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.

“The amendment to the 2024 budget bill, as announced by the future government and parliament, is our last call to prevent a serious collapse of the Polish science and higher education system through changes in spending, especially on subsidies for the NCN”, reads an open letter addressed to the public authorities by a group of Polish researchers. 

The signatories to the appeal point out that the issues of science and higher education have been almost completely side-lined in public debate and in statements by major political parties, and “the current challenges facing research and the material situation of researchers are becoming increasingly dramatic”.

They also emphasise that “the state of basic research is one of the main factors that determine a country’s societal and civilizational growth” and appeal for a NCN budget increase. “Given the size of the Polish budget, we believe that our call to restore the status quo ante, where the National Science Centre was able to fund 25-20% of projects submitted under its calls, is not only necessary, but also realistic”, they argue.

The open letter was started by Prof. Dariusz Rakusa from the University of Wrocław, Prof. Marek Figlerowicz from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, PAS, and Prof. Przemysław Wojtaszek from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Sign the appeal here.

The JPND network, which supports research on neurodegenerative diseases, will be announcing a new international call for proposals in January 2024.

The theme of JPND Call 2024 is: Mechanisms and measurement of disease progression in the early phase of neurodegenerative diseases. The objective of the call is to improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind the development of neurodegenerative diseases so that we are better equipped to measure a disease’s progression parameters at its early and asymptomatic stages. Proposals submitted to the call must involve ambitious, innovative and multidisciplinary research based on advanced research hypotheses, and put an emphasis on modern, advanced methodologies.

JPND Call 2024 will accept proposals in two stages. The call will be officially announced in early January 2024. The deadline for the submission of joint pre-proposals is set for early March 2024. Funding is available to international consortia made up of at least 3 research teams from at least 3 different countries participating in the programme. The PI of the Polish team must have at least a PhD degree.

More information about the call, including a more detailed discussion of this year’s theme and a list of participating countries, can be found on the website of the JPND network.

This is not an official announcement. Detailed call conditions will be specified in the official announcement of the call.