Researchers from Poland and the Czech Republic will carry out joint research projects within the framework of NCN’s collaboration with the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). Researchers will be awarded nearly 5 million zlotys for their research. Four projects will be performed in Physical Sciences and Engineering, and one in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Prof. Dr hab. inż. Janusz Datta from the Gdańsk University of Technology has been awarded funding for his project “Sustainable polyurethanes: from cradle to grave with the help of enzymes”. Dr Martin Halecký from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and Dr Hynek Benes from the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences will be the principal investigators. The project will receive funding of over 1 million zlotys.

Quantum geometric representation theory and noncommutative fibrations will be studied by Prof. Tomasz Brzeziński from the University of Białystok and Dr Réamonn Ó Buachalla from the Charles University in Prague. The Polish part of the project will have a budget of nearly 920 thousand zlotys.

Prof. Marek Sikorski will work on the project “Photoredox catalysis with organic anions – perspective area for flavin derivatives”, together with Prof. Radek Cibulka from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague as the principal investigator on the Czech part. The Polish part of the project will have a budget of over 1.4 million zlotys.

Nearly 840 thousand zlotys was awarded to the project on graded differential geometry with applications which, on the Polish part, will be managed by Prof. Dr hab. Janusz Grabowski from the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He will pursue research in collaboration Dr Oleksii Kotov from the University of Hradec Králové and Dr Jan Vysoky from the Czech Technical University in Prague.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, funding of over 550 thousand zlotys will go to Dr hab. Stanisław Pijaj from the Jagiellonian University for his project “Civil society and the birth of elections: the voting culture of the 1848 Revolution on the example of the Bohemian lands, Galicia, and Bukovina” which will be performed together with Dr Luboš Velek from the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Republic.

Recommended projects have been evaluated by the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) as the Lead Agency. The National Science Centre approved the results of evaluation under the Weave collaboration and decided to fund projects recommended by the GACR.

Weave-UNISONO

The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any discipline of science.

The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for merit-based review and the others simply accept the result.

Under Weave, partner research teams apply in parallel to the lead agency and their relevant domestic institutions. Their joint proposal must include coherent research programmes and clearly spell out the added value of international cooperation.

The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to carefully read the call text and submit their funding proposals.

As the end of the year is coming closer, do not forget that NCN proposals submitted to the IMPRESS-u call and processed in the OSF submission system in 2023 must be sent via OSF by 31 December 2023, 23:59:59. Otherwise, a new proposal will have to be processed in 2024.

NCN proposals can only be submitted to the OSF submission system following submission of a joint proposal to the lead agency (NSF). Under the IMPRESS-U call, NCN proposals must be submitted to the National Science Centre electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following submission of the joint proposal, within 7 calendar days.

Today, we discuss equal opportunities for men and women in science with Dr inż. Marta Pacia from the Jagiellonian Centre for Drug Development and Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska from the Brain Disease Centre at the Medical University of Gdańsk, winners of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards.

The International Awards L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science are designed to support talented women scientists involved in life sciences research. The Polish edition is part of the global For Women in Science programme organised in more than 100 countries. Over the past 20 years in Poland, the jury has honoured 123 women at different career levels: MSc students, PhD candidates and pre-habilitation researchers. In the last iteration, concluded in November, the winners were Natalia Sauer, Angelika Andrzejewicz-Romanowska, Elżbieta Wątor, Marta Pacia, Aleksandra Rutkowska and Magdalena Zdrowowicz-Żamojć. They have all conducted research funded by the NCN.

Marta Pacia, photo: LOreal-UNESCO For Women and Science Dr inż. Marta Pacia works at the Jagiellonian Centre for Drug Development at the Jagiellonian University. She has completed four NCN-funded projects. Her research is interdisciplinary in scope and centres on the new aspects of lipid droplets and their contribution to endothelial dysfunction in the context of vascular inflammation in cardiovascular disease. “I would like my research findings to find practical applications in endothelial biomedicine. This is very challenging because the results of any single study in this field are usually just a piece in a larger jigsaw puzzle, and only the whole can have an appreciable impact on contemporary science”, she says. Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska works at the Brain Disease Centre of the Medical University of Gdańsk. She has executed three NCN projects. Her research focuses on the brain, and in particular on brain processes and repair ability. “My greatest dream is to contribute to the development of new drugs that would unleash the brain’s repair potential. I would like to do my bit to give patients with SM and other neurodegenerative diseases a new hope for a fuller, more active life”, she explains.

In praise of diversity and “daily mentoring”

“The situation of women in science is improving; it is definitely better than several or more years ago. There is also more awareness of the need to react to blatant discrimination against women, especially in STEM fields. When I just started my freshmen year at university, I remember one of our lecturers said something to the effect of ‘the gentlemen will remember, the ladies will note it down’. If that happened today, I believe he would be instantly called out for it”, says Dr Marta Pacia. Pacia adds that this was just an isolated incident and she has otherwise been lucky to work in environments that promote equality and put the emphasis on “skills and hard work”. She underscores that in order for us to create equal opportunities for men and women in science, we need to make provisions for career breaks in the bylaws of research-funding institutions (such as the NCN or the ERC) or scholarship programmes. “Provisions of this kind would limit the negative effects of unplanned career breaks, such as, e.g. prolonged sick leaves, but also appease women’s fear of a longer hiatus related to childbirth, for example. Thanks to such measures, women who decide to have a baby won’t lose the ability to apply for research funding when one of the submission criteria is age or the number of years that have elapsed since their PhD. In general, this gives everyone a better chance to reconcile research with parenting, but it’s still not easy”, she adds.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz: Speaking for the organisers of L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science, you mentioned the perks of working in a diverse environment.

Marta Pacia: I think that diversity on many levels, in terms of gender, educational background and skills, is crucial for science. Working in a highly diverse environment allows you to remain open to change and increases your flexibility when it comes to worldview and problem-solving. A person with a background in physics will approach a research problem differently than someone with a background in chemistry or biology.

I believe that research teams that are internally diverse, especially in terms of research experience, but also in terms of gender, are more creative and efficient. The diversity of perspectives really contributes to achieving innovative solutions.

AKJ: The L’Oréal-UNESCO programme definitely boosts women’s visibility in science. Women researchers I have talked with thus far often emphasise the importance of various mentoring initiatives and the support that more senior women researchers provide to their junior colleagues. Is your experience similar?

MP: I have never benefited from any organised mentoring initiative, probably because initiatives of this kind have only become popular recently and when I was a PhD student they weren’t that widespread. I think that mentoring is extremely helpful, especially for the community of junior researchers. But I completely agree that winning the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women and Science award has contributed in an important way to increasing my recognisability in the research world.

While I completely support organised mentoring initiatives for young women, I believe what really matters in your career is the “daily mentoring” of the people you work with from day to day. I have always been lucky to work with excellent researchers, both men and women, who have impacted my research capability and helped me always achieve increasingly ambitious goals.

When I was a PhD candidate, I also had the pleasure of working with a woman advisor who not only shaped my career path at that time, but also my entire worldview, which is something I fell very grateful for. Last year, when I was approached by a female PhD student from our research unit, who asked me to help with her grant application, I said yes, even though we only had two weeks left before the deadline, because this is something that my advisor once did for me. Just to be clear, if a male PhD student came to me with a similar request, my decision would be the same. I feel really happy to be able to pass on the support I once experienced to others.

AKJ: What initiatives do you think we should take to support gender equality in science? I mean especially low-cost ideas that could be easily implemented at the level of any research institution.

MP: Making provisions for career breaks, especially maternity leave, in annual researcher assessment schemes, slot-based evaluation or other forms of assessment. When it comes to parenting breaks, the situation has improved a lot with the decision to allow researchers to extend their project duration, both at the NCN, and at my own unit, the Jagiellonian University. Overall, the goals set by the Jagiellonian University in its Gender Equality Plan are both ambitious and well-defined, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for their implementation.

A lot still remains to be done

Aleksandra Rutkowska, photo: LOreal-UNESCO For Women and Science When asked about the situation of women in science, Dr Aleksandra Rutkowska also admits that it has improved in recent years, but hastens to add that a lot still remains to be done. “Efforts to counteract differences in how men and women are perceived and promote women’s participation in STEM fields are gaining momentum, which helps raise awareness of the problem and fosters new policies and initiatives aimed at levelling the playing field. But we still need to do a lot more before we can say that women enjoy equal opportunities, recognition and resources in the world of science”, she says. Rutkowska argues that for women’s position in science to change, what we need is “a higher representation of women in executive positions, a greater visibility of women researchers in the media, and better support mechanisms for women in science”.

During the L’Oréal-UNESCO awards ceremony, she pointed out that the “first seven years after the PhD are critical in the career of any researcher” and called for the widespread implementation of solutions that would enable women to include maternity-related career breaks. “I was 12 weeks pregnant when I defended my PhD dissertation; for the next 6 years, I was either pregnant or on maternity leave”, she recalled.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz asked Dr Rutkowska about solutions that could make it easier for women to reconcile their family and research roles. Dr Rutkowska replied: “The extension of the period during which one is still defined as a ‘young researcher’ to account for maternity leave has allowed me to continue my work in research after I had my three kids. Without it, I would have had to give up my research career altogether. From my perspective, this is the key solution behind the increase in the number of women getting their habilitated doctor degree that we have seen in recent years. Before, we would lose the majority of women in the period between their PhD and their habilitation. Similar solutions have already been put in place at the NCN, the NCBiR, FNP and for the scholarships from the Ministry of Education and Science. However, some awards and distinctions still make no allowances for that hiatus”.

Rutkowska also adds that “both in grant application and habilitation proceedings, there remains the great challenge of levelling the playing field in terms of mobility”.

“Young researchers are expected to complete several international postdoctoral fellowships. It is a criterion considered and appreciated by reviewers in grant and award programmes and habilitation proceedings. The problem was partly addressed under the SONATINA grant; the NCN now awards an extra 3,000 zlotys per each month of the fellowship to support the researcher’s family. The fellowship can also be reduced to 3 months or divided into shorter periods. Such solutions are needed on a much greater scale to allow young researchers to grow their careers.

“Even though the period spent on maternity leave is formally included in record assessment, reviewers often skip this criterion or, perhaps, simply lack the necessary information, which often results in a negative assessment of gaps in the publication record. Perhaps a solution to address this situation would be to train reviewers or provide them with clear information on career breaks. At the NCN, such information is already included in the proposal and I have never been criticised for gaps in my publication record when applying to the NCN. However, I have received such criticism in other basic research-funding institutions. Importantly, and I want to emphasise this, enforcing uniform research record assessment practices across different research-funding institutions could help eliminate potential disparities in the treatment of applicants”, says Dr Rutkowska.

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

• in joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed in and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2023: 1 EUR = 4.7244 PLN;
• in joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed in and submitted via the OSF submission system from 1 January 2024: 1 EUR = 4.5940 PLN;

2. NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system in 2023, with the exchange rate of 1 EUR = 4.7244 PLN, must be completed in and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2023 at 23:59:59. Otherwise, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case the Polish research team must prepare a new proposal, with the exchange rate 1 EUR = 4.5940 PLN, and complete it in the OSF submission system. If a joint proposal has already been submitted to the lead agency, with the budget of the Polish part of the project calculated according to another exchange rate, the NCN proposal will be inconsistent with the joint proposal and as a consequence the proposal may be rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the eligibility criteria.

3. As of 1 January 2024, the updated Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure shall apply.

4. Please consult the updated call documents, including the Guidelines for Polish research teams.

Over 100 scientists participated in the third and the last POLONEZ BIS Kick-off meeting. The meeting was held at the beginning of December, at the NCN headquarters.

The Fellows and Mentors whose research projects started this autumn or will take off in January and April 2024 took part in the Kick-off meeting. The two-day event was an opportunity for the scientists to get to know other Fellows and to develop a network of contacts across Poland. The kick-off started with a presentation by Dr Iwona Bielska, a Fellow awarded in the first POLONEZ BIS call, who shared with the new PIs and their Mentors her year-long experience of working and living in Poland. It was followed by a workshop on the career development, conducted by CRAC-Vitae, an institutional partner of the POLONEZ BIS programme. Its aim was to support the all-round development of researchers, i.e. through a special Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) Planner platform. The second, very popular workshop session, was devoted to open access to publications and research data. Fellows also learned about cross-sector secondments and ways of promoting their scientific projects.

The third kick-off meeting was the last one in a series of events kicking off the implementation of projects under the POLONEZ BIS programme. Fellows will continue to meet during the training programme and during the POLONEZ Fellows Forum scheduled for 2024.

Gallery

The second EOSC Festival 2023.The National Tripartite Event Poland gathered the stakeholders of European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), who engaged in discussions on Open Science (OS) and the future of the EOSC. The focus was on key issues related to OS policy and implementation and EOSC development in Widening Countries and beyond. With over 40 contributors from 13 countries, it attracted more than 258 participants, both in-person and online.

Bertil Egger Beck, European Comission, photo credit: Michał Łepecki The distinguished keynote speakers included Bertil Egger Beck from the European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation (DG RTD), Volker Beckmann, the French delegate to the EOSC Steering Board (EOSC-SB), Karel Luyben, President of the EOSC Association (EOSC-A) and Mateusz Gaczyński from the Polish Ministry of Education and Science. Additionally, contributors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Lithuania, Malta, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Poland discussed the EOSC readiness from the perspective of their countries. The 19 Polish stakeholders demonstrated long-term commitment to developing OS and EOSC infrastructures, services, and skills in Poland, aiming to establish a mature and fully operational EOSC national structure.

Overall, the event significantly enriched discussions on OS policies and their implementation at both national and European levels, focusing on the future of EOSC and considering the perspectives of Widening Countries in these discussions. It provided a strong foundation for future collaborations.

The event was hosted at the headquarters of the National Science Centre in Kraków on November 6th and 7th.

The National Science Centre wishes to acknowledge all EOSC Festival contributors: speakers, panelists, moderators, and participants.

Representatives of the Widening Countries

Polish stakeholders

The representatives of the Tripartite Collaboration: The European Commission EOSC Steering Board and EOSC association

Panel discussion, EOSC and Open Science: policies and implementation, photo credit: Michał Łepecki

Gallery

Researchers from Białowieża, Łódź, Kraków, Sopot and Warsaw are among the recent winners of the BiodivMon call organised by the European Biodiversity Partnership Biodiversa+. They will work on projects focused on improving the system of monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem change.

Announced in September 2022, BiodivMon – Improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for science and society, covered the following themes:

1. Innovation and harmonization of methods and tools for collection and management of biodiversity monitoring data;
2. Addressing knowledge gaps on biodiversity status, dynamics, and trends to reverse biodiversity loss;
3. Making use of available biodiversity monitoring data.

Researchers from 33 different countries could join the BiodivMon call, organised by 46 research-funding organizations, to compete for grants covering three-year international research projects. In the end, 262 pre-proposals and 108 full proposals were submitted, out of which an independent panel of experts selected 33 with a total budget of 46 million euro.

Polish teams are involved in six of these successful projects. Their total budget is 6.8 million zlotys, nearly 1.7 million of which will come from an EU subsidy.

The following is the list of winning Polish projects:

• WOBEC: Weddell Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change. Principal investigator: Dr hab. Józef Wiktor, Instytut Oceanologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk.
• DNAquaIMG: Innovating transnational aquatic biodiversity monitoring using high-throughput DNA tools and automated image recognition. Polish principal investigator: Dr hab. Karolina Bącela-Spychalska, Uniwersytet Łódzki.
• FunDive: Monitoring and mapping fungal diversity for nature conservation. Polish principal investigator: dr hab. Julia Pawłowska, Uniwersytet Warszawski.
• WildINTEL: Building a scalable WILDlife monitoring system by integrating remote camera sampling and artificial INTELligence with Essential Biodiversity Variables Polish principal investigator/PI of the WildINTEL project: Dr hab. Nuria Selva Fernandez, Instytut Ochrony Przyrody Polskiej Akademii Nauk.
• SoilRise: Raising awareness for soil biodiversity and multiplying monitoring by student-based Citizen Science. Polish principal investigator: Dr hab. inż. Agnieszka Józefowska, Uniwersytet Rolniczy im. Hugona Kołłątaja w Krakowie.
• BIG_PICTURE: Developing data management and analytical tools to integrate and advance professional and citizen science camera-trapping initiatives across Europe. Polish principal investigator: Dr Jakub Bubicki, Instytut Biologii Ssaków Polskiej Akademii Nauk.

On 14 December, join us for a talk entitled “The Quantum Path to Chemistry” by Katharina Boguslawski, winner of the 2023 NCN Award for Physical Sciences and Engineering, in the framework of the “Science at the Centre” series.

Katharina Boguslawski is a quantum chemist working at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and member of the Polish Young Academy, PAS. Her research combines chemistry, physics, mathematics and applied computer science. Bouguslawski focuses on developing innovative computing methods to model the properties of large chemical molecules without the need for experiments.

She is currently a PI under ERC’s StG 2022 and NCN’S SONATA BIS.  In October, she won a 2023 NCN Award in recognition of two achievements: building a simple and reliable quantum mechanical model of actinide compounds and using quantum information theory to develop innovative methods to study electron structures and track actinide chemical reactions.

At 6 pm on 14 December, within the framework of the “Science at the Centre” series, organised together by the NCN and the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Research, she will deliver an online lecture entitled “The Quantum Path to Chemistry, or What Theoretical Chemistry Can Teach Us About Chemical Reactions”. The talk will be streamed on the YouTube channel of the Copernicus Center in English with Polish subtitles.

Prof. Katharina Boguslawski is actively involved in initiatives for equal gender opportunities in science and was interviewed as part of our “Women in Science”. series.

The headquarters of the National Science Centre in Kraków hosted a conference promoting the Basic Research programme funded under the 3rd EEA and Norway Grants’ edition. This year, the event was devoted to Humanities and Social Sciences.

Organised by the National Science Centre, the conference brought together renowned researchers, innovators and stakeholders from Poland and Norway, providing them with a platform to share knowledge and exchange experiences.

“Sharing knowledge and ideas among researchers from different backgrounds is the foundation for the advancement of knowledge”, emphasised Dr Marcin Liana, Deputy NCN Director at the opening of the conference. In her address, Siv Haugan, delegate of the Research Council of Norway, the institution that represents the Donors in the Basic Research programme, added that the Donors consider Humanities and Social Sciences an important research area and presented the opportunities for funding in these disciplines under Horizon Europe.

During the conference, project teams and individual researchers from Polish and Norwegian academic centres also presented their research projects and detailed the findings they had obtained in grants awarded under calls such as GRIEG, POLS and IDEALAB. Participants could find out, for instance, how online social networks can support collective resistance to disinformation, hear about women’s activism and its moral and cultural foundations from the example of Kurdish society, and learn how psychology and social development sciences could be combined to test the relationship between folk theories of social development and the concept of ideal wellbeing.

The conference also featured an expert panel entitled Social Transformations in the Age of Polarization, moderated by Prof. Nina Witoszek from the University of Oslo. Its panellists discussed the challenges of mounting social polarisation, shared their observations and recommended possible measures.

The panellists included researchers working on Polish-Norwegian projects under the GRIEG call: Dr Katarzyna Jaśko from the Jagiellonian University, Dr hab. Jarosław Michałowski from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Dr Paweł Marczewski from the Stefan Batory Foundation, operator of the Active Citizens programme under the 3rd EEA and Norway Grants. They presented their research findings from projects focused on social challenges in the age of polarisation, and together arrived at the following conclusions:

• understanding: they emphasised the need to understand the multifaceted nature of societies, including the complex social impact of polarisation on a local and global scale;
• dialogue and empathy: they pointed out the necessity of social dialogue at every stage of decision-making that impacts societies, including the need to work toward an inclusive society that would integrate diverse viewpoints and cultivate empathy as the key tools to mitigate polarisation.

The panel moderator, Prof. Nina Witoszek, also underscored the important role of research and education in addressing civilisational challenges in an increasingly diverse world.

About EEA and Norway Grants

EEA and Norway Grants consist of funds donated by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reduce social and economic disparities within the European Economic Area and strengthen bilateral relations with the 15 beneficiary countries in Central and Southern Europe.

To learn more about the programme, as well the projects and plans for further cooperation, watch our conference video.

“In my field, the dominance of men starts with the dominance of boys. If there is any need for institutional support, it is in raising social awareness and educating kids early on. All children, boys and girls alike, should be encouraged to develop their interest in maths,” says Professor Ewa Szczurek. We met with the 2023 ERC CoG winner to discuss research, grants and measures to support equal opportunities for men and women in science.

Prof. Ewa Szczurek, photo credit: M. Szczurek Prof. Ewa Szczurek is a computer scientist working at the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics of the University of Warsaw. Her research interests centre on artificial intelligence and its applications in biology and medicine. She has previously won three NCN grants. In November, as one of a group of just four scientists from Poland, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant. “I am particularly interested in probabilistic graph models and deep generative models. As for their applications, I used to be involved in cancer research for many years. Quite recently, my interests have expanded to include the generation of antimicrobial peptides. Thanks to the ERC grant, I will be able to fully develop this line of research”, the scientist tells us.

Entitled DOG-AMP Deep Optimised Generation of Antimicrobial Peptides, her ERC project will apply cutting-edge AI methods to generate new antimicrobial peptides. More active and less toxic than the peptides we have today, they will be likely to find effective therapeutic applications and help counteract the problem of antimicrobial resistance.

Professor Szczurek studied in Warsaw and Uppsala (Sweden). She earned her PhD at the German Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, went on to work as a postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and is currently a visiting professor at Northwestern University in Chicago. She will work on her ERC project at the University of Warsaw and at Helmholtz Munich.

The European Research Council has thus far awarded a total of 77 grants to researchers based in Poland. 15 of these have gone to computer scientists and mathematicians from the University of Warsaw (one project was hosted by the Institute of Mathematics, PAS).

In 2022, the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics of the University of Warsaw employed nearly 250 academic teachers; fewer than 20% of these were women. This included 16 female and 81 male professors.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz asked Prof. Ewa Szczurek about her ERC grant application and possible solutions that could help women researchers make it in male-dominated disciplines.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz: Computer scientists and mathematicians from the University of Warsaw have won nearly 20% of all ERC grants awarded to researchers based in Poland. Why do you think your faculty is so successful?

Ewa Szczurek: I would say it owes its success to a focus on scientific excellence and strong support mechanisms for active researchers. Also, the success stories of colleagues who have already won ERC grants really encourage others to apply.

But I want to emphasise that all grants, be it from the ERC or the NCN, are but a means to an end, not an end in itself. I suspect other ERC grant holders think the same.

AKJ: I recently saw a presentation by Prof. Piotr Sankowski, quadruple ERC grant winner, who said that he won a Starting Grant on his first attempt, but it took three to get the next two grants; the latest, the Proof of Concept Grant, required five attempts. Starting Grant holders from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Prof. Katharina Boguslawski and Prof. Piotr Wcisło, also told me that their university had supported their application from the IDUB budget. Was this your first ERC application? What support did you get?

ESz: I applied for a Starting Grant a few years ago, but I didn’t get it. That important project was funded by the NCN under SONATA BIS.

It took me two attempts to get the ERC Consolidator Grant. Last year, I got a lot of support from the Research Support Office at the University of Warsaw, the PAS Office of Scientific Excellence, as well as my faculty colleagues. I took part in “mock panels”, during which renowned researchers took on the role of ERC panel experts. This year, I was also supported by the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich in Germany, which pays for a professional coach to help prepare candidates for the ERC interview. I could also really count on my team.

For a research team to work well, it also needs administrative support, which is why I am very thankful to the research support section at my faculty, the administrative staff of the University of Warsaw, our computer lab and computing server admins. I also relied on my faculty’s support for active researchers.

AKJ: Did the fact you had previously worked on NCN-funded projects have an impact on your ERC application and its success?

ESz: The fact that I had won grants from the NCN, an independent, expert-based research-funding institution in Poland, showed that I am an independent researcher with enough research project experience. This is an important element of my CV, which is also looked at by ERC reviewers.

AKJ: You work in a male-dominated discipline. Of course, your hard-won success is the product of your own effort. Do you see any chance and need for institutional change to help women make it in disciplines where they have long been under-represented?

ESz: In my field, the dominance of men starts with the dominance of boys. As early as in primary school, girls are often perceived as being less gifted in STEM subjects than boys, including by their own parents. Fortunately, that wasn’t my problem. My mom was a mathematician and worked with computers, and my father was a physicist. So it was only natural that I would think that anyone, man or woman, could take up STEM subjects. If there is any need for institutional support, it is in raising social awareness and educating kids early on. Speaking more generally, I believe all children, boys and girls alike, should be encouraged to develop their interest in maths.

AKJ: How do you see the situation and status of women researchers in Poland in comparison to other countries you’ve worked in? What models could we transplant from Switzerland, Germany, or the US?

ESz: I haven’t noticed any differences in the status of women at my previous institutions and my current workplace in Poland.

As for the models we could copy, I think university childcare centres would be it. At ETH Zurich in Switzerland, employees could leave their children in a day-care centre or pre-school, which also had several branches in different neighbourhoods across the city. At the University of Chicago in the US, too, there is an excellent elementary school. Knowing that your kids are in good care, getting excellent education while you’re at work, is very important for your research performance. It also really helps the university attract researchers with families.

AKJ: Do you see any solutions, especially low-cost solutions, that could easily be implemented in every research institution to help researchers reconcile their family and professional roles?

ESz: On principle, it is incredibly difficult for researchers to reconcile work and family life, because this line of work requires frequent travel and is very absorbing mentally. The only thing I can think of is making room for remote work, which is an option that’s already available at my faculty, for instance.