It is the fifth anniversary of the first two Dioscuri Centres for Scientific Excellence in Poland. Forum Akademickie featured an interview with Aleksandra Pękowska and Grzegorz Sumara, Dioscuri Centre leaders, who discussed the work conditions in Poland, achievements and plans for the next five years.

Dioscuri is a programme devised by the Maxa Planck Society (MPG) to support the development of scientific excellence centres in Central and Eastern Europe by promoting outstanding researchers who want to conduct their top-notch research in this region. Owing to the programme, eight early-stage researchers have returned to Poland to establish eight Dioscuri Centres modelled on the world’s best solutions, in cooperation with the German mentoring institutions. 

The first two Dioscuri Centres were launched in the Nenecki Institute, PAS in the late 2019 and early 2020. Dr Aleksandra Pękowska has been appointed head of the Dioscuri Centre for Chromatin Biology and Epigenomics and the Centre for Metabolic Diseases has been headed by Dr hab. Grzegorz Sumar. Pursuant to the programme, both centres have recently been funded to continue their operation for the next five years.

“Dioscuri grants provide the resources needed for salaries, research and publications. Because it is easy to transfer funds from one budget item to another, top specialists can be recruited and lab needs rearranged during the project. We can use more dynamic research group management methods adopted by the top U.S. institutions,” they say, adding that “the grant extension have obviously allowed us to believe in a more stable development perspective, which – in turn – made us engage in more ambitious and challenging projects that have already resulted in publications in prestigious academic press/ journals, such as Cell Stem Cell, Genes & Develoment, EMBO Molecular Medicine or EMBO Reports.”

They have also pointed out a widely-understood environment affecting the conditions of work in Poland and complementary role of domestic grant programmes in the operation of the Dioscuri centres. 

“The dynamic operation of the National Science Centre has been an unquestionable asset and incentive for our return to Poland,” Aleksandra Pękowska and Grzegorz Sumara point out, adding that “the NCN is currently the main basic research funding agency in Poland that supports high quality solutions, introducing the best Western standards to Poland while, at the same time, promoting and nurturing cooperation between national and international research institutions.” 

In their summing up of five years of Dioscuri Centres’ operation in Poland, the scientists highlight the importance of decent funding for the National Science Centre as well as urgent and comprehensive improvement of the researcher and research institution support and evaluation system. The whole text is available on the website of Forum Akademickie.

We are pleased to announce that the Czech agency GAČR will conduct a call for proposals under the Weave programme between 12 February 2025 and 3 April 2025, with the Czech agency acting as the lead agency.

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 the GAČR, by 10 April 2025, 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 30 January, an Information session was held with representatives of research funding organisations and ministries interested in participating in the European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR). The initiative focuses on areas such as social protection, the future of work, education, and fair transition to climate neutrality. The coordination of the Partnership will be led by National Science Centre (NCN).

The European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR) is one of the new initiatives proposed under Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The goal of the Partnership is to address key societal challenges by launching calls for international research projects in the social sciences and humanities. The STR Partnership will also support the development of tools and policies in the following areas: modernising social protection systems and public services, shaping the future of work, fostering education and skills development, and ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality.

On 30 January, an online Information session about the candidate for the European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience took place. The session was attended by research funding organisations and ministries interested in joining the STR Partnership. During the event, participants were introduced to the objectives and framework of European Partnerships, as well as the priorities of the STR Partnership and its next steps.

During the meeting, it was officially announced that the STR Partnership will be coordinated by National Science Centre (NCN). In this role, NCN collaborates with the European Commission and European research funding organisations and ministries. The preparation phase includes the development of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) and planning a roadmap of actions to achieve the Partnership’s objectives.

The STR Partnership represents a significant step towards strengthening societal resilience and supporting social transformations across Europe.

For more information about the STR Partnership, please visit: https://chanse.org/social-transformations-and-resilience-partnership-candidate/

Dr hab. Aleksandra Maatsch from the University of Wrocław, together with researchers from Austria and Germany, will carry out a research project on democratic backsliding in EU member states.

The Domestic Politics of EU Action against Democratic Backsliding is the title of a project performed by Polish researchers under the leadership of Dr hab. Aleksandra Maatsch, together with the research team of Prof. Michael Blauberger from the University in Salzburg, Austria and researchers from the University of Bremen, Germany, headed by Prof. Arndt Wonka, will perform the project entitled: “Domestic Politics of EU Action against Democratic Backsliding”. The total Weave – UNISONO funding for the Polish part of the project is nearly 890 thousand zlotys.

Research on countering democratic backsliding is growing quickly, but mostly focused on either domestic causes of backsliding or EU-level accounts of counter-measures. The basic aim is to demonstrate whether or not the EU’s ability to act and to have an impact against member state backsliding crucially depends on domestic political support.

The proposal has been evaluated by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), whereas the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the National Science Centre approved the evaluation results under the Weave collaboration. 

Weave-UNISONO Ranking List

List no. 9, Weave-UNISONO 2024

Weave-UNISONO is launched under the Weave Programme within the framework of multilateral cooperation between research funding agencies associated in Science Europe. The programme aims to simplify the submission and selection procedure of research proposals in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The selection process relies on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) according to which a full merit-based evaluation is performed by one partner institution, whilst the other partners approve its results.

Under the Weave programme, partner research teams submit their funding proposals to the lead agency as well as their respective research-funding agencies. Joint proposals must include a coherent research programme and identify the added value of international cooperation.

Weave-UNISONO is carried out on an ongoing basis. Research teams intending to cooperate with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to read the call text and submit their funding proposals. 

Join our online information webinars for researchers and PhD holders intending to submit their proposals to the NCN, facilitated by the NCN coordinators in 2025.

The 2025 webinars will work as modules, each devoted to one of the following themes:

• NCN call portfolio: national and international calls (in Polish and English),
• proposal structure,
• proposal evaluation procedure,
• project settlement: final reports, and
• MINIATURA.

For more information on the themes, dates and registration deadlines for each webinar, please go to Information webinars and training courses for applicants.

To take part, you need to register through Clickmeeting. A registration link will be made available as soon as the registration period starts; the exacts dates will be listed online at Information webinars and training courses for applicants. The maximum number of participants is 500.

We have launched the MINIATURA 9 call addressed to researchers who have been awarded their PhD in the past 12 years and are not former NCN call winners. The call budget is 20 million zlotys. 

The purpose of the call is to fund basic research activities for the purposes of future research projects submitted to NCN calls and/or other national and international calls. Research activities may be carried out in the form of preliminary studies, library and archive searches or research visits. Research activities can be carried out in one or more forms, as long as it is well-justified. Funds of PLN 5,000 to PLN 50,000 can be requested to finance a research activity carried out over a period of up to 12 months.

Applicants must hold a PhD degree awarded no earlier than 1 January 2013. The eligibility period may be extended to account for a childcare leave or a break due to incapacity to work. Applicants must also demonstrate at least one paper published or one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art. On the proposal submission date, they must be employed by a host institution pursuant to an employment contract. Eligible applicants must not be former winners of NCN calls or fellowship grantees under FUGA, UWERTURA or ETIUDA. MINIATURA funds may only be awarded once. 

A new list of review panels is now in place, comprising 26 panels on the basis of which proposals are reviewed. Inter-panels have been modified, in particular as regards Life Sciences, and Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences.  

NCN Mentoring has been launched for the first time, to provide mentor’s guidance to investigators performing a research activity. Our database includes nearly 600 names of researchers registered as potential mentors. They are experienced in managing research projects funded by the NCN, international projects and/ or are winners of ERC calls. Proposals may specify a particular mentor or include a notice that the applicant wishes to use mentor’s support.

Call procedure and peer review 

Proposals may be submitted to the OSF submission system between 3 February and 31 July 2025, 4 pm CEST. They will be evaluated on an ongoing basis and the results will be published on a monthly basis. 

The call budget of 20 million zlotys is divided proportionally so that the same pool of resources is available each month. Accordingly, researchers are encouraged not to put off their decision to apply until the very last month to make sure their proposal is not rejected only because of insufficient funds left over for that month.

Intake may be suspended when the total amount of resources requested by applicants is more than double the budget of the call.

Join us for the third edition of the EOSC National Tripartite Event Poland on 25 March 2025. The event will focus on Poland's role in the development of the EOSC Federation, highlight best practices in research data management, and tackle challenges in collaboration between research infrastructures within EOSC. Registration is now open!

The program features presentations by representatives from the European Commission, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the EOSC Steering Board, and the EOSC Association. Discussions will cover Poland’s resources in EOSC, the role of infrastructures in the EOSC Federation, and domain-specific aspects of research data management. Participants will have the chance to hear insights from experts and key stakeholders in the fields.

The event will provide a platform to showcase Poland’s contributions to the development of the EOSC Federation, to discuss research data management practices, and to address challenges in fostering collaboration among scientific infrastructures within the EOSC.

Everyone interested in open science is welcome to take part in the  EOSC National Tripartite Event Poland that will take place in Kraków on 25 March 2025, and will also be streamed online.

Registration is open until 17 March 2025.  

Due to limited in-person capacity, registration for the on-site event will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Participation is free of charge.

Professor Tomasz Dietl, the new Chair of the NCN Council, is the first guest of the NCN podcast in 2025. In an interview with Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz, he spoke about the priorities of the Council as well as his own experiences as a researcher and ERC grant winner.

NCN Recommendations on publications

Prof. Tomasz Dietl during NCN Open Days 2024 in Bydgoszcz, photo by Łukasz Bera Professor Tomasz Dietl is a physicist, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and Academia Europaea. In December 2024, the NCN Council elected him as its Chair. In the past, he has served as a member of the Scientific Council and the Steering Committee of the European Research Council (ERC). In 2008, he won an ERC Advanced Grant.

One of the topics of the interview was the NCN Council resolution of December 2024 concerning the dissemination of research results. The document encourages scholars to publish in prestigious journals and to avoid those that do not guarantee a fair review process. However, online comments on the resolution have raised questions about the interpretation of the recommendation. Does avoiding certain journals mean a total ban on publishing in them? How do you put those tips into practice when there is no clearly defined list of predatory magazines?

Professor Dietl addressed those questions, explaining why no decision was taken to create such a list. “The number of magazines is around 50 thousand. Five million articles are published each year. Making such a list would be difficult even technically, but I think it wouldn’t make sense because the landscape of science is dynamic. Certain magazines disappear, others appear, exploiting loopholes. (...) The intention of this resolution is to promote good practices. Not bans, not orders, just an indication of how well one should behave in a scientific environment,” says the Council Chair. He adds that publishing in journals with lower prestige in a particular field can significantly reduce the chances of winning funding at the NCN. “Therefore, researchers who are thinking ahead and planning for the long term should take this advice to heart and aim to publish in journals where leaders in their field publish,” he says.

The role of the NCN and new challenges

Professor Dietl also talked about the main directions of the NCN Council’s activities in the coming years. He identified three key priorities: integrity, fostering scientific excellence and deregulation.

“My dream is to convince the scientific community – and this is the direction the Council may be working towards – that project writing is a creative process that allows us to plan research, learn about the literature and establish new collaborations. Therefore, even if we do not receive funding as a result of our application, this time is not lost. It is an activity that allows us to organise our scientific work and mentally prepare ourselves to make new discoveries.” He adds that this is why the integrity of reviews is one of the main topics the Council is working on.

“The idea is that even proposals that did not receive funding should provide the authors with information on what was good, what needs improvement and what has already been discovered. (...) If applications are improved on the basis of reviews, there is a great chance that the project will be funded in the next call.”

In terms of project implementation, he noted the need for more freedom for scholars: “Let’s not place so much importance on filling the schedule. What is more important is what was discovered, how the findings were disseminated and the social significance of the research. These are the key questions we should be asking when evaluating a project.”

Mobility and international grants

The topic of European Research Council grants and the need to increase the participation of Polish scientists in international calls also came up in the interview. In many European countries, applying for an ERC grant is seen as an integral part of building a research career. “For example, you cannot apply for prestigious positions such as director of the Max Planck Institute if you do not apply for an ERC grant at the same time. This is the approach we should also promote in our environment, realising that this is a very difficult call, with huge competition. However, assuming reliable and valuable reviews are received, the time spent preparing the project will not have been wasted. They will help us find out what we did well, which of our proposals were interesting and which ideas proved to be secondary or unattractive," says Professor Dietl.

The podcast guest also emphasises the importance of building researchers’ recognition and mobility. “Intellectual and geographical mobility are key. (...) I’ve seen young scholars who had a great understanding of how the world of science works. They themselves knew where to publish, what conferences to go to, whom to talk to. However, such people are still too few in number. Travelling abroad, attending conferences and collaborating internationally is not only intellectually stimulating, but also crucial to winning an ERC grant.”

NCN – oxygen for science

At the end of the interview, Professor Dietl acknowledged that the NCN plays a special role in Polish science, supporting scholars at different stages of their careers. He also pointed out how much mobilisation of the scientific community was brought about as a result of a struggle to increase the NCN’s budget.

“The 30% increase in the NCN’s budget is a success, but remember, cumulative inflation has been 43% in recent years. We still face challenges – how to increase salaries, subsidise equipment and enable the best scholars to carry out more projects. These are not easy decisions and require extensive discussion.”

The interview is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast and on You Tube.

Polish polar researchers have launched the BERA research infrastructure, enabling the collection and analysis of samples from various regions of Norway’s Svalbard and facilitating their transport to Poland. Polar research has been an important research area for Polish scientists for years and is also funded by the National Science Centre.

Official opening of the BERA Center, January 23, 2025. Photo: Polskie Konsorcjum Polarne In Norway and Iceland, Polish polar explorers conduct research on environmental and climate change. They study the cryosphere, which is the part of the hydrosphere comprising water in the form of non-vanishing glacial, sea ice and ground ice. They also conduct social, political and cultural research. In the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard located in the Arctic Ocean, Polish researchers have been present since the 1950s. Several Polish research stations are located there. The BERA research and logistics centre in Longyearbyen was opened recently.

The BERA Centre, whose name is derived from an Old Norse word meaning “she-bear”, is a joint project carried out through the collaboration of seven scientific institutions: the University of Silesia (leader), the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and the University of Wrocław. The institutions will fund the NCN’s activities and support its maintenance for the coming 10 years. BERA is active in three areas: logistical support, scientific research and teaching and educational activities. Its activities will contribute to the intensification of international scientific cooperation, which will broaden the scope of research and knowledge exchange.

Maintaining the infrastructure and conducting environmental monitoring outside Poland in the harsh conditions of the Arctic regions is a major challenge, requiring support from multiple sources. The National Science Centre has been funding research work in those regions for years, both through national competitions and through external funding.

NCN was the operator of the Basic Research programme under the last edition of the Norwegian and EEA Funds. We organised the GRIEG competition, in which support was granted to 7 projects in the sphere of polar research. We also funded the CRIOS pre-defined project involving 7 Polish and 4 Norwegian partners, and the HarSval bilateral initiative involving 11 Polish and 14 Norwegian partners. Thanks to EEA and Norwegian funds, it was possible to strengthen scientific cooperation between Poland and Norway, including interdisciplinary research, modernise and expand the automated monitoring network for the Spitsbergen cryosphere, develop the Polish Polar DataBase, make data available in accordance with FAIR data and Open Science principles, and organise workshops to harmonise and standardise research.