DAINA 4

Proposals for funding of the Polish part of the research project may be submitted by entities specified in the Act on the National Science Centre for which project funding does not constitute state aid:

1. university;
2. federation of science and higher education entities;
3. research institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences operating pursuant to the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796, as amended);
4. research institute operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2024, item 534, as amended);
5. international research institute established pursuant to other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland;
   • 5a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 925 and 1089);
   • 5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;
   • 5c. Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education operating pursuant to the Act on the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 570 and 1897);
6. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
7. other entity involved in research independently on a continuous basis (not listed in sections 1-6);
8. group of entities consisting of at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company;
9. research centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences within the meaning of the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796);
10. scientific library;
11. legal entity with their registered office in Poland
    • 11 a. President of the Central Office of Measures;
12. natural person.

If research projects are carried out by two or more Polish partners applying for NCN funding, they must set up a group of entities (see item 8 above) and as such submit NCN proposals. NCN proposals are submitted by a leader named in the research project cooperation agreement concluded by the group of entities. An institution employing the principal investigator acts as the leader of the group of entities. A template agreement on the formation of a group of entities for the purposes of completion of the research project can be found here.

If, pursuant to Article 27 (1) (2) of the NCN Act, Polish entities cannot set up a group of entities, they are not eligible to apply for NCN funding of a joint research project.

The principal investigator in the Polish research team must be at least a PhD holder when submitting a proposal. The PI will manage the work of the Polish research team.

The principal investigator must be a person employed at the host institution for the entire project duration period pursuant to at least a part-time employment contract (the foregoing does not apply to persons receiving a pension under the social insurance scheme).

The principal investigator must reside in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration period and be available to the host institution for the project (the foregoing obligation does not apply to evidenced project-related business trips or holiday, time off work and other excused absence at work governed by the applicable laws).

The principal investigator must not be named as a person conducting a research activity in a proposal submitted to the MINIATURA call, for which the funding decision has not become final.

In one edition of calls, no proposal may be submitted with overlapping research tasks.

A person named as the principal investigator, when submitting the NCN proposal, must not be a person who:

• manages (project management applies to the period from the date of signing the funding agreement under NCN calls until the date of submitting the final report on the project performance) three or more projects financed under NCN calls; 
• manages two projects financed under NCN calls and is named as the principal investigator in a proposal under evaluation or recommended for funding; 
• manages a research project financed under NCN calls and is named as the principal investigator in two proposals under evaluation or recommended for funding;
• is named as the principal investigator in three proposals under evaluation or recommended for funding under NCN calls.

The restrictions referred to above do not include projects funded under or proposals submitted to PRELUDIUM BIS and DIOSCURI.

Basic research proposals may be submitted to the call in any of 26 NCN panels. The panels comprise the three groups: 

• HS – Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences;
• ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering;
• NZ – Life Sciences.

Funding may be requested for projects lasting 36 months.

In research projects, in addition to the principal investigator, research tasks may be carried out by post-docs, PhD students and students, as well as by other co-investigators.

A post-doc position is a full-time post, scheduled by the project’s principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree in the year of employment in the project or within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project (the period may be extended by evidenced career breaks, in accordance with the section on the costs of the call terms and regulations).

A post-doc must be a person who has been awarded their PhD degree by another institution than the host institution for the project or has completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 9 months in another institution than the host institution for the project and in another country than the one in which they have been conferred their PhD degree. A post-doc in the project must be recruited in an open call procedure.

PhD students/students, who will be NCN scholarship recipients in the project, must be recruited in an open call procedure.

The call terms and regulations do not specify the maximum number of research team members. However, the rationale of employment of particular members of the research team in the project will be evaluated by the Expert Team. The competences and tasks to be performed by particular members of the research team must be described in the proposal.

For more information on the budget for salaries and scholarships, please refer to the section on the costs of the call terms and regulations.

The budget is an important aspect of the proposal, which is the subject to an eligibility check and a merit-based evaluation.

The budget must be well justified as regards the subject and scope of the research and based on realistic calculations. The maximum requested project budget for the entire duration of the Polish part of the project must not exceed PLN 1.3 million.

The budget in NCN proposals must be quoted in PLN, while the budget in joint proposals in EUR. The EUR budget for the Polish part of the research project in the joint proposal must be calculated according to the following exchange rate: EUR 1 = PLN 4,2411.

The project budget (eligible costs) includes direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

1. full-time remuneration for the principal investigator;
2. remuneration for co-investigators in the project:
   • full-time remuneration for post-docs,
   • salaries and scholarships for PhD students and students,
   • additional remuneration for research team members; if the principal investigator is not employed full-time in the project, their remuneration is paid for from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;
3. purchase of research equipment, devices and software;
4. purchase of materials and small equipment;
5. outsourced services;
6. business trips, visits and consultations;
7. compensation for collective investigators;
8. other costs crucial to the project which comply with the section on the costs of the call terms and regulations.

Indirect costs include:

• indirect costs up to 20% of direct costs, which may be spent on costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data,
• indirect cost of open access up to 2% of direct costs, which may be designated only for the cost of open access to publications or research data.

During the project performance, the host institution shall arrange with the principal investigator for the distribution of at least 25 % of other indirect costs. These expenses must be eligible.

For more information on the eligibility of the costs, please refer to the section on the costs of the call terms and regulations.

State aid cannot be applied for under the call.

Pursuant to NCN Open Access Policy, all research results should be made available, if possible, in open access.

The policy does not apply to monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works.

NCN recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with the policy:

1. publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ);
2. publication in subscription journals (in which the articles require payment of a subscription fee) and/or hybrid journals (in which some of the articles are open access and some require payment of a subscription fee); in case of publishing in subscription-based model, it is advisable that Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, i.e. the final manuscript version created by the author, including all the revisions introduced after the peer review, and accepted for publication in the journal; other terms: postprint) or preprint is made available in the repository registered in Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), while at the same time not making AAM/preprint available will not affect the settlement of the costs, nor the completion of the project;
3. publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements (which are available within limited time in accordance with the rules of national publishing consortia; journals covered by Polish transformative agreements are listed on the website of the Virtual Library for Science).

Articles must be published using the following licences:

• route 1: Creative Commons (CC) licence or equivalent open licence;
• route 2: Version of Record (VoR, i.e. a version of record published in a journal with its own typeface and branding; other terms: published version or publisher’s pdf), AAM or preprint should be made available in the repository using CC licence or equivalent open licence;
• route 3: CC licence or equivalent open licence.

Eligibility of Article Processing Charges: 

The costs are eligible for each publication route and each CC licence or equivalent licence. NCN does not recommend incurring APC fees in case of the articles published in the subscription-based model if the AAM or preprint can be made available in the repository at no charge.

The data underpinning the scientific publications resulting from the projects must be well-documented pursuant to the standards of the machine or manual findability, accessibility, interoperability or reusability (the so-called FAIR Data). Where possible, data must be made available in the repository using CC0 or CC BY 4.0 licence. Other licences can also be used as long as they ensure an equivalent level of data openness as CC0 or CC BY 4.0.

NCN understands “data” to be both collected and unprocessed data, as well as generated and processed data, other than scientific publications. The definition comprises all forms, both digital and non-digital.

NCN proposals shall include information specified in the proposal form in the OSF submission system, the template of which is provided in the call text, including, among others (in English, if not specified otherwise):

• research project title as provided in the joint proposal (in Polish and in English);
• joint proposal in PDF format, including all documents required under the rules applicable at RCL, identical to the version submitted in the RCL electronic submission system, including but not limited to:
  • research project description;
  • CVs and publication records of members of the research teams involved in the implementation of the research project;
• research project’s abstract for the general public (in Polish and in English, one page each);
• research plan presenting research tasks to be carried out by the Polish research team (in Polish and in English);
• information on the required qualifications and scope of work by each investigator in the Polish part of the research project;
• budget of the Polish part of the research project;
• information on planned international cooperation as well as description of related advantages;
• information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of the Polish part of the research project;
• information on the ethical aspects of the project, including required consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the project in compliance with generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline;
• in the case of research projects which include clinical trials with a medicinal product or a medical device, a detailed justification of the non-commercial nature of the trials.

In the section Individuals identified in the proposal, please enter the data of all the persons who have been involved in the preparation of the proposal or will be involved in the project implementation. The persons whose data (name, affiliation) have been entered in any other part of the proposal should be mentioned here. The principal investigator is required to notify such persons that their details have been disclosed in the proposal and will be processed by NCN.

Joint proposals are subject to an eligibility check performed independently by NCN and RCL, according to their respective terms, and to a merit-based evaluation performed by RCL under its applicable rules.

Funds are awarded to Polish research teams only for research projects in the event that RCL awards funds to the Lithuanian research teams. NCN accepts the results of the merit-based evaluation performed by RCL unless the special conditions set out in the call terms and regulations are met.

NCN proposals are subject solely to an NCN eligibility check carried out by the Coordinators.

The eligibility check of NCN proposals involves the verification of proposals for completeness and compliance with the call documents and call terms and regulations.

The information provided in NCN proposals and in joint proposals must be consistent and joint proposals annexed to NCN proposals must be the same as joint proposals submitted to RCL.

Only joint proposals are subject to a merit-based evaluation performed by an international expert team established by RCL. For more information on the evaluation of proposals, please go to the call documents available on the RCL website.

The call will be concluded in June 2027. Lithuanian project principal investigators will be notified of the outcome first. Polish research teams will be notified of the results by a decision of the NCN Director.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements related to actions performed by NCN, the applicants may lodge an appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council.

For more information on the call, please go to the RCL website and the guidelines for Polish research teams.

Should you have any more questions or queries, please contact us by e-mail or phone.

Polish Partner (NCN):

Coordinators:

• Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences: Oskar Wolski
• Physical Sciences and Engineering: Anna Koteja
• Life Sciences: Grzegorz Sowa

General Affairs:

Jadwiga Spyrka

(between 9:00 and 12:00)

Lithuanian Partner (RCL):

Miglė Palujanskaitė

If you are intending to apply to the call, please read the call documents, in particular:

1. call documents available on the RCL website;
2. call terms and regulations, including the section on the costs;
3. NCN proposal form template;
4. proposal submission procedure for NCN proposals in international calls.

Before submitting the NCN proposal, please:

1. gather the complete English-language version of the joint proposal submitted to RCL in PDF format. The joint proposal must be attached to the NCN proposal submitted in the OSF system;
2. gather the data necessary to complete the proposal from the applicant and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (project costs, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal); 
3. if a group of Polish entities applies for funding, draft a research project cooperation agreement;
4. make sure that the Lithuanian partner is on the list of Lithuanian institutions entered in the Register of Education and Research Institutions eligible for the call, and the Lithuanian principal investigator is a PhD holder. The list is available here under “Registers” in the “Education providers” category.
5. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in the OSF submission system by pressing the “Sprawdź kompletność” (“Check completeness”) button does not guarantee that all information has been entered correctly and that the required annexes have been attached;
6. check if all tabs have been completed in the correct language according to the proposal form template;
7. disable the final version of the proposal to NCN;
8. download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the entity;
9. upload the signed confirmation of proposal submission.

Once the proposal has been completed and the required annexes attached, use the “Wyślij do NCN” (“Send to NCN”) button to submit the proposal to NCN electronically via the OSF submission system.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

1. evaluation of proposals will be carried out;
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision by the NCN Director will be communicated;
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into;
4. the project will be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement and regulations.