We have the pleasure of inviting you to an information meeting devoted to the GRIEG and IdeaLab calls announced by the National Science Centre on 17 June 2019. The meeting will be held at 11am on Monday, 8 July, at the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences at ul. Sławkowska 17 in Kraków. It will take around 4 hours, including two 1.5h sessions devoted to both calls, a coffee break in-between and a lunch at the end of the meeting.

Moderated by the staff of the EEA and Norway Grants Team, the meeting will impart general information on the premises and objectives of the Research Programme, as well as more detailed guidelines for potential applicants and partners in the Polish-Norwegian GRIEG call. A part devoted to the IdeaLab call will present an innovative formula for the workshop, designed to help drawing up joint research projects that address the topic of “Managing Threats”, and to provide information on the stages of the call procedure (selection of workshop participants, 5-day workshop and submission of the full proposal via OSF).

Due to organisational reasons, the number of places is limited. We reserve the right to select participants in a way that ensures the representation of institutions from various academic centres. Participation in the information meeting is free of charge. The National Science Centre shall not reimburse the costs of accommodation and travel to and from the meeting.

The deadline for application is 3 July 2019. To sign up, please fill in the application form. Please keep in mind that submitting an application does not mean that your participation is confirmed. Selected applicants will be notified of their acceptance and receive all practical information by e-mail. Should you have any queries, please contact us at norway.grants@ncn.gov.pl.

The NCN is the operator of the Basic Research Programme for which 40% of the funds is allocated out of more than EUR 129 million slated for the support of Polish science. The Research Programme’s budget is funded in 85% from donors (EUR 100 million from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 and EUR 10 million from the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021), while the remaining 15% is funded from the Polish state budget. The GRIEG and IdeaLab calls have a total budget of EUR 41,774,118.

We are proud to announce five new calls, including two (GRIEG and IdeaLab) funded from the EEA and Norway Grants. In addition, we have launched: MAESTRO 11, SONATA BIS 9 and UWERTURA 4. In total, 161 million PLN and nearly 42 million euro are up for grabs for researchers involved in basic research projects.

GRIEG and IdeaLab calls are funded under the third edition of EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 within the framework of the "Research" programme, in which the NCN serves as the coordinator in charge of basic research. With an allocated budget of more than 129 million euro, the programme is designed to support Polish science and intensify cooperation between research, business and society. 40% of available resources are slated for basic research projects within the framework of calls such as GRIEG and IdeaLab.

"Ever since its inception, the National Science Centre has striven to boost the quality and competitive edge of Polish research. As the operator of the programme in charge of basic research, we can do even more to internationalize it further and make research projects more effective", says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director. "The new calls in our portfolio open up new opportunities for Polish researchers, e.g. to work within Polish-Norwegian research teams and take part in innovative workshops designed to support the elaboration of ground-breaking research ideas" Professor Błocki adds.

GRIEG call is open to joint Polish-Norwegian research projects in any discipline (as specified by NCN panels), with a special emphasis on polar research and social science. Projects must be conducted by Polish-Norwegian research teams including at least one Polish partner, who serves as the leader of the consortium, and one Norwegian partner. The role of principal investigator may be taken on by researchers employed by a Polish research institution, who hold at least a PhD degree. The Norwegian part of the research team must be headed by a research institution. The consortium may comprise research institutions, enterprises and NGOs and proposed projects may last 24 or 36 months.

The GRIEG call is financed under the Norway Grants, i.e. the resources of the Norwegian Funding Mechanism 2014-2021, and has an allocated budget of more than 37 million euro. The funding requested for the entire implementation period of the Polish-Norwegian project must fall within the 0.5-1.5 million euro bracket. The grant may go toward funding research team salaries and scholarships, purchasing equipment, materials and services, covering travel costs and conferences, as well as other project-related expenses.

"The original idea behind the GRIEG programme was to promote research-based knowledge, strengthen Polish-Norwegian research cooperation, boost the quality of publications, especially in the humanities, support the growth of young researchers, and shape a positive perception of research in society", says Professor Małgorzata Kossowska, Chairwoman of the NCN Council.

IdeaLab is a call for joint research projects carried out by research teams comprising at least one Polish partner, who serves as the leader of the consortium, and at least one partner from Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein. The role of principal investigator may be taken on by researchers who hold at least a PhD degree and are employed by a Polish research organization. The consortium may comprise research institutions, public institutions, entrepreneurs and NGOs. The call will be held in accordance with the "sandpit" process conceived by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and employed by the Research Council of Norway under the name of Idélab. The core component of the call is a workshop during which participants from various research institutes, NGOs and other public or private institutions are asked to tackle the challenges facing contemporary societies. The innovative workshop formula promotes the creation of ground-breaking, interdisciplinary and innovative research project ideas.

"The theme of the IdeaLab call has been laid out by the "Research" Programme Committee in cooperation with experts from the NCN Council. Entitled "Managing Threats", it is designed to address the current and future social challenges posed by complex social, economic and environmental processes, such as globalization, demographic change and migration, the lack of geopolitical stability, technological progress, climate change and the environment", explains Professor Kossowska.

The IdeaLab call is funded under the EEA scheme, i.e. from the resources of the EEA Mechanism 2014-2021, and has an allocated budget of nearly 4.5 million euro. The funding requested for the entire project implementation period must fall within the 0.5-1.5 million euro bracket. The grant may go toward funding research team salaries and scholarships, purchasing equipment, materials and services, covering travel costs and conferences, as well as other project-related expenses. The project may last 24 or 36 months.

As usual in June, we are also announcing the MAESTRO and SONATA BIS calls. The former is targeted at experienced researchers involved in pioneering, often interdisciplinary, research projects important for the development of science, which go well beyond the current state of knowledge. The role of principal investigator may be taken on by a person who holds at least a PhD degree, can demonstrate a minimum of 5 publications in renowned Polish or international academic press/ journals over the past 10 years, and has coordinated at least two research projects within the framework of national or international calls. The 11^th edition of the MAESTRO call boasts a budget of 40 million PLN. The SONATA BIS call, on the other hand, is targeted at researchers who have earned their PhD degrees 5 to 12 years before the proposal submission year and aims to create a new research team. The researcher who submits the proposal is required to demonstrate 1-10 research publications over the last 10 years; the 1-3 most important need to be attached to the proposal. Importantly, apart from the principal investigator, the research team may not include any members with an academic title, title of professor, habilitation degree or equivalent degree or title, or researchers who have already collaborated with one another on a research project funded under a previous call. The ninth edition of SONATA BIS has a budget of 120 million PLN.

UWERTURA 4 aims to support researchers in their successful application for prestigious grants awarded by the European Research Council (ERC). Working in an international research team is an excellent opportunity to acquire valuable experience. Under the UWERTURA call, researchers who apply for fellowships in foreign research teams carrying out ERC grants must hold at least a PhD degree and demonstrate experience in managing their own research projects within the framework of a call or winning prestigious scholarships. Fellowships may last from 1 to 6 months. Within 24 months from the signing of the funding agreement, the researcher must apply as the principal investigator for an ERC grant to be carried out at a Polish host institution. This year's edition of the UWERTURA call has a budget of 1 million PLN.

Proposals are accepted via the ZSUN/OSF electronic submission system. The deadline for submission under the MAESTRO, SONATA BIS and UWERTURA calls is 17 September 2019, under the GRIEG call - 28 October, the results will be announced by March 2020. Proposals for the IDEALAB call may be submitted until 19 August, and the results will be announced in January 2020.

Pilot studies, library and archive searches and conferences are but some of the research activities that can be carried out under the MINIATURA call. The third edition of the so-called "small grants", aimed at enabling researchers to take their first steps in the grant system, has just been launched.

The call is targeted at PhD holders who plan to seek funding for future research projects under other NCN calls, as well as other national and international calls. Experience gained while carrying out a minor task may make it easier to apply for other forms of funding later on. The call is open to researchers who have earned their PhD degrees within 12 years before the proposal submission year, and who have never coordinated and do not currently coordinate any NCN-funded research projects. Project duration must not exceed 12 months, and its budget must fall between 5,000 and 50,000 PLN. The total budget for the third edition of the MINIATURA call equals 20 million PLN.

The procedure of MINIATURA differs from that of other calls in the NCN portfolio. Proposals will be accepted on an ongoing basis via the electronic ZSUN/OSF system from 17 June to 30 September 2019. However, the call may be closed early if the total budget of the submitted proposals exceeds twice the total budget of the funding scheme. For this reason, it is worth submitting the proposal at an earlier date. The review process is simplified and includes only one stage, which means that the results will be known as early as four months from submission. Research implementation is also faster: the general conditions of the agreement are already included in the proposal, which means that the tasks can be undertaken immediately once the funding decision has come into force.

Detailed conditions can be found here (in Polish only).

On 7 June, in Warsaw at the Ministry of Investment and Economic Development, an agreement was signed covering the “Research” Programme under the third edition of the Norway and EEA Grants in which the NCN acts as the operator responsible for basic research, while the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) is responsible for the implementation of applied research.

The agreement was signed by Minister Jerzy Kwieciński and Olav Myklebust, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to Poland. The signing ceremony was also attended by Professor Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director, Wojciech Kamieniecki, acting Director of NCBR and Eivind Hovden, Director of the International Department of the Research Council of Norway representing the donors. The agreement was signed in the presence of Małgorzata Jarosińska-Jedynak, Deputy Minister and Juliusz Szymczak-Gałkowski, Director of the International Cooperation Department at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

The aim of the “Research” Programme, which has an allocation of over EUR 129m, is to support Polish science, make it international and intensify cooperation between science, business, and the public. 40% of the funds is to support basic research within three calls: GRIEG for joint Polish-Norwegian research projects in all research domains; IDEALAB for innovative, ground-breaking research projects in the pre-defined subject “Managing Threats”; and the POLS mobility call to be distributed in the form of small grants aimed at researchers coming to Poland, who wish to carry out research in Polish research institutions and enterprises.

Director Zbigniew Błocki held that “The NCN as the operator of the Basic Research Programme aims at supporting outstanding research projects, making Polish science international and improving its transparency and openness. Acting in compliance with the best international practices, the National Science Centre contributes to improving the quality and effectiveness of basic research.”

The a result of the signed agreement covering the “Research” Programme, the GRIEG and IDEALAB calls will be announced in the near future. Please follow the NCN’s website where we will soon be publishing information on the calls funded from the EEA and Norway Grants.

Signing of the agreement (photos)

In response to changes introduced in the new model of PhD-level education by the Act on Higher Education and Science of 20 July 2018, we would like to clarify interpretation of specific provisions that govern the awarding and payment of NCN scholarships to researchers carrying out research projects funded by the NCN.

Read the NCN Director's letter

An international group of researchers centres at the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University in Poland have produce a super-stable artificial protein ball that apparently defies the rules of geometry and which may have applications in materials science and medicine.

Every role playing gamer knows that there are restrictions governing the shape of dice; try to make a six-sided die by replacing the square faces with triangles and you will be left with something horribly distorted and certainly not fair. The reason for this is that there are geometrical rules describing what kind of shapes are allowed to be the faces of die-like shapes, so-called regular convex polyhedra. In nature too such shapes are common at the microscopic level. Usually made from many proteins and having a hollow interior, these nanoscale objects are known as protein cages and they carry out a variety of important tasks. The most famous example are viruses where the cage carries viral genetic material into host cells.

Researchers are interested in making artificial protein cages in the hope that they may be able to design them to have useful properties not found in nature. There are two challenges to achieving this goal. The first is the geometry problem: some proteins may have great potential utility but seem to be ruled out because they have the wrong shape to assemble into cages. The second problem is complexity: in nature the many proteins that form a protein cage are held together by a complex network of chemical bonds and these are very difficult to predict and simulate.

In the new work, headed by Professor Jonathan Heddle at the Bionanoscience and Biochemistry Laboratory Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University and funded largely by Poland’s National Science Centre, researchers found a way to solve both of these problems. “We were able to replace the complex interactions between proteins with a simple ‘staple’ consisting of a single gold atom.” explains Professor Heddle the senior author of the research. "This simplifies the design problem and allows us to imbue the cages with new properties such as assembly and disassembly on demand.” The research has also found a way to get around the geometrical problem: “The building block of a protein cage is an 11-sided shape.” says Heddle “Theoretically this should not be able to form the faces of a regular convex polyhedron." However the research has found that while this is mathematically true, some so-called “impossible shapes” can assemble into cages which are so close to being regular that the errors are not noticeable. “What this means is that we can now use proteins which we previously would not have considered because they are theoretically unable to form cages." says Heddle. 

The potential implications of the work a far-reaching. "What we, together with our collaborators have found, is simply the first step." notes Heddle, who hopes that the work can be expanded further to produce cages with new structures and new capabilities and also investigated for potential applications particularly in drug delivery.

The research appears in the article “An ultra-stable gold-coordinated protein cage displaying reversible assembly” in the May16^th issue of Nature.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1185-4

The CHIST-ERA Network has defined initial topics for the Call for proposals that will be announced in October 2019:

• Explainable Machine Learning-based Artificial Intelligence
• Novel Computational Approaches for Environmental Sustainability

The general topics will be further developed  during the CHIST-ERA Conference 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia on June 11-13, which will bring together scientists and CHIST-ERA representatives in order to identify and formulate promising scientific and technological challenges at the frontier of research with a view to refine the scientific content of the Call. The conference is open to the research community.

For details please see the programme website.

Please note that this announcement is for information purposes only. It does not create any obligation for the CHIST-ERA consortium nor for any of the participating funding organisations. The official call announcement, to be published later, shall prevail.

NCN contact:

• dr Anna Wieczorek, tel. 12 341 9164
• Marlena Wosiak, tel. +48 12 341 9093

Following a detailed analysis of the National Science Centre’s current call portfolio, the NCN Council decided to expand the formula of the OPUS call to include elements of the HARMONIA call. Applicants will still be able to receive funding for research projects conducted without any international partners, but also for those that do involve such cooperation.

Ever since our inception, we have striven to ensure that our basic research funding schemes are optimally suited to the needs and expectations of the research community. Organized since 2011, the HARMONIA call has funded research projects carried out within the framework of international cooperation, provided that they were not co-financed from foreign resources. The idea behind the call was to encourage Polish research teams to collaborate with foreign partners. Over the years, however, as the call portfolio steadily expanded and the NCN joined a number of international initiatives and programmes conducted within the framework of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, the rationale for the HARMONIA call has considerably weakened. Research teams may have their international research projects funded under other schemes, including bilateral and multilateral calls, as well as the OPUS call.

With this in mind, the NCN Council decided to expand the formula of the OPUS call and allow its funds to go toward research projects that have until now been funded under the HARMONIA call. Starting from the September edition, researchers, regardless of the stage of their research careers, will be able to apply with projects conducted within the framework of direct international cooperation with a partner or partners from a foreign research institution, within bilateral or multilateral international programmes or initiatives or projects conducted by Polish teams with the use of large international research equipment. In their proposal, applicants will be required to supply information on the proposed international collaboration and describe its expected benefits.

A special advantage of the OPUS call is that it allows projects that require the purchase of up to 500 thousand PLN in research equipment to be funded, which was not possible under the HARMONIA scheme. In addition, OPUS gives researchers greater leeway to construct their teams. Principal investigators may take their salaries from project resources and hire teams composed of persons with doctoral degrees, students and doctoral candidates, as well as partners from foreign research institutions. The scheme also provides funding for project-related foreign travel, covers the expenses related to foreign partners' stay in Poland, as well as other visits, consultations and conference travel costs.

The results of the first edition of the SHENG call are now in. Funding was awarded to 30 projects to be conducted within the framework of Polish-Chinese cooperation.

The SHENG call was an opportunity to secure funding for Polish-Chinese basic research in the fields of life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, as well as selected disciplines of social sciences. Awarded projects will be carried out both in Poland and China and supervised by two principal investigators: one on the Chinese and the other on the Polish side. The Polish investigator must hold at least the title of doctor. The project should take 36 months to complete and the budget of its Polish section should be at least PLN 250,000.

"This was the first, pilot edition of SHENG in more than one sense. It was the first opportunity for Polish researchers to vie for such extensive funding for direct basic research cooperation with Chinese partners. Interestingly, proposals were evaluated in a two-track procedure, independently by the Polish and Chinese expert teams. The final list of qualified projects was drawn up after the two assessments were compared and reconciled", said Professor Zbigniew Błocki, Director of the National Science Centre.

250 proposals with a total budget of PLN 313,250,096 were submitted to SHENG 1. Because their quality was generally very high, the ranking list only includes projects that both agencies considered to be the best.

Financial support will go to 30 research projects, including one in the field of arts, humanities, and social sciences, seven in life sciences, and 22 more in physical sciences and engineering. The total budget of awarded grants amounts to PLN 36,377,384.

SHENG is organised by the National Science Centre (NCN) in cooperation with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The proposals were evaluated in terms of their content and formal requirements in parallel at the NCN and the NSFC. The call was open to joint Polish-Chinese research proposals, and experts assessed their research value, the qualifications of the research team, as well as project feasibility and cost estimates.

The first projects qualified for funding under the SHENG call will be launched as early as in June 2019.

SHENG 1 ranking lists

Polish and German research funding and research performing agencies plan to intensify cooperation to support scientific excellence in both countries. They met in Kraków at the end of February and discussed existing mechanisms as well as ways to improve the regional research landscape.

The Second Polish-German Science Meeting held in Kraków was organized by the National Science Centre in Poland (NCN), German Research Foundation (DFG) and Foundation for Polish Science (FNP). During the meeting, heads of research agencies and research managers discussed how to foster Polish-German and European academic relations through excellence strategies and how should they be supported by bilateral mechanisms on the one hand, and EU-funding on the other.

The meeting was opened by Prof. Zbigniew Błocki, director of the National Science Centre, who set discussion points and questions to be touched upon during the roundtable discussion.

“Our guiding questions concentrate on key issues like excellence and science diplomacy. Of course the big subject of this meeting is bilateral Polish-German scientific cooperation but also the landscape of European Research Area as well as a discussion of those issues within new Framework Programme. We always should be aware of the European perspective.”

In the first part of the meeting, representatives of the invited institutions presented their excellence programmes and funding initiatives supporting research, e.g. Excellence Strategy ExStra (DFG), Centres of Excellence by FNP, DIOSCURI by the Max Planck Society (MPG) and NCN, mobility related schemes by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), as well as network-related initiatives such as Strategic Partnerships & Networks by German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Leibniz Network Eastern Europe by the Leibniz Association or Central European Science Partnership CEUS presented by the NCN. During the roundtable discussion, other participants briefly reported on programmes and initiatives established by their organisations: the Polish Academy of Sciences, the German-Polish Science Foundation (DPWS), the Helmholtz Association, German’s Rectors Conference (HRK) and the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP) and others. As a result, those at the meeting gained a clear picture of the landscape of Polish-German funding opportunities and support mechanisms for researchers.

In the second part of the discussion, central questions were reformulated. Support mechanisms for Polish-German cooperation were discussed: should they be large-scale ventures or small-scale but flexible support programmes? Should excellence schemes be given priority or should the portfolio of programmes intended to support a broad range of scientific projects be developed? It was suggested that the funding system should be structurally pluralistic. In order to increase each country’s capacity and be able to answer questions the existence of which we have no idea of yet, we should fund curiosity-driven blue skies research.

During the discussion an important opinion shared by the meeting attendees was articulated that, within a pluralistic system, the structures and funding for researchers need to be stable and long-lasting. Since the most important factors for the quality of science are the people, there is a substantial need to support researchers in a more stable way and offer them a long-term perspective.

The discussion concentrated then on excellence in science. It was clearly stated that excellence initiatives have an enormous influence on society. Since excellence is not equally distributed  in Europe, it is of the utmost importance to reflect on our funding schemes with regard to excellence. There is a need for a benchmark system in European science. Excellence based initiatives within Polish-German collaborations, such as, e.g. Dioscuri or the COPERNICUS Award are relevant instruments for achieving this goal.

During the meeting, the relevance of Polish-German cooperation within the European Research Area was addressed. The discussion brought various observations and ideas on how to act proactively: strengthening bilateral collaboration, creating macroregional research support initiatives and efficiently using EU funding opportunities to foster widening as well as regional, pluralistic cooperation, that in consequence will help to maintain the quality of the selection. On the basis of this existing trustful and well organized Polish-German cooperation, representatives of both countries should cooperate in Brussels more closely to address their joint interests.

Last but not least, all participants agreed that bilateral cooperation gives all the funding bodies the necessary basis for mutual trust.

The Second Polish-German Science Meeting was preceded by a reception held at the German Consulate in Kraków, where the Consul General of Germany and the heads of NCN, DFG, FNP and MPG welcomed the guests and introduced the meeting with short speeches.

The Polish-German Science Meeting was organised for the second time, after the first stimulating and fruitful event organised in Munich in May 2017, by DFG, FNP and NCN. Polish-German research and academic collaboration is strong and has a big potential for building solid Central European research cooperation.

The third Polish-German Science Meeting is scheduled for 2020 and will take place in Germany.

PROGRAMME

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Photographs: Michał Niewdana/NCN