discussion concluded with a shared recognition that research data is no longer a supporting element of research projects but an increasingly decisive factor in their success and long-term impact. Building a secure, trusted and resilient European research data ecosystem will therefore require continued cooperation among policymakers, funding organisations, research infrastructures and scientific communities across Europe.

Poland in the European research data landscape

Beyond the discussion itself, the event also provided an opportunity to highlight Poland’s growing engagement in the development of the EOSC and the broader European research data ecosystem. Through the activities of the National Science Centre Poland (NCN), Polish research institutions and scientific communities are increasingly connected to European efforts aimed at advancing open science, FAIR data principles, interoperable infrastructures and responsible data stewardship. 

As one of the organisations actively involved in EOSC-related initiatives and policy discussions, NCN contributes to strengthening the integration of Polish researchers into the European Research Area, helping ensure that research data generated in Poland can be securely shared, discovered and reused within a trusted European framework. NCN coordinates the national EOSC-PL node, which has participated in the EOSC Federation since its establishment in 2025. The Polish node is developed jointly in partnership with Cyfronet AGH University of Kraków, Gdańsk University of Technology, Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw, and the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Biodegradable vascular implants and the history of one of the most important mining regions in Central Europe – these are the topics of the projects of the latest recipients of the Weave-UNISONO call, carried out by researchers from Poland and Germany.

The team from the Warsaw University of Technology, led by Dr hab. inż. Beata Butruk-Raszeja, in cooperation with the University Hospital Erlangen, will develop biodegradable nanofibrous materials for the tissue engineering of blood vessels. The researchers plan to create implants that can support the reconstruction of blood vessel walls while reducing the risk of infection and inflammation through the use of antibacterial and anti-inflammatory substances. In the future, this solution may increase the availability of effective vascular grafts for patients with cardiovascular diseases.

In turn, researchers from the University of Silesia, led by Prof. Dr hab. Ireneusz Malik, together with partners from Germany, will carry out a comprehensive study of the area inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in Tarnowskie Góry. The project will provide a better understanding of the centuries-long history of mining activity in the region and its impact on the landscape and the environment. The researchers will use geoarchaeological, geomorphological and pedological methods to identify and analyse former mining shafts and heaps. The research findings will provide new knowledge about the transformations of the post-mining landscape and the processes of its natural regeneration.

The proposals were evaluated by the German lead agency DFG, and NCN accepted the results of these evaluations under the Weave programme. The total budget allocated to the work of the Polish teams is almost PLN 1.89 million.

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure

Weave-UNISONO is a result of multilateral cooperation between the research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The winning applicants are selected pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure according to which one partner institution performs a complete merit-based evaluation of proposals, the results of which are subsequently approved by the other partners.

Under the Weave Programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the Lead Agency and their respective institutions participating in the Programme. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly identified. 

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 urged to read the call text and apply for funding.

On 21–22 May 2026, representatives of the National Science Centre (NCN) and the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) visited Reykjavík and Akureyri (Iceland) to discuss the new edition of the EEA and Norway Grants in the field of R&I. The events were organised by the Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís) in cooperation with partners from Poland and Norway.

The meetings brought together representatives of the Icelandic research community, universities, research institutes and institutions interested in international cooperation under the new funding schemes. The attendees included representatives of the Polish Embassy in Reykjavík, the Ambassador of Poland to Iceland Aleksander Kropiwnicki and Counsellor Maciej Duszyński.

Ambassador of Poland to Iceland Aleksander Kropiwnicki

New EEA and Norway Grants calls

The purpose of the visit was to present the opportunities offered by the fourth edition of the EEA and Norway Grants in the areas of basic research, applied research and innovation. During the meetings, attendees discussed the calls organised by NCN and NCBR, as well as cooperation opportunities for Polish, Norwegian and Icelandic research institutions.

The NCN representatives presented the Basic Research Programme, including GRIEG BIS, LANGSPIL, and Coordination & Capacity Kick-off and Follow-up calls. They also introduced the SPARK polar research project supporting the involvement of Icelandic partners in the research cooperation previously developed by Poland and Norway.

NCBR presented the POLNORIS call supporting applied research and innovation projects carried out by international consortia of research organisations and businesses.

Polish-Icelandic cooperation and matchmaking tool

The Polish-Icelandic research collaboration was one of the major themes of the event. The hosts emphasised the importance of long-term research partnership building and enhanced internationalisation of research by Polish and Icelandic institutions.

The new matchmaking tool developed by NCN generated considerable interest from the participants. The tool, which can be used by partners looking for projects, facilitates the formation of international research consortia ahead of the upcoming calls. The meetings demonstrated that the Icelandic research community is keen to expand cooperation with Polish research institutions and participate in new funding opportunities offered under both EEA Grants research programmes.

Shared experiences and international perspective

Marzena Oliwkiewicz-Miklasińska

The programme also featured presentations by representatives of Rannís and the Research Council of Norway. A representative of the Research Council of Norway (RCN) discussed the experiences from previous editions of the EEA and Norway Grants. The attendees had the opportunity to discuss prospects for the future cooperation between Poland, Iceland and Norway.

The importance of international cooperation was given particular attention, especially for research development and for addressing contemporary social, technological and environmental challenges.

NCN and NCBR representatives

The National Science Centre was represented by Marcin Liana, Anna Wiktor, Marzena Oliwkiewicz-Miklasińska, Joanna Węgrzycka and Michał Olejnik. Maciej Jędrzejek represented the National Centre for Research and Development.

Under the Weave-UNISONO call, researchers from Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, together with partners from Switzerland and Austria, will examine the genomes of beech forests in terms of their capacity to adapt to variable environmental conditions.

The Polish team, led by Prof. Dr hab. Jarosław Burczyk from Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, in the project entitled 'Seeing the forest through the trees: understanding the significance of individual-level genetic variation for the functioning of beech forests', together with partners from Switzerland and Austria, will investigate the importance of the genetic diversity of European beech for the ability of forests to adapt to climate change. The researchers will analyse over a thousand tree genomes from across the entire range of the species, using genomic data, environmental monitoring and remote sensing techniques. The research will provide a better understanding of why individual trees differ in their resistance to drought and other environmental factors, and which traits are heritable. The project will also produce a pangenome of European beech, presenting the full genetic diversity of the species. The results obtained are intended to help protect beech forests and to support the adaptive management of their genetic resources under progressing climate change. The Polish budget for the project is over PLN 2.5 million. The proposal was evaluated by the Swiss agency SNSF, and NCN together with the Austrian agency FWF accepted the results of this evaluation under the Weave programme.

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure

Weave-UNISONO is a result of multilateral cooperation between the research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The winning applicants are selected pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure according to which one partner institution performs a complete merit-based evaluation of proposals, the results of which are subsequently approved by the other partners.

Under the Weave Programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the Lead Agency and their respective institutions participating in the Programme. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly identified. 

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 urged to read the call text and apply for funding.

From more stable quantum computers and ultra-fast quantum internet technologies to sensors capable of detecting minute variations in gravitational fields, researchers involved in the projects selected under the QuantERA Call 2025 will work on key technologies underpinning the future quantum infrastructure. The research will combine quantum physics, photonics, mathematics, computer science, and nanotechnology. Notably, as many as seven of the awarded projects will be carried out with the participation of Polish research teams.

The fifth QuantERA call was launched in September 2025 by 34 research funding organisations from 29 countries and attracted significant interest from the scientific community from the outset. A record number of 287 proposals were submitted, from which 39 winning projects were selected. The strong interest in the Call 2025 competition demonstrates the importance of the QuantERA Programme and the need for its continuation, ensuring sustained funding for future research projects in one of the fastest-growing scientific domains. Among the awarded consortia are seven research teams from Poland, including one project coordinated by a Polish researcher. Five projects will receive funding from the National Science Centre (NCN) within the scope of basic research, one project will be funded by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) within the scope of applied research, while one of the Polish teams will finance its participation from its own resources.

– Implementation of Call 2025 reaffirmed the critical role played by the QuantERA initiative in the European quantum ecosystem. Record numbers of proposals have been received in two call topics: 148 in Quantum Phenomena and Resources and 139 in Applied Quantum Science. These figures vividly illustrate the wealth of fresh ideas and concepts that quantum research community seeks to explore through transnational collaborations. 

Thanks to the commitment of research funding organisations participating in the call and the substantial EU financial contribution, in total 39 of the highest-ranked proposals will be funded in both topics. The results of QuantERA-funded projects will undoubtedly strengthen European position in the global efforts to benefit from the second quantum revolution. – says prof. Konrad Banaszek, QuantERA Scientific Coordinator.

List of the projects with the participation of Polish research teams

• EQUALITIES – Efficient Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing via Fine-Grained Logic Gates on Qudit Codes 

  Polish Principal Investigator: prof. Remigiusz Augusiak, Center for Theoretical Physics PAS, Warsaw

  Research team comprising researchers from Austria, Finland, Germany and Spain

• HEMS – Heat and Entropy Management in Superconducting Devices 

  Polish Principal Investigator: dr Maciej Zgirski, Institute of Physics Polish Academy of Sciences

  Research team comprising researchers from Finland, Germany and Italy

• INTEGRA – Innovative Architectures for Next-Generation Trapped Atom Interferometers 

  Polish Principal Investigator: dr Jan Chwedeńczuk, University of Warsaw

  Research team comprising researchers from Austria, France, Germany and Italy

• SDPCode – Semidefinite foundations for quantum codes: convergence, bounds, and constructions

  Polish Project Coordinator dr Felix Huber, University of Gdansk

  Research team comprising researchers from France, Germany and Slovenia

• ToDiQT – Towards Device-independent Quantum Technologies

  Polish Principal Investigator: dr Felix Huber, University of Gdansk

  Research team comprising researchers from Austria, Belgium and France

• QUASIMODO – QUAntum SImulations with MulticOmponent ultracolD atOms 

  Polish Principal Investigator:  dr Emilia Witkowska, Institute of Physics Polish Academy of Sciences

  Research team comprising researchers from France, Germany, Lithuania and Spain

• QUICFIRE – QUantum Internet Components in all-FIbre REalisation for low-loss entanglement distribution  

  Polish Principal Investigator:  dr Michał Karpiński, University of Warsaw

  Research team comprising researchers from Austria and United Kingdom

A list of experts who evaluated in 2025 proposals submitted to the following calls of the National Science Centre as Expert Team members:

• MAESTRO 16, SONATA BIS 14 announced on 17 June 2024; 
• OPUS 28 + LAP / WEAVE, SONATA 20 announced on 16 September 2024; 
• SONATINA 9, SHENG 4 announced on 16 December 2024; 
• MINIATURA 9 announced on 3 February 2025;
• OPUS 29, PRELUDIUM 24 announced on 17 March 2025. 

List of experts in alphabetical order

List of experts in alphabetical order: MINIATURA 9

We wish to acknowledge all the Experts for their commitment and contribution in the evaluation of proposals submitted to the above calls for proposals

The NCN Generation is made up of researchers whose work pushes the boundaries of knowledge and changes our lives – improving health, protecting the environment, advancing technology and deepening our understanding of the world. The protagonist of episode 5 is Maciej Trusiak, who builds lensless microscopes that can image hundreds of thousands of cells in a single frame. Thanks to them, it is possible to check, immediately after a sample is collected, whether a biopsy is suitable for further analysis.

Maciej Trusiak is a professor at the Faculty of Mechatronics of the Warsaw University of Technology, where he leads the computational imaging group. As he himself emphasises, from the very beginning he was driven to “ask his own questions, follow his own path, and pursue his own goals, plans and dreams”. He started out on his own, and today he leads a team of 15. His research is funded by NCN and the European Research Council.

A simple device with a concrete application

An oncological diagnosis often begins with the collection of a small sample – cells or tissue – for example a thyroid smear. A histopathologist assesses it only after the slide has been stained, which takes time, and sometimes it turns out that the material was collected incorrectly and the biopsy has to be repeated.

The lensless microscope developed by Maciej Trusiak’s team makes it possible to check the quality of the specimen immediately after collection, before it goes on for further processing. This makes it possible to detect more quickly that a biopsy needs to be repeated, sparing the patient valuable time. As the researcher emphasises, the device will not replace the histopathologist, but it can become a tool for their preliminary assessment. The first research units are already being installed in the laboratories of biologists and physicians. Implementing a clinical version requires a manufacturing partner and – as the researcher himself estimates – several years of work. The design itself is, moreover, very inexpensive: the camera costs around one hundred dollars, the light source is an LED, and the sample is placed on an ordinary glass slide.

A hologram instead of a lens

A classical microscope magnifies the image using a system of lenses, and the drawback of such a solution is the small field of view – only a few cells can be observed at a time. In lensless microscopy there are no lenses. The sample lies directly above the camera sensor and is illuminated by a beam of light which – passing through the thin specimen – undergoes slight scattering. The undisturbed wave and the wave disturbed by the sample overlap and form a hologram on the sensor array. The image is produced only at a second stage, numerically: an algorithm reverses the propagation of the light and reconstructs the structure of the sample.

Such an arrangement makes it possible to image an entire cell culture – tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of cells at once. This increases the chance of capturing significant phenomena and reduces the risk of drawing erroneous conclusions on the basis of a fragment. The lensless microscope also copes with transparent samples, which do not absorb light and remain invisible to a classical camera. For this purpose it uses phase contrast – a mechanism described in the 1930s by Frits Zernike (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1953). Different intracellular structures – the nucleus, mitochondria, the cytoskeleton – delay the passing light wave to varying degrees, and reconstructing these delays makes it possible to distinguish them within the cell without the need to stain it.

A world record in lensless tomography

Lensless microscopy is currently being developed at many centres around the world – in the United States, China, Germany and the Netherlands. The common goal is to obtain as much information as possible from a single measurement: a wide field of view, a large measurement volume and high contrast when imaging transparent samples. A particular challenge remains tomography, that is, three-dimensional imaging.

The previous world record belonged to the team of Prof. Aydogan Ozcan from UCLA, who imaged a slice of mouse brain 200 micrometres thick. The team from the Warsaw University of Technology has pushed this limit to 500 micrometres, taking into account the phenomenon of multiple light scattering and numerically reversing it. The paper describing this result has been accepted for publication in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

Selected quotes

An advantage over the classical microscope

Classical microscopes allow you to image five to ten cells, which means we have a field of view at least ten thousand times larger. I like to think that this gives us two advantages. Firstly, we increase the probability that we will see something interesting, because we image all the cells. And the second thing is that we lower the probability that we will make some kind of error. If we look only at a fragment of a larger whole, we can very easily form a false impression and misjudge the situation.

Application in diagnostics

The best application that comes to my mind is to assist in diagnostics. (…) We take a smear, for example from the thyroid, we have a sample prepared for examination, but we do not know whether it is diagnostic. The histopathologist first has to stain it, look at it, and may then say that the biopsy was collected incorrectly. And we, before all this happens and we lose valuable time – especially for oncology patients – can quickly check whether the specimen was collected properly.

It begins with curiosity

(…) research on lizard venom led to a change in the treatment of diabetes and in human weight loss. It did not begin with the production of medicines at all. Curiosity is absolutely the most important thing, and it is at the start of every discovery. To realise that curiosity, funding is needed. The National Science Centre is essentially the only body in Poland that funds such research. It is very good that it exists – I would like the NCN budget to be at least doubled.

What does NCN mean for researchers?

I have been using funding from the National Science Centre since PRELUDIUM, which my mentor, Professor Krzysztof Patorski, helped me to write. The OPUS and SONATA grants were an absolute foundation that enabled me to apply for an ERC grant at all. I managed to secure it thanks to the experience I had previously gained by delivering NCN grants and building a team. Independence comes from funding – without NCN’s programmes I would not be in science.

We would like to invite researchers interested in the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) for Social Sciences and Humanities call Preparing for Tomorrow – Societies and Strategies in Times of Transition (P4T Call 2026), to participate in the live webinar on Monday, 8th of June 2026, 15:00 (CEST). During the webinar, general rules and key features of the call will be presented, followed by a Q&A session. The webinar will be conducted in English.

Click here to join the event.

About P4T Call

The “Preparing for Tomorrow – Societies and Strategies in Times of Transition” Call covers four main themes:

1. Uncertainty: sources, costs, communication, and improvement;
2. The many faces of the future and crisis: historical, cultural, and regional perspectives;
3. Scope and coordination of response strategies;
4. Normative inquiry into prevention and preparation for future crises.

The themes are described in more detail in the call text available on the website of the T-AP.

Funding proposals may be submitted by international consortia composed of at least 3 research teams from at least 3 countries participating in the call from both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. Poland-Canada). 

Call Announcement for Polish research teams

The NCN Generation comprises researchers and scholars making a significant contribution to the advancement of science. Episode 4 features Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, who studies the resettlement cultures that emerged after 1945 in post-resettlement areas in Poland and the former Czechoslovakia.

Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska is a cultural studies scholar, Bohemist and ethnologist, and a professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research is funded by NCN and the European Research Council. She is a 2023 NCN Award winner.

Things that ask questions

A portrait of an unknown woman from the Wittmann photography studio in the former Deutsch Krone, today’s Wałcz. Fragments of roof tiles from the Sturm works in Freiwaldau, today’s Gozdnica, reused to reinforce the foundations of a post-war building. Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska treats such objects as material traces that raise questions about the earlier inhabitants of these lands.

The researcher works with the thesis that things left behind by displaced communities act as ‘ghosts’ of those earlier cultures – they point back to the world in which they were made, even though they now exist in an entirely different present. As the researcher herself puts it, they work in both directions: they turn attention towards the past, but they also ‘tilt it towards the future’, because every engagement with such a legacy is undertaken with the intention of something that is yet to happen.

For the regions in which such processes unfold, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska has introduced the scholarly category of resettlement cultures (kultury osadnicze).

Post-war migrations affected one in four people in Poland, and eighty years after the war the Polish language still lacks a neutral vocabulary for describing these processes – both the lands themselves and the people who arrived there, as well as those who were displaced from them. The quotation marks around ‘Recovered Territories’ are the most visible sign of what remains unsaid.

Why this knowledge matters

‘The year 1945 was not year zero. It was the beginning of a long process in which new bonds, new meanings and new ways of life took shape in spaces inherited from others,’ says Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

The first generation of settlers treated their new surroundings as foreign; the second – already born there – saw them as self-evident. The third and fourth generations are beginning to ‘stumble’ over this materiality and to ask who was there before. It is they who today face a problem for which there are not yet any ready-made tools of description – or even language.

Distinct traditions are taking shape in these regions, invisible in the dominant historical discourse, and the ethnographic toolkit – sustained presence in the field, repeated visits to interviewees, engagement with the materiality of objects and archival sources – makes it possible to describe them. Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska defines the aim of her research plainly: to describe how new communities form and how they produce their own ‘cultural whole’.

‘I would like us to move beyond seeing these regions as a uniform patch on the map where nothing is happening, and to think a little more deeply instead about what is in fact going on there,’ the researcher says.

Selected quotations

On fieldwork

I usually go back to these people several times – to ask about something, or to talk about something else, or just to catch up, to hear how they are and to share how I am. So very often a kind of bond develops there – I would not quite call it friendship, because of the age difference between us – but a bond, a relationship, that goes beyond simply “please answer this and that question for me”.

On archives

We sometimes think of an archive as a place that, in principle, contains everything – you just have to look carefully – but our Central European archives have been through a great deal, much like the regions we live in. That is, they are often damaged, incomplete – something is missing, something has been deaccessioned, something never made it there at all. (…) I like to return to documents that I have already seen several times, to read them again, because the materiality of the document also matters to me. What it is written on, what is on the back, what later annotations subsequent readers have left, who looked at the file before me.

On things as ghosts

The things we encounter in these post-resettlement areas behave a little like ghosts of those earlier cultures, of those communities that were displaced from there. That is, objects that somehow raise questions – they do not always provide answers, but they remind us that someone was there before, without necessarily saying who.

Research on the past and on the future

The better we know ourselves, the more resistant we become to the stories others tell us about ourselves. We are less swayed by the kind of stories that are meant to explain the world to us and nudge us towards something that may not necessarily be true.

This idea of things as ghosts shows just how much of what we do, even with the past, is tilted towards the future. We always do it with the intention of something that is yet to happen.

What does NCN mean for researchers?

It is an opportunity for autonomy – a chance to test whether our idea, once we translate it into a project, is feasible, to learn what others think of it, and to obtain feedback.