We are pleased to present the latest MINIATURA 7 ranking list. 139 researchers from all over Poland will complete a single research task, such as a preliminary/pilot study, library or archive search, research fellowship, or research/consultation trip, thanks to nearly PLN 5.4 million in funding from the NCN in the fifth round of the call.

The winners of this round are interested in a very diverse range of themes. They are looking for new solutions for the treatment of lifestyle diseases such as cancer and diabetes, analysing the optimal organisation of urban space or studying the impact of artificial intelligence on different aspects of our lives. Certain topics, however, recur in all panels; one such topic is the recycling and reuse of industrial waste or products to reduce the environmental footprint of industry. Interestingly, statistics suggest that it is women who take a particular interest in this subject matter.

Zero waste in winning projects

48 projects were selected in Physical Sciences and Engineering. Dr inż. Julita Krassowska from the Białystok University of Technology will conduct preliminary research on the influence of carbon fibres recovered from advanced products of the automotive industry and the renewable energy sector on the properties of cement concretes, while Dr inż. Kamila Mizerna from the Opole University of Technology will analyse the possible industrial use of ash-slag mixtures, a waste product of the coal power industry.

Some of the 54 winners in Life Science are also focused on industrial waste recycling. In her pilot study, Dr inż. Alicja Stanisławska from the Gdańsk University of Technology will search for an effective method to produce nanocomposite SCOBY nanocellulose-hydroxyapatite from the waste products of the drink industry for applications in bone tissue engineering, and Dr Beata Koim-Puchowska from the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz will study the effect of microbially synthesized surfactin from potato industry waste on cellulase activity.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, grants were awarded to 37 researchers. The theme of zero waste is addressed by a preliminary research project proposed by Dr Katarzyna Uklańska from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. The project is devoted to thrift shops and circular boutiques; Uklański will look into the identity of such shops and analyse the motivations of second-hand shoppers.

All project topics can be found on the ranking list.

RANKING LISTS

RANKING LIST NO. 7

Funding per panel

• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – PLN 1,002,127

• Physical Sciences and Engineering – PLN 1,914,052
• Life Sciences – PLN 2,469,476

The total budget of projects selected in the fifth round of MINIATURA 7 is PLN 5,405,655.

About MINIATURA

The main objective of the 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. Researchers can 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 call is open to PhD holders who earned their degree no earlier than 1 January 2011 (except in special cases specified in the terms and conditions of the call). They need to be employed by the host institution and demonstrate a research record of at least one published paper or at least one achievement in art or art research.

Funds for research activities carried out under the MINIATURA 7 call were divided proportionally between the months during which proposals were accepted. In this edition, the submission deadline was 31 July 2023.

Funding decisions are sent to the ESP ePUAP address indicated in the proposal. If you have not received a decision, please make sure that the address listed in the proposal is correct. If not, contact the person in charge of handling the proposal, as indicated in the OSF system.

In the run-up to the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) organises a series of online debates entitled “What has come to PASs in research policy?”.

The series started on 11 September. It consists of six meetings, during which politicians from major parties running in the elections, talk to Prof. Dariusz Jemielniak, Vice-President of PAS, and share their thoughts on supporting research, funding early-stage researchers and using science to address social problems.

The 7th episode, meant as a recap, will bring together experts from the research community to talk about the challenges of research policy and prospects for change in Polish science. The panellists will include Prof. Zbigniew Błocki, acting NCN Director, Prof. Marek Konarzewski, President of PAS, Prof. Marta Miączyńska, Director of the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw and Prof. Piotr Wachowiak, Rector of the Warsaw School of Economics.

The debate will take place at 6 pm on 26 September.

Scientists from Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic will conduct a joint Life Sciences project. The Polish team will receive nearly PLN 900,000 in funding. We are pleased to present the 7th ranking list of the Weave-UNISONO call (2022).

Funding was awarded to a project entitled "Targeting a unique mRNA decapping enzyme for trypanosomatid infectious disease drug discovery, chemical biology and biotechnology applications". The Polish PI is Dr Maria Górna from the Biological and Chemical Research Center of the University of Warsaw, who will work in partnership with Dr Susanne Kramer from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in Germany and Dr Martin Zoltner from the Charles University in Prague (Biocev, Czech Republic Center for Research of Pathogenicity and Virulence of Parasites).

Trypanosomes are unicellular parasites that cause infectious tropical diseases and pose an important threat, especially to people living in rural areas with high poverty rates. The vast majority of currently used treatments have serious limitations, such as adverse toxicity or emerging resistance; moreover, their mode of action is often not well understood, which means they cannot be improved or adapted when necessary. Scientists from Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic will work together to explore new possibilities of target-based drug design, focusing their attention on ALPH1, an mRNA decapping enzyme found in trypanosomes.

The project was selected following an evaluation by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in its capacity as the lead agency under the Weave program. The National Science Centre and the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) accepted the results and awarded grants to the Polish and Czech partner teams.

Weave-UNISONO

The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies that make up the Science Europe association. It aims to simplify submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any academic discipline.

The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for merit-based evaluation 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 plans 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.

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

1. Please note that under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to the SNSF as the lead agency by 2 October 2023, 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 9 October 2023 at the latest.
2. PLEASE NOTE: 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).

   PLEASE NOTE: 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. PLEASE NOTE: NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system:
   • by 30 September 2023 (inclusive), may include research projects that will be carried out by the Polish research teams from 2024 onwards.

     The following years will be included in the project budget, depending on the project implementation period:

     2024-2025 for two-year projects,

     2024-2025-2026 for three-year projects,

     2024-2025-2026-2027 for four-year projects;

   • from 1 October 2023 (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.

4. In the case of joint proposals submitted to the lead agencies covering Polish team budgets from 2024 onwards, make sure that:

   If the work on NCN proposals in the OSF submission system starts before 30 September 2023, with project performance scheduled to begin in 2024, 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 2023) may cover research projects with a start date in 2025. If a joint proposal has already been submitted to the lead agency for a research project involving 2024 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.

   • the work on NCN proposals in the OSF submission system starts before 30 September 2023 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.
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 2023: 1 EUR=4,7244 PLN;
   • In joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed and submitted via the OSF submission system from 1 January 2023 onwards: 1 EUR=4,5940 PLN;
6. NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system in 2023, to which the exchange rate of 1 EUR= 4,7244 PLN applies, must be completed and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2023, 23:59:59. Otherwise, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case a Polish research team must prepare a new proposal and complete it in the OSF submission system, to which the exchange rate 1 EUR=4,5940 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.
7. 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.

We are pleased to announce the OPUS 26 + LAP/Weave call for research projects, including international cooperation under the Weave programme, and SONATA 19 for PhD holders. The total budget of the two calls is PLN 400 million.

Both calls are designed to fund basic research projects conducted at Polish research institutions. The calls do not have any specific theme; proposals may come from any scientific discipline. Projects will be evaluated by experts in the field and their budgets may include salaries, scholarships, research trips, research equipment and other necessary materials.

Researchers may apply either as representatives of their home institution or as natural persons. For calls that open on the same day, one can act as a principal investigator in only one proposal submitted to OPUS or OPUS LAP or SONATA.

September edition of the OPUS call: the NCN as the lead agency under the Weave programme

OPUS is traditionally open to all researchers, regardless of how far ahead they are in their careers. It pits experienced researchers against early-stage researchers. OPUS projects can be carried out with or without foreign partners or with the use of large international research equipment. In the September round, we will additionally open up the possibility of securing grants for international bilateral or trilateral projects under LAP/Weave, which means the call will also be open to projects that include teams from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders, who will apply for funding in parallel to their respective research-funding agencies.

Alongside the PI, OPUS teams may include other members, such as students and PhD students, as well as post-docs and researchers (senior researcher, not applicable in OPUS LAP projects). The terms and conditions of the call do not specify the maximum size of the team, but team composition and qualifications will be analysed by experts in the course of proposal assessment.

OPUS projects may take 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. Projects conducted in cooperation with partners from Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders may last 24, 36 or 48, while those with German and Czech teams: 24 or 36 months. There is no lower or upper limit of funding available to a single OPUS project, but all project costs must be well justified and cost eligibility will be carefully evaluated by NCN experts.

The budget of the call is PLN 300 million.

SONATA for PhD holders

SONATA 19 is designed to support early-stage researchers who have earned their PhD 2 to 7 years prior and allow them to conduct innovative research. To qualify as a PI under this round, the applicant must have earned their degree between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2021 – or earlier, in certain cases specified in the terms and conditions. Their scientific achievements must include at least one paper published or accepted for publication, and in the field of art, at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.

Projects may take 12, 24 or 36 months. The team may include additional members, such as students, PhD students and post-docs selected through an open call. There is no lower or upper budget limit. A SONATA grant can only be won once.

The budget of the call is PLN 100 million.

Proposal submission procedure

Proposals under OPUS 26 + LAP/Weave and SONATA 19 can be submitted via the OSF submission system until 4 pm on 15 December 2023. For OPUS LAP projects, each foreign team involved in the project must also submit a funding proposal its respective partner institution.

Merit-based review

On Monday, 11 September, 49 ERC grant winners published an open letter with an appeal “to maintain the current, independent, expert-based model of the NCN”. The next day, 49 winners of the FNP followed suit. And on 15 September, yet another appeal in defence of the NCN was made to the {resident and the prime minister in an open letter by 95 FNP fellows.

They emphasised that the NCN has given many researchers an opportunity to “conduct ground-breaking research that contributed to the advancement of Polish science and strengthened our position in the world”. “Most of us have been able to do research thanks to the funding from the National Science Centre, which has helped us achieve international success. Modelled on the European Research Council, the NCN has now become the most important basic research-funding agency in Poland. Its political independence, transparency and high quality standards have made it one of the crucial instruments for supporting science in our country”, they wrote.

More information from Nauka w Polsce.

“More than half of our funding goes to early-stage researchers. In the highly hierarchical Polish system, we give them a breath of freedom and the independence that comes with an ability to build a research team of their own. This is the great value of our agency, and it should not go to waste”, says Professor Zbigniew Błocki in an interview published by “Forum Akademickie” on 12 September.

Zbigniew Błocki, photo credit: Michał Łepecki Moderated by Mariusz Karwowski, the interview addresses the relationship of the NCN with the Ministry of Education and Science. “We have never experienced such a massive attack before. The minister has openly criticised the NCN in public statements, announced a change in its status and, early in August, even mentioned that the NCN might be shut down altogether this autumn. Interestingly, in a written response to our activity report, issued at the end of August, he admitted that the NCN did deliver on its mission and achieve the goals of Polish research policy”, says Prof. Zbigniew Błocki.

Karwowski also asks about the appointment of a new NCN Director. A quick reminder: in February, the NCN Council passed a resolution to submit the candidacy of Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak for approval to the minister, The second term of Prof. Błocki ended in early March and he has since served as the NCN’s acting director.

“We proposed a meeting, which could be held in our offices or at the Ministry of Science and Education, to discuss various issues concerning the NCN, including the appointment of the new director and a budget increase. We had already extended such invitations before, but the minister has turned a deaf ear to our appeals for months now. Our hands are practically tied”, Błocki reveals.

The interview also touches on aspects such as the agency’s proposal evaluation criteria, open access policy, changes in programmes, communication with the research community and the principles of NCN’s operations.

“Recently we have had to expend a lot of energy on constantly fighting to remain independent. The situation we are in today imposes a certain narrative on our part, but I understand that an institution like ours needs to evolve. I am thinking, for instance, of reforming the review system or developing a more comprehensive method of evaluating the research record component. I don’t believe researchers should be judged on their publications alone; there are other achievements that could also be taken into account. The NCN closely cooperates with similar agencies outside Poland; we pay close attention to what they’re doing, participate in discussions and try to keep up with the changes in the world. However, what I will continue to stand by at all costs is that scientific excellence should be kept at the core of our mission”, he adds.

The full text of the interview with Prof. Z. Błocki can be found in the online edition of “Forum Akademickie” (in Polish).

“We wish to appeal to the Prime Minister to stop the plans that would strip the NCN of independence and lead to public grant resources being awarded based on criteria other than scientific excellence”, writes a group of FNP Award winners in an open letter to Mateusz Morawiecki. The open letter comes in response to the announcement of a grant system reform, which has raised red flags in the research community.

In the last few days, another open letter to President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was written in defence of the NCN and its independence by ERC grant winners. Today, 49 winners of the FNP Award, one of the most prestigious distinctions in Poland, raised a new voice of concern at the changes that would affect the NCN.

In their open letter to the Prime Minister, they emphasise that “The statutory foundation of the NCN is political independence and its mission is to fund only the best research projects based on external (mainly international) decisions of experts (a peer review system)”. “These decisions are based exclusively on criteria such as the innovative nature of the project and the applicant’s research record. An alternative to the current model would be to award grants based on political, ideological, regional or personal preferences. As history (including our own history of communism) has taught us, a funding model of this kind spells nothing but disaster for science and is bound to lead to a huge waste of public resources”, they add.

The National Science Centre is modelled on the European Research Council (ERC) and operates in a way similar to that adopted in research-funding agencies in countries that hold up the highest standards as concerns public spending on research.

“We believe that the repeated announcements of unwarranted changes in the NCN model which, to boot, have never been discussed with the Polish research community, will do immense harm to science in Poland but also to the image of Poland as a modern country that respects international research-funding standards”, the letter argues.

Together with the Biodiversa+ European Partnership for Biodiversity, we are pleased to announce an international call for proposals: “Nature-Based Solutions for Biodiversity, Human Well-being and Transformative Change” (BiodivNBS). The total budget available to Polish teams is EUR 1 million.

BiodivNBS is an international call for proposals focused on interdisciplinary research in the field of biodiversity protection. Its purpose is to promote nature-based solutions, support research into such initiatives and campaign for their inclusion in policy-making on a local, regional and national level. An important element of the call is its support for education and civic participation in initiatives aimed at environmental protection and biodiversity.

Proposals submitted to BiodivNBS must address one or more of the following three topics:

1. Synergies and trade-offs of Nature-Based solutions in the context of human well-being
2. Nature-Based solutions mitigating anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss
3. The contribution of Nature-Based solutions for just transformative change

The call is open to international consortia composed of at least three research teams from at least three participating countries. The PI of the Polish team must hold a PhD degree (minimum).

Participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (Québec), Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Morocco (to be confirmed), the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey (to be confirmed).

The call is divided into two stages. At stage 1, Polish teams, in tandem with their international partners, need to submit joint pre-proposals; the deadline is 10 November 2023 (15:00 CET). The best research teams will then be invited to submit full proposals at stage 2, which ends on 9 April 2024 (15:00 CEST). If the Polish team makes the cut for stage 2, its PI will also be required to prepare a domestic proposal focused specifically on the Polish component of the project. Full proposals will undergo merit-based review by an international team of experts appointed jointly by all the research-funding agencies involved in the call. The results of BiodivNBS are to be announced in the autumn of 2024.

Project budgets may go toward funding team salaries, salaries and scholarships for students and PhD candidates, research equipment and other necessary project expenses. Projects may last 36 months.

If you’re interested in the call, you can join a webinar about the proposal submission process, organised by Biodiversa+ on 26 September 2023 (13.00 – 15.00 CEST). Sign up here.

“We want to pursue our ambitions and our research here in Poland. If the stated radical change in the research-funding model is implemented, it will deliver a hard blow to Polish science”, ERC grant holders write in an open letter to the President and the Prime Minister of Poland. The letter has been signed by 49 researchers and comes in response to the changes in the status of the NCN recently announced by the Ministry of Education and Science.

The Ministry of Education and Science has been preparing the ground for this change for many months. Several weeks ago, during the 13th International Interdisciplinary Research Seminar “Ideas – Man – Philosophy” in Stary Sącz, Professor Przemysław Czarnek, Minister of Education and Science, announced that after the upcoming parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for this autumn, the National Science Centre will be shut down and fused into a single central institution with the National Centre for Research and Development and the Medical Research Agency.

ERC grant holders working at Polish host institutions have voiced their protest, emphasising that the NCN is an institution modelled on European basic research-funding agencies, politically independent and managed by the research community.

“After many years at leading international research centres, many of us decided to relocate back to Poland and build their research teams and programmes here, rather than elsewhere. Often, this decision was dictated by the fact that Poland had the NCN, along with its independent, merit-based system of basic research funding”, the researchers write in their open letter.

Since the founding of the European Research Council (2007), Polish researchers have brought home a total of 75 ERC grants in all categories. 11 of them have won an ERC grant more than once.

The signatories of the open letter in defence of the NCN believe that the opportunity to work in projects funded by the agency early on in their career helped them build the research potential they needed to later successfully apply for ERC grants. “The NCN has spent years supporting thousands of talented and ambitious Polish researchers at different career levels. Without its support, their work may no longer be possible, which can do great harm to research in Poland”, they observe.

“We want the Polish economy to grow thanks to top-quality research. We want Poland to be recognised worldwide as a country with high research and technology potential. This is why we appeal to you, Mr President and Mr Prime Minister, to maintain the current, independent, expert-based model of the NCN”, they conclude.