Announcement of the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals

1. The scope of information required in the proposal (Chapter III § 4 of the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for proposals) has been clarified. The scope of information required in the proposal concerning scientific achievements of the person who intends to  carry out a research activity has been extended.
2. The proposal evaluation criteria have been amended (Chapter VIII § 24 of the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for proposals and proposal evaluation criteria)
3. The terms to be met by the proposal recommended for funding (Chapter VIII § 26 of the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for proposals) have been amended.
4. Indirect costs may now be spent on open access to publications and research data (§ 2, 4 and 5 of the types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under the MINIATURA call).

Proposals under the call may be submitted by: 

1. Higher Education entities;
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);
4. research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, items 1383);
5. international research institutes established pursuant to other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland;
6. scientific libraries;
7. the Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2020, items 2098) and
8. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network.

A research activity must be carried out by a researcher:

1. who has been conferred their PhD degree after 1 January 2009. This period may be extended by a time of long-term (in excess of 90 days) documented sick leave or rehabilitation leave granted on account of being unfit to work. In addition, this period may be extended by the number of months of child care leave granted pursuant to the Labour Code and in the case of women, by 18 months for every child born or adopted, whichever manner of accounting for career breaks is preferable. In the case of multiple PhD holders, the reference date is the date of award of the first PhD;
2. who has been employed by the applicant pursuant to an employment contract on the proposal submission date;
3. who has not acted as the principal investigator in any of the projects funded by the NCN;
4. who is not a winning applicant of an ETIUDA call for doctoral scholarships or a call for fellowships (including FUGA and UWERTURA) funded by the NCN;
5. who is not an applicant, principal investigator or fellowship candidate under a proposal that has been submitted or qualified for funding under another NCN call; and
6. whose scientific achievements include at least one paper published or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.

Restrictions on submitting proposals are described in detail in Chapter IV of the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for research activities.

Please note that researchers who intend to carry out a research activity in a proposal submitted to the MINIATURA 5 call cannot act as an applicant, principal investigator or fellowship candidate under a proposal that has been submitted or qualified for funding under another NCN call. This condition applies until the NCN Director’s decision regarding the proposal considered under the MINIATURA 5 call becomes final. Only one proposal may be submitted under the MINIATURA 5 call, in which a person is specified as carrying out a research activity, except as specified in Chapter IV § 8 of the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for research activities.

PLEASE NOTE: One may carry out a research activity funded in any edition of the MINIATURA call only once.

Proposals may be submitted to the call covering basic research in any of 25 NCN panels comprising three groups: HS – Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering and NZ – Life Sciences.

Please note that the topic of the proposal must concern a single research activity carried out in one of the following forms: preliminary/pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits and/or consultations.

Research activities may be planned for a period of up to 12 months. 

When planning a research activity you must bear in mind that the funding decision will be issued within 4 months of the proposal submission date. 

The terms of funding under MINIATURA 5 differ from the rules applicable to NCN calls for research project funding. Please read the types of costs in research activities funded by the National Science Centre under the MINIATURA call.

Please pay particular attention to the costs that cannot be incurred under the MINIATURA 5 call (§2 of the types of costs in research activities funded by the National Science Centre under the MINIATURA call) and expenditures that cannot be financed as direct costs, although they can be financed as indirect costs (§5 of the types of costs in research activities funded by the National Science Centre under the MINIATURA call).

Please note that the costs of remuneration and scholarships are not allowed under the MINIATURA 5 call, with the exception of remuneration for collective investigators who are not employees of the host institution for the research activity. The costs of travel, accommodation and allowances can only be planned for the person who will be carrying out the research activity.

Indirect costs may be spent on open access to publications and research data, with the exception of the Article Processing Charges in hybrid journals, as defined in the Open Access Policy of the NCN.

All costs must be justified and consistent with the research activity. In addition, they must be prudent and consistent with the applicable laws, including the internal regulations of the host institution. 

If unjustified budget is planned, a proposal may be rejected.

State aid cannot be applied for under the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals. For more details, go to the State aid section.

1. Proposals are subject to an eligibility check and merit-based evaluation.
2. The eligibility check is carried out by the coordinators.
3. Only proposals approved as eligible by the coordinator can be accepted for merit-based evaluation.   
4. Merit-based evaluation is conducted by members of the expert team. 
5. Proposals undergo a single-stage merit-based evaluation during which individual reviews are drafted independently by three members of the expert team in accordance with the rules for established by the NCN Council for the MINIATURA 5 call.
6. Merit-based evaluation is performed based on the information specified in the proposal.
7. Members of the expert team may reject a proposal as ineligible at the stage of the merit-based evaluation.

More information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the detailed procedure for evaluating proposals for funding of a single research activity under the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals.

Merit-based evaluation of proposals is performed by the expert team. Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish researchers holding at least a PhD degree.

In the evaluation of proposals, the following are reviewed in particular:

1. meeting the basic research criterion;
2. preparation of the proposal and meeting other requirements of the call announcement;
3. justification of the costs planned as regards the subject and scope of the research activity;
4. assessment of the research activity and justification thereof in view of the research project to be submitted under future NCN calls and/or other national or international calls; and
5. evaluation of the scientific achievements of the person who intends to  carry out the research activity.

Proposals are evaluated pursuant to the evaluation of proposals under the MINIATURA call for research activities.

The call results will be announced on the NCN’s website and delivered to the applicants by way of a decision of the NCN Director within 4 months of the proposal submission date.

Please read the information for applicants available on the NCN’s website.

Should you have any more queries, please contact us by email: informacja@ncn.gov.pl or by phone:

Read our call timeline for 2021 and follow news on our website: https://www.ncn.gov.pl/

If you plan to submit a proposal under the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals:

1. read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:
   1. the terms and regulations of the MINIATURA call for proposals;
   2. the proposal form template; 
   3. the types of costs in research activities funded by the National Science Centre under the MINIATURA call.
2. proposal submission procedure
3. obtain the data from the applicant that are required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and the research activity
4. draw up the following documents in Polish:

• proposal title related to the selected type of research activity to be carried out;
• brief description of the research activity to be carried out (1 standard page, A4);
• description of the link between the research activity to be carried out and a research project to be submitted under future NCN calls and/or other national or international calls as well as justification thereof in view of the potential impact on the scientific level of the future research project (1 standard page, A4);
• information on the scientific achievements of the person who intends to carry out the research activity containing:
  • their career in research, the most important publications/artistic achievements/ achievements in research in art, participation in research projects, research experience, scholarships, prizes and awards (no more than 6,000 characters),
  • publications or artistic achievements: the most important publication in pdf format (in the language of publication) or the most important artistic achievement or achievement in research in art,
  • justification for choosing the annexed publication or presented artistic achievement or achievement in research in art (no more than 1,500 characters).
• expenditures planned to carry out the research activity;
• information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of the research activity, as required by the proposal;
• information on the ethical aspects, including consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the research activity in compliance with generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline, as required by the proposal;
• in the case of a research activity which includes clinical trials with a medicinal product or a medical device, a detailed justification of the non-commercial nature of the trials;
• in the case of a research activity to be carried out in a host institution that does not receive any operating support for a research activity, information on research carried out over the last 2 years, together with a list of publications and information on research equipment and other instruments crucial to the research; and
• declaration of the applicant as required by the proposal.

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

1. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in the ZSUN/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;
2. disable editing of the final version of the proposal;
3. download the final version of the proposal, have it signed by the authorised representative of the institution acting as the applicant and submit the proposal that has been signed to the ZSUN/OSF submission system; and
4. submit the proposal form to the National Science Centre via the ZSUN/OSF submission system.

The proposal should be electronically submitted to the National Science Centre via the ZSUN/OSF submission system, using the Wyślij do NCN [Submit to NCN] button.  

PLEASE NOTE!

Under the MINIATURA 5 call, proposals must only be signed with a qualified electronic signature in the PAdES format. If the proposal is signed by anyone other than the head of the institution, annex an authorisation to represent the institution in an electronic format or a scan of the document signed by hand. 

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 of the NCN Director will be delivered within 4 months of the proposal submission date;
3. if the proposal is qualified for funding, the research activity will start on the date the NCN Director’s decision becomes final.

PLEASE NOTE!

Under the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals, an agreement is not signed. Research activities are funded and carried out pursuant to the general terms of the funding agreement for a single research activity that must be read and approved by the applicants submitting proposals.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements, applicants may appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council. The appeal must be lodged within 14 days of the date of effective service of the decision.