OPUS 24

Proposals in the call may be submitted by entities specified in the NCN Act, 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 of 2020, item 1383, as amended);
5. international research institutes established pursuant to separate Acts, operating 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 2020, item 2098);

5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;

6. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
7. other institutions involved in research independently on a continuous basis;
8. 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;
9. scientific and industrial centres within the meaning of the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1383, as amended);
10. 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 2020, item 1796);
11. scientific libraries;
12. 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 2021, item 706);
13. legal entities with registered office in Poland;

13a.President of the Central Office of Measures

14. natural persons and
15. companies conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13.

A person (whether or not holding a PhD degree) whose scientific achievements include at least one research paper published or accepted for publication may act as a 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 submission year (as of 2012). In specific cases, this period can be extended.

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

Please note: A narrative CV is available from this edition of the call. We recommend using the annexed (optional) template of the principal investigator’s academic and research track record.

Please note: The principal investigator for the Polish research team 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 absence from work governed by the applicable laws.

Furthermore, the principal investigator for the Polish research team must be 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 employment requirement does not apply to persons receiving pension under the social insurance scheme.

The Weave Programme relies on multilateral cooperation between the research-funding institutions associated in Science Europe and is aimed at simplifying the proposal submission and evaluation procedure concerning multilateral international research projects. The Programme follows the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) which is a new proposal review standard adopted by 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 carried out by partner agencies to perform merit-based evaluation of domestic as well as 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.

This allows for funding proposals for joint projects that involve at least two research teams from different countries to conduct joint research to be reviewed only at one institution, known as the lead agency, relevant to one of the teams, under a scheme from its regular call portfolio. The results of merit-based evaluation performed by the lead agency are approved by all the other institutions co-launching the call, which then award funding to research projects recommended for funding in the course of such evaluation.

In the case of OPUS 24, the LAP cooperation is possible under the Weave Programme cooperation between the NCN and:

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

The Polish research team is the coordinating applicant that submits OPUS LAP proposals to the NCN. The NCN as the lead agency under OPUS 24 will perform the merit-based evaluation of OPUS LAP funding proposals for research projects to be carried out by research teams from Poland, as well as the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders.

In the future, the NCN cooperation is to be extended by other research-funding institutions participating in the Weave Programme which has replaced NCN’s bilateral international cooperation programmes with Germany (BEETHOVEN), Austria (MOZART), Switzerland (ALPHORN) and multilateral cooperation programme (CEUS).

Please note: Proposals for research projects carried out in bilateral or trilateral cooperation between research teams from Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders in which the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS, SNSF, FNR and FWO act as the lead agency can be submitted under the Weave-UNISONO call.

Please note: Under OPUS 24, international cooperation is not required and proposals involving cooperation with foreign partners will not be given preferential treatment over proposals that involve no such cooperation.

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.

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

Please note: 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 within three areas:

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

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

Projects submitted to the call can be carried out over the period of:

Apart from the principal investigators, research tasks in the projects 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 covered by 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 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: A person employed as a post-doc must have been conferred a PhD degree by another institution than the one planned to employ 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. A prospective post-doc must be selected in an open call.

PhD students collecting NCN scholarships must be selected in an open call.

A senior researcher position is a full-time employment position co-financed by the host institution to provide 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 fellowship(s) and has expertise, unique competencies, and experience necessary to perform the tasks in the project. The terms that need to be met by a senior researcher are laid down in the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research project.

The rationale of involvement of individual members of the research teams in the project shall be evaluated by the Expert Team. The proposal 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 set a maximum or minimum amount of the project budget. If an unjustified budget is planned, the proposal may be rejected.

Costs in the project include direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

1. remuneration for the principal investigator: 170,000 PLN per annum if the principal investigator is employed pursuant to a full-time employment contract; otherwise, the principal investigator may be paid up to 3,000 PLN per month.
2. remuneration for co-investigators in the project:

• funds for full-time employment of post-doc(s): 140,000 PLN per annum (in well-justified cases this amount may be increased);
• funds for senior researchers: 70,000 PLN per annum. Please note: Remuneration of a senior researcher must be co-funded by the host institution in the amount of at least 70,000 PLN per annum; no senior researcher position in OPUS LAP proposals,

• salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students (up to 10,000 PLN per each month of project duration);
• 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 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 project funding from FWF, GAČR, ARRS, DFG, SNSF, FNR or FWO are not eligible);
7. compensation for collective investigators, and
8. other costs crucial to the research 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 containing project results (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 of 2019, item 392) are not eligible until positively reviewed by the NCN.

Indirect costs include:

• indirect costs of open access (OA) of up to 2% of direct costs that may only be spent on open access to publications and research data,
• other indirect costs of up to 20% of direct costs that may be spent on the costs that are directly related to the project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data,
• during the project implementation, the host institution shall agree with the principal investigator the coverage of at least 25% of the indirect costs.

If an unjustified budget is planned, the proposal may be rejected.

Please note: An OPUS LAP proposal must contain a budget table listing project costs of all foreign research teams involved in the project, drafted in accordance with the respective rules of the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS, SNSF, FNR and FWO. Choose and complete a budget table section in Excel appropriate for the research team.

The budget must include the costs requested by foreign research teams from the FWF, GAČR, DFG, ARRS, SNSF, FNR and FWO identical with the costs specified in the NCN proposals submitted to the said institutions, 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 research teams from Austria, Slovenia, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders) and in CZK (budgets of research teams from the Czech Republic) or in CHF (budgets of research teams from Switzerland), according to the following exchange rates:

1 EUR = 4.7244 PLN

1 CZK =0.1922 PLN

1 CHF = 4.8438 PLN

A completed budget table must be annexed to OPUS LAP proposals.

Please note: In the case of OPUS LAP proposals, research projects carried out by the Polish research teams as of 2024 may be planned in the OSF system.

Detailed information and examples of the budget table can be found in 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 (as amended).

Information to be provided in the proposals:

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

Proposals in the call may 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 24, 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:

Stage I: Evaluation by the Expert Team formed by the NCN, based on the data included in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the full project description. Individual reviews are drafted by two members of the Expert Team acting independently. In the case of a proposal which is assigned an auxiliary NCN Review Panel specifying disciplines covered by NCN review panels other than the one to which the proposal was submitted, the Chair of the Expert Team may decide to seek another opinion from a member of another Expert Team (interdisciplinary proposals).

Then, based on the discussions, a list of proposals recommended for stage II of evaluation is drafted by the Expert Team at the first meeting.

Stage II: Proposals are submitted to at least two external reviewers who make individual reviews based on the data included in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the short project description. Then, based on the reviews of the reviewers and discussions at the second meeting, a ranking short list of proposals recommended for funding is drafted by the Expert Team at the second meeting.

The Expert Team shall recommend 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 shall provide 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 shall award funding for research projects to be performed by the Polish research teams, provided that the partner institutions award funding to the foreign research teams.

For more information on the proposal evaluation procedure, please go to the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by expert teams and in the tutorial video.

Please note: Proposals shall be reviewed within the panels to which they have been submitted (e.g., HS1, ST1, NZ1). The principal investigator shall select the panel. The panel cannot be changed once the proposal has been submitted. Auxiliary NCN Review Panels allow to choose experts and reviewers to perform the merit-based evaluation of proposals. The Chair of the Expert Team may decide that interdisciplinary proposals be subject to another review by an expert from another panel.

The evaluation of proposals shall focus, in particular on:

1. compliance with the criteria of basic research;
2. quality and innovative nature of research or tasks to be performed;
3. impact of the research project on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
4. assessment of the feasibility of the proposed project;
5. scientific achievements of the principal investigator, including publications in renowned academic press/ journals;
6. assessment of the results of research projects conducted by the principal investigator, funded by the NCN or from other sources;
7. 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 case of OPUS LAP proposals, the following shall be evaluated:

• a balanced and complementary contribution in the research project by all research teams. 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 foreign principal investigators and
• completion of other research projects by the principal investigators of foreign research teams.

Please note: Scientific track record, unique competences and expertise of a prospective senior researcher as well as rationale of their employment in the OPUS proposal shall be subject to merit-based evaluation. If the foregoing terms are not met and/or justification is missing, the proposal may be rejected.

Please note: Proposals with a zero score or “no” decision agreed by the Expert Team in any reviewed criterion (except for the data management and ethics issues in research) shall not be recommended for funding.

Proposals are evaluated in the review panels (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers who are at least PhD holders. 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 announced 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 on the NCN's website in the Guidelines for Polish research teams submitting OPUS LAP proposals.

Should you have any more 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 24 call:

1. read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:
   • terms of the OPUS 24 call and Rules for research projects carried out under the LAP cooperation
   • OPUS and OPUS LAP proposal form templates, where you can find out about information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in 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, a research project cooperation agreement must be drafted;
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:

1. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. The verification of the proposal for completeness in OSF 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. check if the tabs have been completed in the correct language;
3. disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
4. 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.

5. 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 electronically via the OSF system 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, SNSF, FNR and FWO) 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 the OSF system, 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 announced;
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 the rules of personal data processing by the NCN. 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
• FNR: https://www.fnr.lu/fnr-privacy-statement/
• FWO: https://www.fwo.be/en/the-fwo/organisation/processing-personal-data-privacy/privacy-statement/

Data processing information applicable to Weave is available here.

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