OPUS 22

Proposals in the call may be submitted by any entity laid down in the Act on the National Science Centre (the “NCN Act”):

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 2019, item 1183, as amended),
4. research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1350, as amended),
5. international research institutes established pursuant to separate Acts, operating in the Republic of Poland,
6. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 534),
7. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network,
8. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences,
9. other institutions involved in research independently on a continuous basis,
10. groups of entities comprising at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-9 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company,
11. scientific and industrial centres within the meaning of the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1350, as amended),
12. research centres 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 2019, item 1183, as amended),
13. scientific libraries,
14. companies operating as R&D centres within the meaning of the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovative Activity of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1402, as amended),
15. legal entities with registered office in Poland,
16. natural persons and
17. companies conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-15.

A person (PhD holder or not) whose scientific achievements include at least one research paper published or accepted for publication may act as the principal investigator. In the case of research in the arts, the principal investigator must have at least one paper published or accepted for publication or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art completed. The proposal should include artistic work and/or achievements covering the period of the last 10 years before the proposal year (as of 2011). In specific cases, this period may be extended.

In the case of OPUS LAP proposals, a principal investigator of each research team involved in the project must be named, i.e. two principal investigators in the case of bilateral cooperation and three in the case of trilateral cooperation, a principal investigator for the Polish research team and principal investigator(s) for the foreign research team(s).

Please note: The principal investigator for the Polish research team must reside in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration period. This period includes business trips necessary for the project, in particular involving fieldwork, participation in conferences and/or library and archive research.

Furthermore, the principal investigator for the Polish research team must be a person employed at the host institution for the Polish part of the research project for the entire project duration period pursuant to at least a part-time employment contract. The foregoing obligation does not apply to recipients of social security pension.

The Weave programme relies on multilateral cooperation between research-funding institutions associated within Science Europe, aims at simplifying the submission and evaluation procedure of proposals for multilateral international research projects and builds on the Lead Agency Procedure. The Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) is a new proposal review standard adopted by the European research-funding institutions, designed to make it easier for international research teams to seek funding for joint research projects, as well as to streamline the process of proposal review by research-funding institutions. The procedure rests on the following key principles:

• the use of domestic calls launched by partner institutions to perform merit-based evaluation not only of domestic, but also international bilateral and multilateral proposals, which compete on equal terms with national proposals;
• a basis of trust in the quality of peer review among institutions undertaking such cooperation.

Hence, the funding proposals for projects involving at least two research groups from different countries to conduct joint research may be reviewed at one institution only, known as the lead agency, relevant to one of the teams involved in the project, under a scheme from its regular call portfolio. The results of merit-based evaluation performed by the lead agency must be approved by the other institutions co-launching the call, which award funding to research projects recommended for funding in the course of such evaluation.

In the case of OPUS 22, the LAP cooperation can be carried out by the NCN and the following partner institutions under the Weave programme:

• FWF – Austrian Science Fund;
• GAČR – Czech Science Foundation;
• ARRS – Slovenian Research Agency;
• DFG – German Research Foundation;
• SNSF – Swiss National Science Foundation.

The research teams from Poland acting as the coordinating applicants submit the OPUS LAP proposals to the NCN. The NCN acting as the lead agency under OPUS 22 performs the merit-based evaluation of OPUS LAP funding proposals submitted jointly by the research teams from Poland and Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia or Switzerland.

The NCN is intending to expand cooperation in the future to include other research-funding institutions participating in the Weave programme which has replaced bilateral cooperation programmes with Germany (BEETHOVEN), Austria (MOZART), Switzerland (ALPHORN) and multilateral cooperation programme (CEUS).

Please note: Weave-UNISONO is open to proposals for research projects carried out in bilateral or trilateral cooperation by the research teams from Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovenia and Switzerland in which the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS and SNSF shall act as the lead agency.

Please note: International cooperation is not obligatory under the OPUS 22 call and proposals submitted together with foreign partners shall not be given preferential treatment over those that do not involve such partnerships.

Restrictions on submitting proposals are detailed in Chapter III of the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects.

A person may act as the principal investigator in one proposal only, which means that in the present edition of NCN calls, one can be named as the principal investigator in an OPUS proposal, OPUS LAP proposal, PRELUDIUM BIS proposal or SONATA proposal only once.

Please note: A proposals covering research tasks overlapping tasks specified in another proposal submitted earlier may only be submitted after the funding decision has become final.

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;
• NZ – Life Sciences.

Please note: Proposals are reviewed within panels to which they have been submitted (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). The principal investigator selects the panel. The panel cannot be changed once the proposal has been submitted. If an incorrect panel is selected, the proposal may be rejected.

Under the call, funding may be requested for research projects to be carried out over the period of:

Apart from the principal investigators, the project tasks may also be performed by co-investigators, including students, PhD students, post-docs and senior researchers.

Please note: Senior researchers must not be involved in research projects under OPUS LAP proposals.

A post-doc type post is a full-time post, scheduled by the project’s principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree within 7 years before 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.

Please note: Researcher who have been conferred a PhD degree in another institution than the one planned to employ them at this post or 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, may be employed as post-docs. Post-docs in the project must be selected in an open call.

PhD students who are NCN-scholarship grantees must be selected in an open call.

A senior researcher position is a full-time employment position co-financed by the host institution providing employment at this position and scheduled by the principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree at least 7 years before the proposal submission date, has completed a foreign post-doctoral fellowship (s) and has expertise, unique competencies and experience necessary to perform the tasks in the project. The requirements that must be met by senior researchers are laid down in the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects.

The rationale of involvement of particular members of the research team in the project is evaluated by the expert team. The project must include the description of competencies and tasks of individual members of the research team. Detailed information on the costs of salaries and scholarships can be found in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre.

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

The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and based on realistic calculations. In the OPUS call, the NCN has not specified the total minimum or maximum amount of the project budget. If an unjustified budget is planned, the proposal may be rejected.

The project budget includes direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

1. remuneration for the principal investigator: 150,000 PLN per annum if the principal investigator is employed full time and 3,000 PLN per month if the principal investigator is employed otherwise;
2. remuneration for co-investigators in the project;
   • full-time remuneration for a post-doc type post: 120,000 PLN per annum (which may be increased in well justified cases);
   • senior researcher position: 60,000 PLN per annum. Please note: A senior researcher position must be co-financed by the host institution for the project in the amount of at least 60,000 PLN per annum; the position must not be planned under OPUS LAP proposals;
   • salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students (up to 10,000 PLN per each month of project performance);
   • additional remuneration for members of the research team. If the principal investigator is not employed full-time in the project, his/her remuneration shall be paid from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;
3. purchase or construction of research equipment, devices and software;
4. purchase of material and small equipment;
5. outsourced services;
6. business trips, visits and consultations (Please note: For OPUS LAP proposals: The costs of consultations and visits of co-investigators from research institutions that receive parallel funding from FWF, GAČR, ARRS, DFG or SNSF are not eligible);
7. compensation for collective investigators, and
8. other costs crucial to the project which comply with the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre.

Please note: The costs of publication of monographs (as defined in §10 of the Regulation on evaluation of the quality of research activity issued by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws 2019, item 392)) resulting from research projects may only be incurred following a positive review by the NCN.

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. During the project implementation, the host institution will agree with the principal investigator the coverage of a minimum of 25% of the indirect costs.

If unjustified costs are planned, a proposal may be rejected.

Please note: OPUS LAP proposals must contain a budget table listing foreign project costs of all foreign research teams involved in the project, drafted in accordance with the terms of the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS or SNSF, respectively. Choose and complete an Excel budget table section appropriate for a research team.

The budget must include the costs requested by foreign research teams from the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS or SNSF, identical to the costs specified in the domestic proposals submitted thereto, as well as justifications for all amounts entered. Foreign project budgets in the budget table shall be subject to merit-based evaluation to verify whether the project costs are justified as regards the subject and scope of research. Please note: If the costs in the budget table are not justified, the proposal may be rejected.

The costs in the budget table must be entered in EUR (budgets of Austrian, Slovenian and German research teams), in CZK (budgets of Czech research teams) or in CHF (budgets of Swiss research teams), according to the following exchange rates.

• 1 EUR = 4.5315 PLN
• 1 CZK = 0.1784 PLN
• 1 CHF = 4.1663 PLN.

OPUS LAP proposals must contain a completed budget table.

Please note: OPUS LAP proposals in ZSUN/OSF must concern research projects carried out by Polish research teams from 2023 onwards.

To find out more information on and examples of the budget table, read the Guidelines for Polish research teams submitting OPUS LAP proposals.

Together with other European research-funding institutions, the National Science Centre is a member cOAlition S. Therefore, the NCN has adopted an “Open access policy” pursuant to which all research results stemming from NCN-funded research projects must be made available in immediate open access.

In accordance with the principles of Plan S, 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 (hybrid journals), as long as the Version of Record (VoR) or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is published, by the author or publisher, in an open repository immediately upon the article’s online publication;
3. Publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements, inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry).

More information on Open Access publication can be found here.

Information to be provided in the proposals:

Please note: The information below must be provided in English.

Proposals in the call include application for state aid, except where a natural person applies for funding. For more information please go to the State aid section.

In the case of research projects carried out in a host institution for which project funding constitutes state aid, funds for students and PhD students can only be planned in the form described in the category “salary for students and PhD students” in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the NCN.

Please note: All documents concerning proposals for state aid shall be signed with a qualified electronic signature in the PAdES format.

Proposals shall be subject to an eligibility check and merit based-evaluation.

Eligibility check shall be carried out by:

Only complete proposals that comply with all the requirements set out in the call announcement shall be accepted for merit-based evaluation.

Please note: Under OPUS 22, OPUS LAP proposals shall be evaluated together with other proposals submitted to the call.

Proposals approved as eligible shall be subject to merit-based evaluation performed in two stages.

At the first stage, proposals are subject to evaluation performed by the expert team set up by the NCN, based on the data included in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the full project description. Each proposal is evaluated by two members of the expert team acting independently. Proposals which are assigned auxiliary review panels indicating disciplines from another NCN panels than the one to which they are submitted may be identified by the chair of the expert team as requiring an additional individual review by a member of another the expert team (interdisciplinary proposals).

Then, based on the discussions, a list of proposals recommended for the second stage is drafted by the expert team at the first meeting. Approved for the second stage are proposals whose aggregate cost does not exceed twice the sum of financial resources agreed by the Council.

At the second stage, proposals are referred to at least two reviewers who draft individual reviews based on the data in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the short project description. Based on the individual reviews drafted by the reviewers and discussion at the second meeting, a ranking list of proposals recommended for funding is drafted by the expert team at the second meeting.

The expert team recommends only those OPUS LAP proposals for funding that are among 20% of proposals with the highest rank among all those submitted to the OPUS call under individual NCN review panels. Following the merit-based evaluation, the NCN provides the relevant partner institutions with information on the results thereof together with a list of research projects recommended for funding for their approval. The NCN Director awards funds for research projects to be performed by the Polish research teams, provided that the partner institutions award funds to the foreign research teams.

For more information on the proposal evaluation procedure, please read the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by expert teams or watch our video tutorial.

Please note: Proposals are reviewed within panels to which they have been submitted (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). The principal investigator selects the panel. The panel cannot be changed once the proposal has been submitted. Auxiliary review panels support the selection of experts and reviewers for merit-based evaluation of proposals. Interdisciplinary proposals may be identified by the chair of the expert team as requiring an additional individual review by a member of another the expert team.

The evaluation of proposals shall focus in particular on:

1. compliance with the criterion of basic research;
2. the quality and innovative nature of the research or tasks to be performed;
3. the impact of the research project on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
4. assessment of the feasibility of the proposed project;
5. the scientific achievements of the principal investigator, including publications in renowned academic press/journals;
6. assessment of the results of other research projects conducted by the principal investigator, funded by the NCN or from other sources;
7. the relevance of the costs to be incurred with regards to the subject and scope of the research and
8. preparation of the proposal and compliance with other requirements set forth in the call announcement.

The proposal evaluation criteria are available HERE.

In addition, in the evaluation of OPUS LAP proposals, the following shall be evaluated:

• a balanced and complementary contribution by all research teams in the project. This is to say that the contribution of each team involved in the project must be significant and necessary and their respective tasks should complement one another to create a coherent joint research project;
• academic and research career of the principal investigators in the foreign research teams; and
• other research projects conducted by the principal investigators in the foreign research teams.

Please note: In OPUS proposals, academic and research track record, unique competencies and expertise of the senior researcher as well as the rationale of having a senior researcher employed shall be subject to merit-based evaluation. If the foregoing requirements are not met and/or senior researcher employment in the project is not justified, the proposal may be rejected.

Please note: Proposals with a zero score or “no” decision agreed by the expert team in any reviewed criterion shall not be recommended for funding. The foregoing does not apply to the data management or ethics issues in research.

Proposals are reviewed within the panels (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers, holding at least a PhD degree. Expert teams are established for each call edition. The composition of the expert team is subject to the number and subjects of proposals submitted to each panel.

The call results shall be published on the NCN’s website and communicated to the applicants by way of a decision by the NCN Director as follows:

Please read the Information for applicants (OPUS proposals) and Guidelines for Polish research teams submitting OPUS LAP proposals (OPUS LAP proposals) available on the NCN's website.

Should you have any questions, please contact us by e-mail: informacja@ncn.gov.pl or by phone:

If you are intending to submit a proposal in the OPUS 22 call, please read:

1. the call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:
   • Terms of the OPUS 22 call and terms and conditions of research projects carried out in the LAP cooperation
   • OPUS and OPUS LAP proposal form template, where you can find out about information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in ZSUN/OSF;
   • Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre;
   • proposal submission procedure;
2. obtain data from the host institution for the project that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (cost planned in the project, procedure for acquiring signature(s) or authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
3. if the applicant is a group of Polish entities, drafted an Agreement on collaboration for the purposes of completion of the requested research project must be
4. prepare acceptance letters from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section includes papers accepted for publication that have not been published yet).

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

• check if the tabs have been completed in the correct language;
• disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
• download and sign the confirmation of submitting the proposal in the call (principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the entity);

  Please note: In the case of OPUS LAP proposals, the NCN does not require any documents (agreements) confirming the LAP cooperation between Polish and foreign research teams, nor does it require OPUS LAP proposals or documents attached thereto to be signed by members of the foreign research teams.

• attach the confirmation of submitting the proposal with a signature.

Once the proposal is completed and relevant annexes attached, the proposal shall be submitted to the NCN solely electronically via ZSUN/OSF using the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button.

In addition, in the case of OPUS LAP proposals, each foreign research team involved in the project must submit a funding proposal, together with a set of required documents, to its respective research funding institution (FWF, GAČR, ARRS, DFG or SNSF) by the date and according to the rules specified thereby. If the partner institution requires applicants to submit a copy of the OPUS LAP proposals to its respective submission system, a complete English language version of the OPUS LAP proposal in PDF format must be generated following submission of the OPUS LAP proposal to ZSUN/OSF and sent to the foreign research team.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

1. evaluation of proposals shall be carried out;
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision by the NCN Director shall be delivered;
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, an OPUS or OPUS LAP Funding Agreement shall be entered into;
4. the project shall be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement and Regulations on the implementation of research projects, fellowships and scholarships. In the case of OPUS LAP proposals, research projects must be performed by the Polish and foreign research teams according to the rules of the NCN and respective partner institutions.

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

Please read our personal data processing policy. In the case of OPUS LAP proposals, the following partner institutions are joint controllers of personal data:

• FWF: https://www.fwf.ac.at/en/privacy-policy/;
• GAČR: https://gacr.cz/en/legislation/;
• ARRS: http://www.arrs.si/sl/index.asp;
• SNSF: http://www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/allg_reglement_16_e.pdf; http://www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/Annex_I_Ausfuehrungsreglement_Beitragsreglement_E.pdf.

For more information on the data processing under the Weave programme, please go here.

In the case of OPUS LAP proposals submitted jointly with research teams from Germany, the DFG (www.dfg.de/en/service/privacy_policy) shall be the data recipient.