Please note that the call for proposals at the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) acting as lead agency ends on 28 February 2023.

If a joint proposal is submitted to ARRS as the lead agency, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to ARRS, i.e. by 7 March 2023, 23:59 p.m. at the latest.

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.

In response to the demands of the scientific community, PRELUDIUM BIS will start and end earlier than before.

PRELUDIUM BIS is addressed at institutions operating doctoral schools. The objective of the call is to support PhD student education and fund their research projects. The National Science Centre’s cooperation with the National Agency for Academic Exchange enables support of international mobility of early-stage researchers.

Four rounds of PRELUDIUM BIS calls have been held as yet. The NCN Council has decided to announce this year’s round on 15 June instead of mid-September, as was the case in the past. Thus, the results will be announced three months earlier, before February 2024 (proposals will be evaluated within five months).

This change should facilitate PhD students’ recruitment for projects and doctoral schools.

Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak from the Medical University of Lublin is a candidate for NCN Director. The NCN Council has adopted a resolution to present his nomination to the Minister of Education and Science.

prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak during the NCN 2021 Award ceremony Krzysztof Jóźwiak is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences involved in research on molecular pharmacology and medicinal chemistry. He is the Head of the Department of Biopharmacy and Chair of Chemistry at the Medical University of Lublin. He is also the President of the University Grant Proposal Support Team and member of the Board Supervising the Transfer of Knowledge Centre at the Medical University of Lublin.

Between 2012 and 2020, prof. Jóźwiak was a member of the NCN Council and between 2018 and 2022, a member of the Scientific Council of the Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow.

NCN Director is appointed pursuant to the Act on the National Science Centre and Regulation by the Minister on Open Calls for Director or Deputy Director of the National Science Centre.

The NCN Director is appointed by the Minister in charge of Science following an open call.

The call was launched by the NCN Council in mid-November 2022 and continued until the end of 2022.

The call procedure was carried out by a committee formed by the NCN Council  comprising its members and representatives appointed by the Minister of Education and Science.

Following the committee’s report, at the meeting of 16 February 2023, the NCN Council decided to present the nomination of Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak who was identified as the best evaluated candidate, to the Minister.

The current Director’s term of office ends on 3 March 2023. Prof. Zbigniew Błocki was in office for two consecutive four-year terms, i.e. the maximum time set by law.

The National Science Centre and the ERC National Contact Point Department for Horizon Europe are organising the ERC Mentoring Initiative Information Day on 2 March 2023, at 10 am - 11.30 am, in the form of a ClickMeeting webinar.

The ERC Mentoring Initiative is a programme created by the European Research Council to support researchers applying for ERC grants. Together with the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the National Science Centre (NCN) joined the initiative in May 2022. The agencies made it possible for their grant winners to cover the costs of participation in the ERC Mentoring Initiative from their domestic project resources. Researchers may apply to the National Contact Point Department of the NCBR specifying domestic grants they are pursuing. Having verified the information, the National Contact Point Department will identify mentors from the database provided by the ERC and will initiate contacts between the applicant and the mentor. The researchers will specify the scope of the mentoring together with the mentors according to the applicable rules provided in the programme description.

During the webinar, the guidelines of the ERC Mentoring Initiative will be presented as well as funding possibilities offered by the NCBR, NCN, FNP and NAWA under their programmes. At the end of the meeting, the Q&A session will be held.

You can register website of the National Contact Point.

We are pleased to announce that the Czech agency GAČR will conduct a call for proposals under the Weave programme between 13 February 2023 and 4 April 2023, with the Czech agency acting as the lead agency. Please note that under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to GAČR, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to GAČR, by 11 April 2023, 23:59 p.m. at the latest.

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.

On Wednesday, 22 February 2023, at 11 a.m., a webinar will be held on QuantERA Call 2023 for transnational research projects in Quantum Science and Technologies. The webinar addressed to the Polish research teams intending to enter the call will be held in English.

The meeting will include discussions on the call subject and rules of submitting proposals to the National Science Centre and National Centre for Research and Development. The webinar will feature coordinators of projects funded under the QuantERA Programme:

• Welcome – prof. Konrad Banaszek
• Presentation of the QuantERA program – Sylwia Kostka
• Scope of the QuantERA Call 2023 – prof. Konrad Banaszek
• NCBiR guidelines for Polish applicants – Mateusz Skutnik
• NCN guidelines for Polish applicants – dr Eng. Ewelina Szymańska-Skolimowska
• Presentation of the project coordinator NImSoQ – dr Anna Kamińska
• Presentation of the project coordinator VERIqTAS – dr hab. Remigiusz Augusiak
• Presentation of the project coordinator ExTRaQT – dr Alexander Streltsov
• Answers to questions from the audience

Please register here.

The first episode of NCN podcasts is called “Men and Women in Science”. We are launching a series of talks about important issues facing the scientific community and science in Poland. The first podcast has already been broadcasted via streaming platforms.

The next episodes will feature researchers from various academic centres in Poland, NCN staff and members of the NCN Council. In the serious of talks (“Science is All About People”), we will discuss, inter alia, the operation of our institution, research funding and support for internationalisation of science. New episodes will be broadcasted once a month.

The first episode dedicated to equal chances for men and women featured current and previous members of the NCN Council: Dr hab. Joanna Golińska-Pilarek, Prof. Monika Kaczmarek, Prof. Jacek Kuźnicki, Prof. Justyna Olko, Dr hab. Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz and Prof. Teresa Zielińska.

The Report on Men and Women in Science published by the National Science Centre in 2022 served as a starting point for the talks. The Report was drafted by the Evaluation Team and Committee of Research Activity Analysis of the National Science Centre based on a survey involving nearly 6,000 researchers from all over Poland.

“We have already done a lot and almost everyone has gender equality plans in place but I personally still feel some lack of understanding of equal opportunities for men and women across the scientific community” says Monika Kaczmarek.

The podcast guests have discussed the mechanisms for positive increase of female participation in science and decision-making groups and processes. Guests have shared their ideas and suggestions on how to support equal chances for men and women in science allowing researchers to balance their family and professional life.

Podcast host: Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz.

Listen to our podcast!

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Apple Podcast

The next episode of our podcast will be broadcasted at the beginning of March. We will talk about how to draft a good proposal and receive an NCN grant.

ForestValue2 will launch a Joint Call in 2023 - funded by national funding agencies - aiming to support transnational collaborative R&I projects that will produce knowledge to support the best possible use of forests and forest resources as well as to provide multiple benefits for society and the economy.

Call opening: 2 May 2023 (indicative).

The precise topics are still to be defined by the participating funders; however, the call will aim to encourage and make best use of cross-sectoral, coherent, and integrated perspectives.

To date, the following countries have expressed a preliminary interest to participate in the call: Finland, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain.

Please follow https://forestvalue.org/ for any updates.

Please note that the information above is provisional and subject to change.

Decisions for the POLONEZ BIS 3 proposals that did not meet the eligibility criteria were sent out on 2 February 2023.

Please note that decisions of the Director of the National Science Centre are served in the form of an electronic document sent to the e-mail address provided by the applicant in the proposal.

Information was sent from the address: ncn.wnioski@ncn.gov.pl and contained a link to download the decision of the Director of the National Science Centre.

The correspondence was generated automatically – please do not reply to the message you received. If you have any problems with access to the document, please contact the POLONEZ BIS Team polonez@ncn.gov.pl.

The status of your proposal application can be checked in the OSF system.

We are pleased to announce the MINIATURA 7 call for single research activities, such as preliminary/pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits and/ or consultations with a budget of 20,000,000 PLN.

The main objective of the call is to finance research activities for the purposes of future research projects submitted to NCN calls for proposals as well as other national and international calls. The call for a single research activity carried out over a period of up to 12 months will have a budget of 5,000 PLN and 50,000 PLN. Funds can be requested by researchers who have been conferred their PhD degree after 1 January 2011 and whose scientific achievements include at least one paper published or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.

A researcher designated to carry out a research activity must be employed by the applicant pursuant to an employment contract on the proposal submission date and must not be a principal investigator in a project funded by the National Science Centre or winning applicant of a call for fellowships (including FUGA and UWERTURA) or ETIUDA, and must not have requested funding under another NCN call as an applicant, principal investigator or fellowship candidate.

As of this edition of the MINIATURA call, proposals may be submitted in either Polish or English. A researcher may submit only one proposal and may only carry out one research under a call for proposals in the course of their research career.

Evaluation of proposals and results

Proposals are submitted electronically via the OSF submission system pursuant to the proposal submission procedure. Proposals are submitted according to the terms laid down in the Guidelines for MINIATURA 7 Proposal Completion.

The call for proposals will be open between 1 February 2023 and 31 July 2023, 4 p.m.

It may be suspended if the total amount of requested funds exceeds twice the value of funds allocated by the NCN Council for the research activities to be carried out under the call.

Funds for research activities carried out under the MINIATURA 7 call are divided proportionally to the number of months of the call for proposals. Funding is awarded in so far as (inter alia) the proposal is within the pool of funds available for a given month. In the previous MINIATURA call for proposals, a large number of proposals was submitted in the last month. Please remember that you can also apply in the other months of the call.