Guests on the latest episode of the NCN podcast are Prof. Joanna Golińska-Pilarek, member of the NCN Council, and Prof. Wiktor Lewandowski one of the winners of this year’s award.

Wiktor Lewandowski, Marcin Magierowski and Błażej Skrzypulec received the NCN 2024 Award for their outstanding scientific achievements. The award is presented to researchers of the younger generation working in Polish scientific centres. The ceremony took place on 9 October in Kraków.

Błażej Skrzypulec received the NCN Award for Structural Aspects of Perceptual Experience. The title of Marcin Magierowski’s achievement is “carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide as key signal transducers in the pathogenesis and pharmacology of gastrointestinal lesions”. Wiktor Lewandowski earned the award for his ground-breaking technique in producing chiral photonic nanomaterials.

In the latest episode of the NCN podcast, Joanna Golińska-Pilarek, a prof. Wiktor Lewandowski member of the NCN Council and the jury selecting the Award winners, Wiktor Lewandowski and Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz discuss the research of the award recipients, the state of scientific research in Poland, and the jury’s decision-making process.

“All the people shortlisted for the NCN Award this year had a very good track record, and this has varied in previous years. These were people who had great publications, were extremely scientifically active, had grants, various other scientific activities. However, what really matters is what’s behind these publications and activities. What I am looking for, and I think most members of the jury are looking for, is a scientific discovery, a breakthrough, a significant insight that contributes to our understanding of the world. Around this, around the stature, the importance, the significance of the achievement are the discussions at the jury meeting”, says Joanna Golińska-Pilarek.

This year, 150 candidates were submitted for the Award. The number of applications was more than three times that of 2023. Joanna Golińska-Pilarek points out, however, that not all applications truly highlighted the candidates’ achievements. “It is customary in the Polish scientific community to look at scientific achievement through the prism of various types of metrics, even though we dislike them very much, we constantly refer to them, i.e. the number of publications, the number of grants, citations. The problem in many applications was that the description of the achievement just boiled down to this. I mean, you could find out what a person was doing, where he or she had published work, whereas there was not even a sentence about what, what the candidate had achieved as part of this research, that was incredibly surprising to me”, he says.

“Unusually fortunate”

Together with his team, Wiktor Lewandowski is creating materials whose building block dimensions are counted in nanometres. “We design and synthesise organic-inorganic components whose unique feature is their ability to order themselves spontaneously at the nanoscale. Our main achievement was to obtain spring-like nanomaterials with controlled torsion that interacted strongly with circularly polarised light. These innovative materials not only impress with their ordered structure, but also open the door to future technologies for faster data transfer or advanced 3D imaging”, says the researcher.

When asked about his working conditions, he replies that he is “unusually fortunate”. “I found myself in a very good place, a great environment, with good equipment facilities, and I found myself in a period in Polish science that was conducive to the development of Polish researchers, a period in which the National Science Centre was already operating”, says the researcher. He adds that researchers currently face many challenges. “These are, of course, on the one hand scientific, purely intellectual challenges. They involve encouraging younger team members to work in a particular subject, so that they want to stay at a university or a particular research unit, so that they do not leave for industry. It is also a question of infrastructure availability. I didn’t miss anything along the way. However, the availability of equipment or support from people who have much more international experience, experience in winning grants, are definitely elements that should be available to every young researcher”, he says.

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast 

Wiktor Lewandowski, Marcin Magierowski and Błażej Skrzypulec received the 2024 NCN Award for their outstanding scientific achievements. The Award is given to researchers of the younger generation working in Polish scientific centres. The ceremony took place on 9 October in Kraków.

The NCN Award is the most prestigious distinction for researchers up to 12 years post-doctoral, conducting basic research. The most important criterion used by the jury to assess the achievements of the candidates for the award is their scientific excellence and international recognition.

The distinction is presented in three groups of disciplines – Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering. More than 3,700 researchers were eligible to nominate candidates for the Award in this edition. 183 applications were received, covering 150 candidates. By the decision of the jury, consisting of members of the Council and the NCN Director, the distinctions went to researchers working in Kraków and Warsaw.

Dr hab. Wiktor Lewandowski is a chemist specializing in photonics and materials chemistry, a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw. He received a distinction in the area of science and technology. Research by Prof. Martin Magierowski’s research spans physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and gastroenterology. A researcher from the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University’s Collegium Medicum in Kraków has been awarded the NCN Award in Life Sciences. The winner of the distinction in the arts, humanities and social sciences Dr hab. Błażej Skrzypulec is a philosopher, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University, and deals with the philosophy of perception.

“The number of applications presented the jury with a very difficult task. However, we are confident that in each category, we have chosen a winner whose scientific contributions have received substantial international recognition, and who has been ahead of the other outstanding candidates”, said Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak at the awards gala.

“We award people with passion, energy, those with perseverance and those who were lucky because they came across the right mentors at the right time in their career. Mentors who allowed them to spread their wings, build their own teams and achieve independence, a value that is extremely important in science”, recounted Prof. Małgorzata Kossowska, Chairwoman of the Council of the NCN.

The gala was attended by Dr hab. Maciej Gdula, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, who emphasised that the event is a great celebration of NCN and Polish science. “NCN is an independent institution, it is an institution that cares about the transparency of procedures. Basic research needs to be funded and we will fight to ensure that those who want to do such research have as much funding as possible, the deputy minister said.

The ceremony took place on 9 October at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków.

 

Diversity of the senses, unity of experience

Błażej Skrzypulec works on philosophy of perception, in particular on structural aspects of sensory experience, extra-perceptual perceptual modalities and multimodal perception. He was recognized for his research on the structural aspects of perceptual experience.

In his own words, he sees the NCN Award as “an appreciation of research conducted in a rather special, often difficult-to-receive niche of the humanities and a recognition of efforts to conduct research at an international level, the content of which fits into current debates at the heart of the global academy”.

The winner uses methods of conceptual and logical analysis appropriate to analytic philosophy and aligns them with experimental findings from cognitive science and psychology. “I have noticed that the empirical sciences provide a wealth of interesting data on the functioning and interaction of the senses, but philosophy, on the other hand, provides precise categories to bring this data together in a coherent scheme. From there, my idea of investigating what I call structures of perceptual experience, that is, investigating the stable ways in which the senses present the world to us, was born”, describes the winner. He is particularly interested in senses that have traditionally received less attention, such as smell, and how the diversity of the senses gives, despite their differences, a unity of experience.

The researcher was the recipient of a scholarship from the Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young researchers and a START scholarship from the Foundation for Polish Science. He has led NCN-funded projects five times.

The door to future technologies

Wiktor Lewandowski specialises in photonics and materials chemistry. He received the 2024 NCN Award for his breakthrough technique for the production of chiral photonic nanomaterials.

The researcher, together with his team, is creating materials whose building block dimensions are counted in nanometres. “We design and synthesize organic-inorganic components that can spontaneously self-assemble at the nanoscale. Our primary achievement was producing spring-like nanomaterials with controlled torsion that strongly interact with circularly polarized light. These innovative materials not only impress with their ordered structure, but also open the door to future technologies for faster data transfer or advanced 3D imaging”, says the researcher. The researcher’s findings are stimulating the development of related fields – chemistry, physics and computational methods.

“The NCN Award is recognition of the work of the entire team, which I am proud to lead. It is an accolade that inspires us to continue our research, explore unknown areas and push the boundaries of knowledge further”, emphasises the researcher.

As written in the application for the Award, the researcher publishes “sparingly”, but in journals of the highest prestige, inaccessible to many other researchers, such as “Advanced Materials”, “Angewandte Chemie”, “ACS Nano” and others. He has some 50 publications to his credit.

Wiktor Lewandowski has been on internships at, among others, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and at scientific institutions in Slovenia and Spain. He is a winner of FNP programmes. He has led four NCN-funded projects. He is co-author of several patents and patent applications.

You can also hear about the winner’s research and the conditions for doing science in Poland in the latest episode of the NCN podcast.

Beneficial effects of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide

Marcin Magierowski conducts multidisciplinary research in the field of biomedicine. The main focus of the winner’s research involves the beneficial effects of molecules associated as harmful to life. The title of the achievement for which he received the NCN Award is carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide as key signal transducers in the pathogenesis and pharmacology of gastrointestinal lesions.

Carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide are natural poisonous gases, but at the same time it has been discovered that they are produced by our cells and regulate a number of molecular processes crucial to the maintenance of vital functions. “I seek to understand and describe these fundamental processes, the disruption of which, among other things, leads to many pathologies of the digestive system. Working with drug chemists from the US, Canada and the UK, we are also verifying that new substances releasing these molecules have a therapeutic effect, the researcher describes.

Marcin Magierowski is a grant manager at NCN and the National Centre for Research and Development. For his scientific achievements, he has received, among others, the Start Fellowship of the FNP and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education scholarship for outstanding young researchers, as well as a distinction from the American Gastroenterological Association and the European Rising Star Award 2024 (from United European Gastroenterology).

He has gained international research experience at universities in the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Canada, among others. He was a member of the Academy of Young researchers of the Polish Academy of Sciences for the term 2020-2024.

The researcher emphasises the impact of the involvement of the entire interdisciplinary team he leads. “The NCN Award can be a ‘motivational lever’ for my entire research group, because in this industry it is good teamwork that determines success”, he says. In the film presenting the profiles of the winners, he appears surrounded by his colleagues as well as his wife and four children. “As a conscious father, I find that this is the best leadership training, bearing fruit outside the home too. It is such an allegorical flame that burns because there is effort and hardship, but does not burn out because it brings fulfilment and growth”, he says.

Basis for invention and innovation

The NCN Award is awarded for achievements in basic research. Basic research, driven primarily by curiosity rather than immediate applications, is the key source of invention and innovation.. “Science and the results of research are our civilizational hope in dealing with an increasing number of the increasingly acute and complex problems of the present day”, said Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, at the award ceremony. . “Advances in diagnosis and therapy have seen cancer move from the category of incurable and often fatal diseases to the category of chronic and often completely curable, added the NCN Director, who is himself involved in biomedicine. “For less than 10 years, humanity has had gene-based therapies to completely cure children suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, a disease that was previously considered a death sentence for affected infants. We have had drugs for cystic fibrosis patients for five years”, he gave examples. In doing so, the NCN Director pointed out that for research to flourish, it needs to be invested in. In the case of Poland, this implies an increase in funding for the NCN as an institution that plays a central role in the system for funding basic research. “As you can see, the need for additional financial support for NCN, is the source of many grassroots initiatives from our scientific community. Thank you very much for this support, and I appeal to decision-makers to listen to them”, he stressed.

In a similar vein, this year’s NCN Award winners speak out. “Without an institution like NCN, many of my colleagues would not have stayed in Poland or would not have returned to the country and pursued their research ideas abroad”, says Marcin Magierowski. He adds that research needs to be encouraged because “the intellectual potential in many fields is enormous in Poland”. “In the long run, the quality of our basic research will lay the groundwork for new technologies, allowing Poland to move from being an importer of technology to a creator”, adds Błażej Skrzypulec.

 

The POLITYKA Science Awards winners have called for an increase in the NCN 2025 budget by 300 000 000 zlotys and subsequent increase in its funding. ERC grant winners have earlier voiced their opinions, and a petition has been created to this end. 

“NCN-funded projects turned out to be the most powerful tool to support track records and careers of early-stage researchers who could later apply for ERC funding. Many of us could pursue ground-breaking research owing to NCN funding,” the POLITYKA Science Award winners and POLITYKA “Stay with Us!” [Zostańcie z nami!] scholarship grantees wrote in their letter to PM Donald Tuska and Minister of Science Dariusz Wieczorek.

The researchers held that the the work currently underway on the draft 2025 budget bill is the right moment to increase the NCN subsidy and requested that the NCN subsidy be raised by 300 million zlotys in 2025 and continue with increases in the following years.

POLITYKA Science Awards winners' appeal (in Polish)

The letter was sent on 3 October. A few days before that, ERC award winners addressed a similar request to the government officials and Ministry of Science.

The academic community also created a petition addressed to the PM and the Minister of Science, which can be signed by anyone “who understands the need for research in Poland”. The organisers encourage researchers but also representatives of institutions, companies, schools and local governments to sign the petition. Within a few days, it was signed by over 3,200 people.

The petition can also be signed online.

Researchers are welcome to participate in SHENG 4, the fourth funding opportunity for joint Polish and Chinese research teams launched by the National Science Centre (the NCN) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (the NSFC).

SHENG 4 aims to support research projects in selected research fields:

NSFC Area	PANEL NCN
Chemical Sciences   Engineering and Materials Sciences	ST 4, Chemistry ST 5, Synthetic Chemistry and Materials Science ST 8, Production and processes engineering ST 11, Materials Engineering
Life Sciences	NZ 1, Molecular biology, structural biology, biotechnology NZ 2, Molecular biology, structural biology, biotechnology NZ 3, Cellular and developmental biology NZ 4, Biology of tissues, organs and organisms NZ 5, Human and animal non-infectious diseases NZ 6, Human and animal immunology and infection NZ 7, Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health NZ 8, Evolutionary and environmental biology NZ 9, Fundamentals of applied life sciences and biotechnology
Health Sciences	HS 6 Human nature and human society

 

Call announcement: 16 December 2024

Call deadline: 17 March 2025

Call results: November 2025

Project start date: January 2026

The NCN will adopt the terms of the call and publish them on its website in December 2024.

KEY TERMS OF SHENG 4:

• Proposals may be submitted to the call by the entities specified in Article 27 (1) of the Act on the National Science Centre of 30 April 2010 (consolidated text in Journal of Laws of 2023, item 153).
• The Polish Principal Investigator (PI) must be at least a PhD holder when submitting a proposal.
• Eligibility criteria for Chinese applicants submitting their proposals to the NSFC are available here: https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab1356/
• A list of Chinese entities eligible to apply for funding pursuant to the requirements of the NSFC is available here: http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab475/info70247.htm
• State aid will be available to Polish applicants.
• Research project duration will be 36 months.
• Only basic research will be funded.
• Project budgets must include the cost eligibility criteria of the NCN and the NSFC, respectively.

APPLICATION PROCESS:

Funding proposals for Polish and Chinese research projects will be submitted to the OSF submission and NSFC’s submission system.

Polish applicants will submit their NCN proposals to the OSF submission system (htps://osf.opi.org.pl) pursuant to the terms set out in the call documents, together with joint Polish and Chinese proposals drafted in cooperation with the Chinese research team. NCN proposals and joint proposals must be identical.

Chinese applicants will submit a complete set of documents required by the NSFC via its electronic submission system.

Joint Polish and Chinese funding proposals submitted to the NCN and the NSFC must be identical. Joint Polish and Chinses funding proposals submitted to the NCN and NSFC containing significant differences may be rejected on the grounds of ineligibility.

Submission deadline: 17 March 2025

PROPOSAL EVALUATION PROCEDURE:

The eligibility check and merit-based evaluation of proposals submitted to SHENG will be carried out in parallel by the NCN and the NSFC. Polish and Chinese funding proposals will be evaluated by the NCN and the NSFC. Only proposals approved as eligible by both agencies will be subject to a merit-based evaluation.

At the NCN, proposals recommended for a merit-based evaluation will be evaluated by at least two external reviewers. The panels will consist of recognised researchers from the relevant disciplines who are familiar with the NCN decision-making procedures.

At the NSFC, proposals recommended for a merit-based evaluation will be evaluated by the expert panels and at least 5 external reviewers.

Only proposals positively reviewed by the two agencies will be recommended for funding.

NCN CONTACT DETAILS:

Magdalena Nowak,

Coordinator for Life Sciences:

dr Mateusz Sobczyk

Coordinator for Physical Sciences and Engineering:

dr Magdalena Jarosz

Coordinator for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences:

dr Katarzyna Jarecka-Stępień

NSFC CONTACT DETAILS

• Jin Xu, tel.:
  Show number

The terms of publication of research findings, as laid down in the letter by the NCN Director of 11 October 2023, will be extended for an unlimited term. They will apply to principal investigators of research and research activities, regardless of the final report submission dates. The relaxed terms of Open Access Policy will be in force until further notice.

The National Science Centre hereby announces that the relaxed terms of Open Access Policy, adopted by the letter of the NCN Director of 11 October 2023, will be extended. The relaxed terms of OA Policy will be adopted for an unlimited term and hence will apply to principal investigators in research projects and research activities, regardless of their final report submission dates. The relaxed OA terms aimed to support wide open access to research findings and research data will be in force until further notice.

most important amended provisions are outlined below:

• Route 1: Papers published under any Creative Commons (CC) licences, including licences restricting commercial use of publications, will be accepted, . The eligibility of Article Processing Charges (APC) will continue to be eligible costs, provided that the papers are published under  CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0 licences.
• Route 2: Papers deposited in renowned depositories, such as arXiv or PubMed, enhance the visibility of research findings. Therefore, in order to facilitate publication under Route 2, preprints may be deposited when the final author-created version of the manuscript (AAM) cannot be published immediately. Preprints must be released under licence CC BY 4.0 licence. AAM must be published after the embargo period has ended.
• Research data: CC0 and CC BY 4.0 licences as well as other licences ensuring an equivalent level ofdata openness and reusability may be used. The purpose is to ensure wide access to research findings as well as their utmost dissemination and use by the scientific community.

Soon, guidelines related to updated OA terms will be published on the NCN website (link to be added).

45 ERC grant holders have written a letter to the Polish Prime Minister and the Minister of Science to request an increase in our agency’s budget. A petition was also created; it can be signed by anyone who cares about the advancement of research in Poland.

“The overarching objective of any move within the Polish research system should be to increase the quality of research in our country. The National Science Centre is the most important institution that pursues that goal”, argue ERC grant holders in a letter addressed to PM Donald Tusk and Minister of Science Dariusz Wieczorek. They point out that the NCN only receives a very small proportion of the state research budget and that these “resources are widely insufficient”. “This means that many good and important projects cannot be pursued, salaries under projects that do receive funding are not competitive and gifted researchers often give up on a career in research”, they emphasise. The work currently underway on the draft 2025 budget bill, they add, is the right moment to increase the NCN subsidy.

“We wish to express our strong support for the appeal of the Council of the National Science Centre to have the NCN subsidy raised by 300 million zlotys in 2025 and continue with increases in the following years”, they write.

Full text of the letter (pdf file)

The academic community also created a petition addressed to the PM and the Minister of Science, which can be signed by anyone “who understands the need for research in Poland”. The organisers encourage researchers but also representatives of institutions, schools and local governments to sign the petition.

“We believe that science is in the Polish national interest. It fuels progress and serves as the mainspring of innovation; our society simply cannot do without it. Researchers in Poland have and want to continue having an actual impact on the advancement of science around the world. Science cannot be just an imported good. This is why we are calling on you and your government to review the Polish 2025 budget and increase spending on research, and especially the subsidy earmarked for the National Science Centre. The NCN is the oxygen of Polish science”, the appeal reads.

You can sign the petition here.

This is yet another in a string of initiatives taken by the research community in support of the NCN. In recent years, Polish researchers have repeatedly spoken out in defence of its independence and campaigned for an increase in its budget. This year, thanks to, e.g. the grassroots initiative of the top researchers under the slogan #NCNtotlen (#NCNisoxygen), the ministry decided to increase our funding by 200 million zlotys.

During a special session on 28 September, the Council of Ministers approved a draft 2025 budget bill, which awards the NCN 50 million zlotys more than the original proposal.

On 28 September, the Council of Ministers adopted a new draft 2025 budget bill. Budget revenues will stand at PLN 632.85 billion, budget spending at PLN 921.6 billion and the deficit at PLN 288.77 billion.

The new draft bill differs from the proposal originally presented at the end of August. It includes financial support for the areas hardest hit by the flood that has recently swept over the south and southwest of Poland. A few corrections have also been made to some tasks in the budget and the reserves. One change involves a PLN 50 million increase in the NCN subsidy.

At present, the NCN budget stands at PLN 1.643 billion (of which 1.583 billion goes toward research funding). In the August version of the draft 2025 budget bill, the NCN was to receive PLN 1.648 billion, an amount nearly equal to what it has had at its disposal in 2024. Now, however, that sum has been increased to PLN 1.698 billion.

More information about the NCN budget can be found in Facts and Figures.

Information about the draft 2025 budget bill on the government website.

132 new researchers will now be able to pursue single research activities thanks to over 5 million zlotys in funding awarded under the MINIATURA 8 call. Here comes the fifth ranking list for proposals submitted in June.

Experts selected 38 researchers in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, who will investigate a range of issues related to our knowledge of the past, humanity and social life. Dr Hubert Mazur from the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow will conduct a library and archive research in the Polish state archives, investigating documents from the period of 1944-1951, while Dr Olga Witczak from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań is set to focus on boredom as a modulator of creativity in the alternative uses test, a measure of divergent creative thinking also known as the Guilford Test.

In Life Sciences, grants were awarded to 55 researchers, who will be working on projects in applied life sciences and cell biology. Dr Hanna Fuchs from the Institute of Dendrology, PAS, will conduct preliminary research on the interrelationship between the age of forest-forming tree species and their seed quality. Dr Małgorzata Jeziorek from the Medical University of Wrocław will study the efficacy of the LCHF (low-carbohydrate high-fat) diet in the treatment of lipoedema. Specifically, she will look at the levels of inflammatory tissue hormones, such as adiponectin, leptin, resistin, visfatin and vaspin.

In Physical Sciences and Engineering, 39 winners were selected. Some of these will work on chemistry and production process engineering. Dr Kinga Wzgarda-Raj from the University of Łódź will look into phenazine (a chemical compound used as a synthetic pain reliever) as an important crystal engineering material for biomedical applications, while Dr inż. Mateusz Brzęczek from the Silesian University of Technology will work on developing a new method of measuring the energy potential of wind farms in any geographical location.

Research activities recommended for funding on MINIATURA 8 Ranking List No 5

Ranking List No 5 in PDF format

Funding per panel:

• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – PLN1,154,742
• Physical Sciences and Engineering – PLN1,431,598
• Life Sciences – PLN 2,500,994

Total: PLN 5,087,334

MINIATURA 8

The objective of the MINIATURA call is to finance research activities carried out in preparation for future research projects that will be submitted to NCN calls for proposals, as well as other domestic and international calls. Under MINIATURA 8, researchers could apply for funding from PLN 5,000 to PLN 50,000 for a research activity planned over a period of up to 12 months.

The total budget of this year’s call was PLN 20 million. Funds available for research activities were divided proportionally between the months during which proposals were accepted. A project could be qualified for funding only as long as there was enough funding available for a given month.

This round of the call, which is meant to fund preliminary/ pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits and/ or consultations, was open to PhD holders who had earned their degree no earlier than 1 January 2012 and had never served as principal investigators in a project funded by the National Science Centre. They had to demonstrate a research record of at least one paper published or at least one research achievement or achievement in research in art. They could not have been winning applicants of an ETIUDA call for doctoral scholarships or a call for fellowships funded by the NCN, or serve as applicants, principal investigators or fellowship candidates in proposals submitted or recommended for funding under other NCN calls.

Decisions

Funding decisions for proposals submitted under MINIATURA 8 in June, will be sent out on 26 September 2024. Justifications are available in the OSF submission system, where you can also check the status of your proposal.

Decisions are delivered electronically to the ESP ePUAP address indicated in the proposal. If you have not received a decision, please make sure that the address provided in the proposal is correct. If it is not, contact the officer in charge of your proposal identified in the OSF submission system.

“Poland has what it takes to become a future leader in technology and innovation, but it must invest in research”, said Prof. Maria Leptin, President of the ERC, at a conference with NCN representatives, which took place in Warsaw on 24 September.

History shows that basic research, i.e. research fuelled by a natural thirst for knowledge, rather than any potential practical application, is the most important source of invention and innovation. We would never have fibre-optic networks, novel materials or COVID vaccines today without prior long-term investment in basic research. At a meeting in Warsaw, Prof. Maria Leptin said that one of her top goals as the President of the European Research Council is to get the ERC budget doubled under EU’s 10th Framework Programme, so that the agency can fund many more research projects than it has until now. She has cited, e.g. the official statement that the ERC Scientific Board has published earlier this year:

Panel dyskusyjny: Key role of frontiers research in addressing global challenges of modern world Leptin also emphasised that EU funding can never replace domestic funding; only domestic investment in research and a good research policy can turn a country into a real leader in technology and innovation. “Creating robust conditions for research growth cannot be the role of a single ministry, it needs to be the job of an entire government”, she stressed. She quoted the example of countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany, which have invested huge amounts in research for years, to argue that, for basic research, it often takes years before the effects can be seen. “Countries that lead the fray in research today do so only because of the investments they made in the past”, she said.

NCN before ERC

Scientists affiliated with Polish research centres have carried out a total of 87 ERC-funded grants. Most have previously worked on projects funded by the National Science Centre and report that their experience in heading an NCN-funded project has crucially contributed to their success at the ERC, allowing them to start out on their independent research paths, develop research skills and gain experience in independent research and research team management.

Professor Maria Leptin emphasised that the success rate of Polish researchers taking part in ERC calls has grown from 2 to 7% since the 7th Framework Programme.  However, that number is still well below expectations. At the conference in Warsaw, attendees discussed how it could be increased. “Without funding for basic research, we won’t be able to make a contribution to world science. At the current level of funding available to the NCN, we can’t even begin to think of new initiatives to increase the participation of our researchers in the international arena”, lamented Prof. Anetta Undas, President of the NCN Council. Her words were echoed by the president of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “Unless the NCN’s budget is increased to 2 billion zlotys and its success rates climb to 25%, we can forget about more ERC grants”, said Prof. Marek Konarzewski.

“This debate has been going on for more than 10 years now and the outcomes are still far from what we would expect”, said Prof. Justyna Olko from the University of Warsaw, former NCN Council  member (2018-2022) and winner of two ERC grants. “The main challenge is that there is no clear system-level support for excellence in Polish research policy”, she said. She also pointed out that NCN funding must be increased if we want to enable researchers to maintain their research continuity; unless the success rates in NCN calls is increased, Polish success rates in ERC calls won’t budge either.

The meeting with the President of the European Research Council, “Focus on Frontier Research with ERC”, was organised by the Polish Academy of Sciences and the ERC. The agenda of the event also included workshops for researchers interested in applying for ERC grants.