MINIATURA 8

A research activity may be carried out in more than one of the following forms: preliminary/pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits and/ or consultations, as long as it is well-justified, crucial for the research activity and necessary to achieve the goals.

Proposals under the call may be submitted by:

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 2020, item 1796);
4. research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2022, items 498, as amended);
5. international research institutes established pursuant to other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland;
6. scientific libraries;
7. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws 2020, items 2098);
8. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network and
9. legal entities with registered office in Poland if they belong to the public finances sector.

Research activities must be carried out by researchers:

1. who have been conferred their PhD degree after 1 January 2012. This period may be extended by the 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 childcare 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 are employed by the applicant pursuant to an employment contract on the proposal submission date;
3. who have not acted as the principal investigator in any of the projects funded by the NCN;
4. who are not winning applicants of an ETIUDA call for doctoral scholarships or a call for fellowships (including FUGA and UWERTURA) funded by the NCN;
5. who are not applicants, principal investigators or fellowship candidates under proposals submitted to or recommended 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 Regulations.

Researchers carrying out a research activity in a proposal submitted to the MINIATURA 8 call must not be applicants, principal investigators or fellowship candidates under proposals submitted to or recommended for funding under another NCN call. This condition applies until the NCN Director’s decision regarding the proposal reviewed under the MINIATURA 8 call becomes final. Only one proposal may be submitted under the MINIATURA 8 call, in which a person is specified as carrying out a research activity, except as specified in Chapter IV § 10 of the Regulations.

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 26 NCN panels comprising three groups: HS – Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering and NZ – Life Sciences.

Research activities may be planned for a period of up to 12 months bearing in mind that the funding decision will be issued within 5 months of the proposal submission date.

The terms of funding under MINIATURA 8 differ from the rules applicable to NCN calls for research project funding. Please read the Types of Costs in Research Activities.

Please find out which costs are not allowed under the MINIATURA 8 call (§2 of the Types of Costs in Research Activities) and which expenditures must not be financed as direct costs but can be financed as indirect costs (§5 of the Types of Costs in Research Activities).

The budget is an important aspect of proposals submitted to the MINIATURA call subject to evaluation. The expenditures must be well-justified and consisted with the research activity, based on realistic calculations and must itemise expenses to be covered from the NCN resources, the so-called eligible costs. The expenditures must also be well-planned and calculated in line with the principle of advisability and frugality, on the basis of the actual expenses, and must be consistent with the applicable laws, including the internal regulations of the host institution.

Proposals with an unjustified cost may be rejected.

State aid is not allowed under the MINIATURA 8 call for proposals. For more information, please 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. A merit-based evaluation of proposals is conducted by the Expert Team members.
5. Proposals undergo a single-stage merit-based evaluation during which individual reviews are drafted by three Expert Team members acting individually pursuant to the criteria established by the NCN Council for the MINIATURA 8 call.
6. A merit-based evaluation is performed based on the information specified in the proposal.
7. The Expert Team members may reject a proposal as ineligible at the stage of a merit-based evaluation.

To find out more on the proposal evaluation procedure, please read the Proposal Evaluation Procedure.

A merit-based evaluation of proposals is performed by the Expert Team members appointed by the NCN Council among outstanding researchers who are at least PhD holders.

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

1. compliance with the basic research criterion;
2. preparation of the proposal and compliance with other terms of the call text;
3. justification of the costs planned as regards the subject and scope of the research activity. The budget is an important aspect of the proposal which is subject to an evaluation. It must be based on realistic calculations and must itemise expenses covered from the NCN resources, the so-called eligible cost;
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 a person carrying out the research activity.

Proposals are evaluated pursuant to Proposal Evaluation Procedure.

The call results will be published on the NCN website and delivered to the applicants by way of a decision of the NCN Director within 5 months of the proposal submission date.

Please read the Information for Applicants on the NCN website.

You can join our online training for applicants.

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

Read our 2024 Call Timeline and follow the news on our website: www.ncn.gov.pl.

If you are intending to submit a proposal to MINIATURA 8:

1. read the call documents set out in the call text, in particular:
   • the Regulations,
   • the Proposal Form Template,
   • the Types of Costs in the Research Activities, and
   • the Proposal Submission Procedure,
2. 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,
3. draw up the following documents in Polish or in English:

a) proposal title related to the selected type of research activity to be carried out;

b) type of the research activity to be carried out;

c) brief description of the research activity to be carried out (1 standard page, A4);

d) description of the link between the research activity to be carried out and a research project to be submitted to future NCN calls and/or other national or international calls as well as justification thereof in view of a potential impact on the scientific level of the future research project (1 standard page, A4);

e) information on the scientific achievements of the person carrying out a 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).

f) expenditures planned to carry out the research activity in compliance with the Types of Costs in the Research Activities;

g) general budget;

h) information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of the research activity, as required by the proposal;

i) 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;

j) 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;

k) 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

l) 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 OSF submission system by pressing the 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 applicant and submit the proposal that has been signed to the OSF submission system; and
4. submit the proposal form to the National Science Centre via the OSF submission system.

The proposal should be electronically submitted to the National Science Centre via the OSF submission system, using the Submit to NCN button.

Under the MINIATURA 8 call, proposals must only be signed with an 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, a funding decision of the NCN Director will be delivered within 5 months of the proposal submission date;
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, the research activity will start on the date the NCN Director’s decision becomes final.

No agreement is concluded in the MINIATURA 8 call for proposals. 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 when submitting proposals.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements, the 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.