Prof. Mariola Łaguna from the Catholic University of Lublin, NCN Council member received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Polish Social Psychological Society (PSPS).

Prof. Łaguna works at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Her research is located at the interface of personality psychology and social psychology. It concerns the motivational mechanisms guiding human behavior in various domains, such as work (including entrepreneurship), prosocial activities, and sports. In her analyses, she focuses on intentional human activity and the role of personal resources in the goal achievement process. She also investigates psychological measurement issues and is the author or co-author of psychological tests and their Polish adaptations.

Prof. Mariola Łaguna has been an NCN Council member since December 2022, heading the work of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Committee.

The PSPS Lifetime Achievement Award is a prestigious recognition of significant achievements in social psychology on an international level. It has been awarded since 2012 and has so far been bestowed upon 12 researchers, including Prof. Małgorzata Kossowska from the Jagiellonian University, President of the NCN Council between 2018 and 2020 and Prof. Mirosław Kofta, member of the first NCN Council between 2010-2012.

The NCN Council has modified the NCN panel list to better reflect the one in place at the European Research Council (ERC). The new classification will apply to most NCN calls starting in December.

The NCN Council has spent a long time discussing possible changes to the NCN panel list, especially in Life Sciences (NZ) and Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), to make its structure better reflect current research realities. In its deliberations, it was guided by the need to better align the list with the one in place at the European Research Council (ERC), as well as by the postulates raised by the Polish research community.

During a meeting held on 5 September, the NCN Council passed resolution no. 83/2024, which officially modified the NCN panel list used in the proposal review process. Resolution No. 83/2024, Annex.

The total number of discipline panels remains the same, i.e. there are 26 panels: six in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; eleven in Physical Sciences and Engineering; and nine in Life Sciences. What has changed is their internal structure.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), more precise identifiers (descriptors) were added to better describe panels, while some research areas were singled out or moved between panels to better match subpanels and individual descriptors. The previous division into six main discipline panels was maintained; more important changes were made to the descriptions of the HS3 panel, “The Study of the Human Past”, e.g. in the context of archaeological sciences, HS5 “Law and Political Science”, which will now include new technologies in law and public policies, as well as HS2 “Culture and Cultural Production” in the context of media and social communication.

NZ panels were modified to better align with the list in place at the ERC. Some panels were consolidated to reduce the unnecessary fragmentation of research areas and disciplines. Issues in neurobiology were all brought under a single panel, NZ5 “Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System”, while veterinary medicine was subsumed under NZ9 “Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering”. The number of discipline panels remains unchanged, but in seven of these, the number of subpanels was increased. These changes represent an important step toward a new vision of science that transcends the rigid boundaries between disciplines, and the application of ERC solutions will make it easier for researchers to draw up grant proposals across disciplines.

The NCN Council believes that changes in the structure of ERC panels should be continually monitored so that NCN panels can be adapted accordingly, including in the field of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This approach will help increase the odds of success of Polish researchers in ERC calls.

The new NCN panel list will come into force starting with the new rounds of international calls,  BiodivTransform, IMPRESS-U and Weave-UNISONO, which will undergo peer review in 2025, and for domestic calls – starting with calls announced on 16 December 2024.

A short reminder of how to prepare proposals in the Weave-UNISONO call for the Polish research teams. 

1. Under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to the SNSF as the lead agency by 1 October 2024, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to the SNSF, by 8 October 2024 at the latest.

2. Once the work on the NCN proposal has started in the OSF submission system, the Polish research team has 45 calendar days to complete the proposal and submit it to the NCN. After that, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case a Polish research team that has not sent its proposal to the NCN must prepare a new proposal and complete it in the OSF submission system which may impact the budget for research tasks performed by the Polish research teams specified in the NCN proposal (see points 3 and 4 below).

The 45-day period applies only to the period during which NCN proposals may be edited in the OSF submission system. Under Weave-UNISONO, NCN proposals must be submitted to the NCN via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of joint proposals to the lead agency, within 7 calendar days at the latest.

3. NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system:

• by 30 September 2024 (inclusive), may include research projects that will be carried out by the Polish research teams from 2025 onwards. The following years will be included in the project budget, depending on the project implementation period:
  • 2025-2026 for two-year projects,
  • 2025-2026-2027 for three-year projects and
  • 2025-2026-2027-2028 for four-year projects;
• from 1 October 2024 (inclusive), may include research projects that will be carried out by the Polish research teams from 2026 onwards. The following years will be included in the project budget, depending on the project implementation period:
  • 2026-2027 for two-year projects,
  • 2026-2027-2028 for three-year projects and
  • 2026-2027-2028-2029 for four-year projects.

4. In the case of joint proposals submitted to the lead agencies covering Polish team budgets from 2025 onwards, make sure that:

• the work on NCN proposals in the OSF submission system starts before 30 September 2024 and
• NCN proposals are submitted to the NCN within 45 days of the date that the work on the proposal has started in the OSF submission system.

If the work on NCN proposals in the OSF submission system starts before 30 September 2024, with project performance scheduled beginning in 2025, and the NCN proposal is not completed and submitted within 45 days of the date the work on the proposal has started in the OSF submission system, a new proposal must be created. A new NCN proposal (created after 1 October 2024) may cover research projects with a start date in 2026. If a joint proposal has already been submitted to the lead agency for a research project involving 2025 funding, information in the NCN proposal will be inconsistent with information in the joint proposal and may result in the proposal being rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the eligibility criteria.

5. The budget of the Polish part of the project in the joint proposal should be calculated according to the following exchange rate:

• In joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2024: 1 EUR=4.5940 PLN;
• In joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed and submitted via the OSF submission system from 1 January 2025 onwards: 1 EUR=4.2717 PLN;

6. NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system in 2024, to which the exchange rate of 1 EUR=4.5940 PLN applies, must be completed and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2024, 23:59:59. Otherwise, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case the Polish research team must prepare a new proposal and complete it in the OSF submission system, to which the exchange rate 1 EUR=4.2717 PLN will apply. If a joint proposal has already been submitted to the lead agency, in which the budget of the Polish part of the project was calculated according to another exchange rate, information in the NCN proposal will be inconsistent with information in the joint proposal and may result in the proposal being rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the eligibility criteria.

Proposals are now being accepted under OPUS 28+LAP/Weave and SONATA 20. The total budget of the two calls is PLN 600 million and the deadline for submission is 16 December.

OPUS is the largest grant programme at the National Science Centre that allows scientists to pursue research projects at Polish host institutions. All researchers, regardless of how far ahead they are in their careers, are eligible to apply. Just like other NCN calls, OPUS offers funding for projects from all disciplines of science.

The call is open to domestic projects but also those conducted with partners from international research institutions or with the use of large international research equipment. The September round of the call will additionally offer the LAP/Weave scheme, offering Polish researchers an opportunity to secure funds for projects conducted in partnership with teams in Austria, Belgium-Flanders, Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia or Switzerland, who will be applying in parallel with their own domestic funding agencies. Under the LAP arrangement, proposals are evaluated by NCN expert teams, while foreign partner agencies formally approve their evaluation results and award resources to the relevant partner teams.

OPUS projects may take 12, 24, 36 or 48 months to complete; OPUS LAP projects may last 24, 36 or 48 months, depending on the country of residence of the partner team. There is no lower or upper limit of funding available to a single OPUS project. Grants may go toward funding PI and team member salaries, scholarships, equipment, devices, software, materials and services, as well as project-related trips, visits and consultations.

The budget of OPUS 28+LAP/Weave is PLN 450 million. OPUS 28+LAP/Weave announcement.

SONATA is designed to support young researchers who have earned their PhD 2 to 7 years prior to submitting their proposal. To qualify as a PI under this round, the applicant must have earned their degree between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2022; the eligibility period can be extended to account for justified periods of sick leave or childcare. The PI’s record must include at least one paper published or accepted for publication, and in the field of art and creative arts, at least one achievement in art or art and research. SONATA projects may take 12, 24 or 36 months. The team may include additional members, such as students, PhD candidates and post-docs. A SONATA grant can only be received once.

The budget of the SONATA 20 call is PLN 150 million. SONATA 20 announcement.

Post-doc jobs – changes

The September round of NCN calls comes with important changes to project funding principles. In response to community voices, the NCN Council decided to modify the rules governing how post-doc positions are filled. Until now, such jobs could only be offered to researchers who have earned their PhD up to 7 years prior (a period that could be extended to account for documented career breaks); this period has now been increased to 12 years. In addition, individuals who had the project PI as their thesis advisor or assistant advisor will no longer be barred from entering the competition for the job, provided they meet all other eligibility requirements.

Proposal review and results

Proposals submitted under OPUS 28+LAP/Weave and SONATA 20 will be evaluated in a quality-focused process of two-stage merit-based peer review.

At stage 1, proposals are assessed independently by at least two expert team members, appointed by the NCN Council expressly for that purpose. The final score is agreed on collectively during the team’s first panel session. Proposals passed on to stage 2 of peer review are then evaluated individually by at least two reviewers, i.e. researchers specialising in the relevant field. The final score for each proposal at stage 2, once again, is decided by the team of experts as a whole during a second panel meeting, taking into account both individual peer reviews. The team then draws up a ranking, including proposals recommended for funding.

OPUS 28 and SONATA 20 results will be announced up to 6 months after the proposal submission deadline, i.e. by June 2025. Results for OPUS LAP projects will be announced successively as partner agencies formally approve review results, by November 2025 at the latest.

The National Science Centre (NCN), in collaboration with the European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+), has launched a new call for international research projects on biodiversity and transformative change (BiodivTransform and Transformative Change).

Projects must focus on comprehending the compromises and links between the worldwide crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution. The call embedded in the “Supporting societal transformation for the sustainable use and management of biodiversity” programme aims to comprehend transformation process that may halt and reverse biodiversity decline. 

Funding may be requested by international consortia comprising at least 3 research teams from at least 3 countries participating in the call. The principal investigator of the Polish team must be at least a PhD holder.

Countries participating in the call: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey and Faroe Islands.

Submission deadline for pre-proposals is 8 November 2024, 3 p.m. and for full-proposals, 11 April 2025, 3 p.m. The principal investigator of the Polish research team is required to draft an NCN proposal for the Polish part of the project in the OSF submission system.

The call results will be published at the end of September 2025.

Please, read the call text and call documents on the website of the Biodiversa+ Partnership and on the NCN website.

“The draft (state) budget is clearly inconsistent with public statements that the NCN funding must be increased,” the NCN Council noted in its Resolution of 5 September. The Council members emphasize that consistent increase in NCN funding is indispensable to ensure stable development of research in Poland.

According to the draft Budget Act 2025 adopted by the Council of Ministers on 28 August 2024, the NCN will be awarded PLN 1.648 billion for its operations next year which is almost the same as its current funding. This year, with the additional PLN 200 million awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in spring, the NCN was awarded PLN 1.643 billing.

“The draft budget is clearly inconsistent with public statements that the NCN funding must be increased,” the NCN Council members provided in their Resolution of 5 September. 

Therefore, they have called for “modification of the state budget and increase in NCN funding for research by another PLN 300 million and by PLN 2 million for NCN staff salaries from 2025 onwards,” and provided that “this should stabilize our financial situation and enable support for the best quality research in Poland.”

It was also provided that if the NCN funding was not adequately increased, the “NCN Council, following consultation with the NCN Director, might consider suspension of MINIATURA and SONATINA calls and discontinuance of the next POLONEZ call co-funded by the European Commission. Furthermore, the NCN Council might consider reduction of the number of OPUS calls to one a year and MAESTRO calls to one every two years.”

In its Resolution, the Council also pointed out that salary of the NCN staff members is not commensurate with their competences and market situation. It was emphasised that “the NCN employs highly qualified staff, and many jobs require a PhD. It is difficult to recruit new employees and retain existing ones with the current average salary at the NCN being lower than the Krakow average by 25%.”

Please note that our webinars on Open Access Policy and Data Management Plans will be held on different dates:

• Webinar of 17 September 2024 will be held on 3 October 2024 and
• Webinar of 18 September 2024 will be held on 4 October 2024. 

The webinars will be held in English and their times will remain the same.

In addition, on 2 October 2024, between 10 a.m. and noon, a webinar on Open Access Policy will be held in Polish.

We are sorry for any inconveniences this change could bring about. The new dates will allow us to better tailor the webinars to the current state of the art and circumstances, hence ensuring better OA and Data Management support.

Should you have any questions or queries, please contact our Open Access Team

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Webinar links will be provided two weeks in advance on our website (https://ncn.gov.pl/) and in the training calendar.

Dr Piotr Alexandrowicz, a legal historian at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and Dr Łukasz Bola from the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences have joined the ranks of ERC Starting Grant winners. They are also involved in NCN-funded projects.

ERC Starting Grants are available for projects of up to 5 years by post-docs who earned their PhD 2-7 years before the call. They are awarded to research projects that are risky but potentially groundbreaking.

Brain plasticity in the blind Dr Łukasz Bola

Dr Łukasz Bola from the Institute of Psychology, PAS, won this year’s ERC grant for a project entitled BLINDBRAIN, focused on brain plasticity in people who are blind from birth. “A large part of the human brain is genetically hardwired to perform tasks related to vision. In my research, I aim to determine what the same areas do in people who are blind from birth and thus do not use their visual cortex in the same way as those with intact vision. This helps me understand how the human brain adapts to new challenges”, the researcher explains.

In recent years, neuroimaging studies on blind subjects have shown that the visual areas of their brain are activated in response to linguistic stimuli, such as words and sentences. The new ERC grant winner seeks to discover the mechanisms behind this activation. “When a blind person hears the word ‘apple’, for example, does their visual cortex produce a relatively simple, spatial representation of a small and round object? If so, this would suggest that these brain areas do retain some of their typical functions, such as the ability to assess object shape and size, even in the blind. But another possible scenario is that the activation we are seeing in these brain areas has to do with representations of more abstract knowledge, such as the fact that apples do not grow in Antarctica or that the word is a noun. This would be an indication that in the blind, visual areas may be responsible for completely different tasks than in people with intact vision. This would revolutionise our understanding of the plasticity of the human brain”, the scientist says.

Dr Bola has authored several dozen publications in leading international journals and completed research fellowships at the University of Glasgow and Harvard University.

Studying paratexts

Dr Piotr Alexandrowicz Dr Piotr Alexandrowicz won ERC funding for a project entitled PetrIUS: “Petryfikacja ius commune poprzez drukowane parateksty” [The petrification of ius commune through printed paratexts]. The goal of the project is to examine the history and function of printed marginalia in the most important old legal prints. Collections of Roman and canonical law were published in print in a format that imitated the format of manuscripts: the normative text was placed in the centre of the page, while the margins featured glosses, explanations, legal cases or summaries. These “paratexts” in the margins of printed legal books have not yet been thoroughly analysed. Their analysis can bring important insights into the relationship between legal scholars and printers, as well as about the application of the law, legal interpretation and legal education in the early modern period. These paratexts can also be analysed as tools of legal communication. “We are planning to rely on natural language processing tools, for instance, to quickly and effectively compare thousands of paratexts, track their evolution and look for references to them in contemporaneous legal literature”, the researcher explains.

Piotr Alexandrowicz works at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has published papers on the reception of Roman law in medieval canonical law, early modern comparative law and the legal summaries in the Decretals of Gregory IX.

Previous NCN experience

Both researchers have previously won multiple awards and distinctions. Dr Piotr Alexandrowicz has worked as a PI under three NCN projects. “These projects helped me take the bold step into the international community of legal historians, establish useful contacts and effectively disseminate the results of my research. It is thanks to the NCN that I could and still can continue my post-doctoral research. Since 2020, I have been employed in projects full-time; I have no idea what or where I would be doing if it wasn’t for the NCN”, says Alexandrowicz.

Thanks to the support he got from the National Science Centre and the National Agency for Academic Exchange, Dr Łukasz Bola was able to return to Poland after a stint at Harvard University. He has completed three NCN projects. In his own words, prior experience in domestic calls proved “incredibly helpful” when applying for the ERC grant. “An original research idea is the most important, but so is the credibility of the applicant”, he says, and adds that institutional support is also something that matters. He lists examples such as mentoring initiatives offered by the NCPs of EU Research Programs, as well as mock panels and consultations with experts organised by the Scientific Excellence Office at the PAS.

The National Science Centre will support the Medical Research Agency (MRA) in their calls for basic research projects in medical and health sciences. An agreement to this effect was signed in Krakow, on 4 September 2024 by the directors of the two agencies. prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, prof. Wojciech Fendler

The Medical Research Agency (MRA) is a state agency responsible for the development of scientific research in the field of medical and health sciences. The MRA funds research and development in medical and health sciences as well as interdisciplinary projects selected in the calls for proposals, in particular clinical, observation and epidemiological studies and research experiments. The agency has been in business for 5 years.  

Since its formation, the National Science Centre has awarded nearly 30 thousand grants for a total of nearly PLN 16 billion. The NCN funds research in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering. 

In its next calls for basic research projects, the Medical Research Agency will use the expertise of the National Science Centre. Pursuant to the agreement of 4 September, NCN officers will support the MRA by advising on the calls and running training courses on proposal evaluation procedure, and will recommend candidates for external reviewers to evaluate proposals.

“As a representative of a group of researchers combining basic and clinical research, I believe that the agreement is very important for the development of biomedical sciences. I hope our cooperation will support researchers combining practical and theoretical approaches,” says Prof. Anetta Undas, President of the NCN Council.

The prof. Wojciech Fendler, prof. Anetta Undas, prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak first results of cooperation will be revealed in the call for translational research in December 2024. “The NCN supports quality research. This experience will ensure unique support for the MRA. We can only hope that the December call will enable the best research teams to translate their discoveries from bench to bedside,” says Prof. Wojciech Fendler, President of the Medical Research Agency.

“There is only one science,” declares Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, NCN Director, adding that “the agreement may be a prelude to closer cooperation between the two institutions.” “Both agencies support researchers. The NCN supports researchers in all research fields and the MRA, clinical doctors. We hope that the agreement will result in the calls on translational medicine which is of interest to both agencies,” says the NCN Director. 

Scientists from the Jagiellonian University have just won an IMPRESS-U research grant for a project looking into the properties of nuclear forces, which will be conducted in cooperation with researchers from the US and Ukraine. The budget for the Polish team is more than 800,000 zlotys.

International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine (IMPRESS-U) is a programme that allows Polish scientists to fund their research cooperation with partners in Ukraine and the US, as well as, optionally, in the Baltic countries, i.e. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The goal of the IMPRESS-U scheme is to support excellence in science and engineering, education and innovation through international collaboration, and to promote and catalyse integration of Ukrainian researchers in the global research community. The program was initiated by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a US government agency that funds research and educational programmes.

IMPRESS-U follows a lead agency formula, which means that a joint proposal, drawn up by all the project partners, must be submitted to the NSF, where it undergoes a merit-based evaluation alongside all other proposals filed under the agency’s EAGER funding mechanism. Partner agencies (including the NCN) then award funding to their national teams based on NSF recommendations.

The call is open to 24-month projects headed by principal investigators with at least a PhD degree.

Nuclear interactions in focus

The ninth IMPRESS-U grant funded by the NCN will go to a research team headed by Prof. Jacek Golak from the M. Smoluchowski Institute of Physics at the Jagiellonian University. Their project, entitled “Prądy dwuciałowe w rozpraszaniu elektronów i neutrin na tarczach kilkunukleonowych” /”Two-body currents in electron and neutrino scattering on few-nucleon targets”/, will receive more than 800 thousand zlotys in the next two years.

Prof. Jacek Golak, fot. archiwum prywatne Prof. Golak and his team at the Department of Theory of Nuclear Systems have studied the properties of the forces acting between the constituents of atomic nuclei, protons and neutrons, and other subatomic particles. These forces are responsible for the existence of atomic nuclei as we know them and determine the mechanisms of nuclear reactions and radioactive decay processes, including those crucial to nuclear power or cancer radiation therapy.

“What it means in practice is that we are building a whole sequence of computer software programs that take a given mathematical model of nuclear interactions and perform calculations that can be compared with the results of experiments carried out around the world. This comparison allows us to assess the quality of our theoretical model and further enhance it to ultimately improve our understanding of the phenomena inside atomic nuclei”, explains Prof. Jacek Golak.

In their IMPRESS-U project, the Polish team will collaborate with an US team, led by Prof. Wayne Polyzou from the University of Iowa, and a Ukrainian team, headed by Prof. Oleksandr Shebeko from the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology.

“We decided to submit a project under the IMPRESS-U scheme together with all our partners. We had known each other before, we had worked and published together, and we had met at international conferences; both professors had also visited us in Kraków. We really liked the formula of IMPRESS-U and the call provided an incentive for us to accelerate and cement our cooperation. An important aspect that also mattered to us was that we could use our project to support science and the academic community in Ukraine, which has been involved in a long, devastating war”, Prof. Golak adds.

The Polish, US and Ukrainian scientists will work together to explore the mechanisms of interaction at play between electrons and neutrinos and atomic nuclei. They will primarily focus on investigating and using relativistic interactions and associated nuclear currents (including two-nucleon currents) to scatter electrons and neutrinos off few-nucleon targets.

The US partner of the IMPRESS-U project is a recognised expert in relativistic quantum mechanics, while its Ukrainian partners are experienced in constructing nucleon-nucleon interaction models. The project will be supported by an external expert, Prof. Hiroyuki Kamada from the Japanese Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) in Osaka, who performs calculations related to relativistic nuclear interactions.

The role of the Polish team will be to bring all these elements together and perform calculations related to electron and neutrino scattering off the lightest atomic nuclei. They will be putting the greatest emphasis on so-called two-nucleon currents, closely associated with the properties of nucleon-nucleon interactions. The scientists from the Jagiellonian University are very experienced in building relativistic nucleon-nucleon potentials, using polarized particles to analyse neutron properties, and studying the physics of few-nucleon systems. The mentor of the group and its member, Prof. Henryk Witała, has worked with these research problems since the 1980s; his achievements have earned him this year’s Faddeev Medal, an award established in 2016 by the Topical Group on Few-Body Systems & Multiparticle Dynamics (GFB) of the American Physical Society and the European Research Committee on Few-Body Problems in Physics.

The main product of this IMPRESS-U project will be a new model of nuclear interactions.

“We are hoping that our calculations will lay the groundwork for future experiments and experimental data analysis. The project will also be an important formative experience for our younger colleagues”, Prof. Golak emphasised.