JPND Call 2025

Proposals in the call may be submitted by entities specified in the Act on the National Science Centre, i.e.

1. universities,
2. federations of science and HE entities,
3. research institutes 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 institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1383, as amended),
5. international research institutes 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 2020, item 2098),

5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network,

6. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences,
7. other entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis (other than set forth in sections 1-6),
8. groups of entities (at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company),
9. scientific and industrial centres laid down in the Act on Research Centres of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1383, as amended),
10. research centres of the Polish Academy of Sciences laid down in the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1796),
11. scientific libraries,
12. companies operating as R&D centres laid down in the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovation Activities of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws 2021, item 706),
13. legal entities with registered office in Poland,

13 a. President of the Central Office of Measures,

14. natural persons and
15. companies conducting research in other organisational form than set forth in sections 1-13a.

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.

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.

A template agreement on the formation of a group of entities for the purposes of completion of the research project.

The principal investigator of the Polish research team must hold at least a PhD degree at the proposal submission date. Restrictions on submitting NCN proposals are laid down in Chapter IV of the Terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO, annexed to NCN Council Resolution No 87/2024 of 5 September 2024.

Proposals submitted to the call (Health and social care research with a focus on the moderate and late stages of neurodegenerative diseases) must focus on at least one of the following neurodegenerative diseases:

• Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias,
• Parkinson’s disease and PD‐related disorders,
• Prion diseases,
• Motor neuron diseases,
• Huntington’s disease,
• Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA),
• Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

The subjects of the call cover research in the following areas:

• Deciphering the interplay of physical health, biological, environmental, social and economic factors in determining cognitive decline and behavioural and psychological symptoms;
• Investigating the specific or changing needs in regard to different subtypes of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., different types of dementia), disease trajectories and treatment regimens (e.g., drug-treatment vs. non-drug treatment);
• Identifying transition points of deterioration that occur throughout the disease progression and establishing measures for effective interventions and prevention;
• Development of guidelines and harmonization of standardised operation procedures for the use of socio-cognitive testing across regions and countries in Europe or beyond;
• Development of measures for rehabilitation and reablement and effective support from the perspective of patients and family caregivers to establish person-centred and public health approaches;
• Establishing effective models of care by studying quality of care (e.g., in nursing homes) or the effects of prevention or delay of admission to a nursing home;
• Identifying suitable housing at different stages of the disease progression, from adapted housing solutions to nursing homes and dementia villages;
• Identification and implementation of new digital measurement tools and socio-cognitive digital markers with cross-cultural validation based on patient-reported outcome measures;
• Identifying and addressing known barriers to e.g., improve the accessibility of services, the development of advanced care planning, the interaction between social and care services as well as between persons with dementia and their immediate environment and the public (stigmatization);
• Consideration of ethical issues;
• Unravelling regional differences in the effectiveness and impact of health and social care interventions and developing strategies for evidence-based adaptation and implementation in e.g., different settings, regions and systems.

More information on the subject of the call can be found in the call text of JPND Call 2025..

Polish researchers may apply for NCN funding of their basic research projects for the purposes of Article 2 (1) of the NCN Act.

NCN proposals comprising research tasks overlapping with research tasks laid down in another proposal that has been already submitted in any NCN call or with respect to which an appeal has been initiated, can only be submitted once the funding decision has become final.

Research projects may be planned in the call for a period of either 24 or 36 months.

Apart from the principal investigator, research tasks may be performed by co-investigators, including students, PhD students and post-docs.

A post-doc type position is a full-time position, scheduled by the project’s principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project. This period may be extended pursuant to the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

Persons employed as post-docs must have their PhD degree awarded by another institution than the one employing them at this post or must have completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in another institution than the host institution for the project and in another country than the one in which they have been conferred a PhD degree. Persons employed as post-docs in the project must be recruited in an open call procedure.

PhD students who are NCN scholarship grantees must be recruited in an open call procedure.

An international expert team will review the relevance of involvement of particular members of the research team in the project. 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 read the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

The terms of the call do not specify the maximum number of research team members.

Scholarship grantees and post-docs must not be named in either joint or NCN proposals.

The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and based on realistic calculations. The budget must include expenditures eligible for funding from NCN resources (the so-called eligible costs).

The terms of the call do not specify the minimum or maximum (total) funds that may be requested.

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 4.2818.

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

Direct costs include:

1. remuneration for the principal investigator;
2. remuneration for co-investigators in the project:

• full-time remuneration for post-docs,
• salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students,
• the so-called additional remuneration for members of the research team. If the principal investigator is not to be employed full-time in the project, their remuneration is paid from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;

3. purchase of research equipment, devices and software;
4. purchase of material and small equipment;
5. outsourced services;
6. business trips, visits and consultations;
7. compensation for collective investigators and
8. other costs crucial to the project according to the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

Monograph publication costs are not eligible if claimed as direct costs.

Indirect costs include:

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

The costs of Open Access to publications may only be incurred as indirect costs. The cost of open access planned as direct costs will be regarded as a formal error.

During the project implementation, the host institution must agree with the principal investigator the coverage of at least 25% of the indirect costs. Any expenditure made from that amount must meet the eligibility criteria laid down in the Terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

Where unjustified costs are planned, the proposal may be rejected.

More information on the costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre in international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

We recommend that Polish applicants should consult the budget table of the Polish part of the project with the NCN. The budget table in .xlsx format should be sent to alicja.dylag@ncn.gov.pl by 21 February 2025.

Pursuant to the Open Access Policy (adopted on 27 May 2020, as amended), all research results must be made available in full and immediate open access. On 30 September 2024, the NCN Director decided to extend the relaxed terms of the Open Access Policy.

The Open Access Policy does not apply to monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected papers.

The National Science Centre recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with its Open Access Policy:

1. publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ);
2. publication in subscription journals or hybrid journals, as long as the VoR, AAM or preprint of a paper (if AAM and VoR are embargoed) is deposited in a repository registered in the OpenDOAR database immediately upon the article’s publication on the publisher’s website. If a preprint is published, AAM of the same paper must also be deposited in the repository;
3. publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements that must be inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry) as long as the article has been accepted for publication or published before 31 December 2025 (Letter of the NCN Director of 15 December 2024 extending route 3 of the transformation agreements under the NCN’s Open Access Policy).

Manuscripts must be published using the following licences:

• selected CC 4.0 licence for full open access journals (route 1),
• for subscription journals or hybrid journals (route 2), preprint must be deposited in the repository using CC BY 4.0 licence upon the article’s online publication on the publisher’s website. Once the embargo period is over, AAM of the same paper must also be deposited in the repository. The NCN does not impose any licence-related restrictions for AAM version upon the embargo period;
• for journals covered by transformative agreements (route 3), the following licences can also be used: CC BY 4.0; CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0.

Eligibility of Article Processing Charges:

• Route 1: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0. licences are used;
• Route 2: costs are not eligible and must not be covered by NCN funds;
• Route 3: costs are eligible as long as the CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0. licences are used.

In grant agreements concluded after 1 January 2021, the data underpinning the scientific publications resulting from the project funded by the NCN must be well-documented pursuant to the FAIR Principles standing for machine or manual Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability or Reusability (the so-called “FAIR Data”). Where possible, data must be made available in the repository, according to the Creative Commons Public Domain (CC0) licence or Creative Commons Attribution (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.

State aid can be requested under JPND Call 2025.

You can find out more about state aid HERE.

Joint proposals are subject to an eligibility check performed by the NCN, other agencies participating in JPND Call 2025 and the Secretariat of JPND Call 2025.

Joint proposals that have passed the eligibility check are subject to a merit-based evaluation carried out by an international expert team pursuant to the terms set forth in the call text.

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

The eligibility check of NCN proposals involves verification of proposal for completeness, compliance with all terms set forth in the call documents and Resolution No 87/2024 of the NCN Council of 5 September 2024, including compliance of the budget with the Annex thereto, i.e. “Costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre in international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO”.

Information in NCN proposals and joint proposals must be consistent.

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

JPND Call 2025 will be concluded in October 2025. Firstly, project coordinators will be notified of the outcome. Polish research teams will be notified of the results by way of 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 the 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 website of the JPND network. The terms and regulations on awarding NCN funding in the call are set forth in the Annex to NCN Council Resolution No 87/2024.

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

• Alicja Dyląg,

  Show number

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  (between 9 a.m. and 12 noon)
• Jadwiga Spyrka (before calling, make an e-mail appointment)

If you are intending to apply to JPND Call 2025, please read:

1. the call documents, in particular:
   1. call text of JPND Call 2025 available on the website of the JPND network;
   2. terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.

National level: before an NCN proposal is submitted to the NCN:

1. 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); if a group of Polish entities applies for funding, draft a research project cooperation agreement;
2. make sure that the information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Checking the proposal for completeness in OSF with the Sprawdź kompletność [Check completeness] button does not guarantee that all information entered is correct and the required annexes have been attached;
3. make sure that respective tabs are completed in the correct language;
4. disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN and
5. download the confirmation of proposal submission which must be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the host institution.

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 the NCN electronically via the OSF submission system.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

1. proposals will be evaluated;
2. if a proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into;
3. the project will be performed pursuant to the funding agreement and Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO;

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements related to actions performed by the NCN, applicants may appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council within 14 days of the effective delivery of the decision.