Announcement of the PRELUDIUM BIS 2 call for proposals

Proposals may be submitted by institutions operating doctoral schools laid down in Article 198 (3) and 198 (4) of the Act on Higher Education and Science of 20 July 2018 as well as institutions jointly operating doctoral schools pursuant to Article 198 (5) of the Act, for which project funding will NOT constitute state aid.

A research supervisor of the PhD student carrying out a research project under PRELUDIUM BIS 2 may act as the principal investigator.

One cannot be a principal investigator of more than two research projects carried out under PRELUDIUM BIS.

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 under one edition of calls 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, BEETHOVEN CLASSIC proposal, PRELUDIUM BIS proposal or SONATA proposal only once.

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.

Proposals shall be reviewed within the panels (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). The principal investigator shall select the panel. If an incorrect panel is selected, proposals may be rejected.

From 39th edition of the call, a proposal which contains at least one auxiliary NCN Review Panel other than the one to which the proposal was submitted, which has been identified by the chair as requiring an additional individual review shall be deemed an interdisciplinary proposal. In well-justified cases, interdisciplinary proposals shall be subject to an additional expert review.

Under the call, funding may be requested for research projects carried out over the period of 36 or 48 months.

The research team includes the principal investigator (PhD student’s research supervisor) and the PhD student. Research projects under the PRELUDIUM BIS 2 call will be carried out by PhD students selected in a call conducted by a committee appointed by the head of the host institution for the project acting as the applicant. The call is open to persons all those who are not PhD holders and are not doctoral school students. PhD students participating in a project under PRELUDIUM BIS 2 must be awarded a PhD degree within 12 months of project completion.

Research projects under PRELUDIUM BIS 2 must be carried out by PhD students as part of their doctoral dissertation.

The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and based on realistic calculations.  

Costs in the project include direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

1. scholarships for PhD students in the amount of 5,000 PLN per month (up to the month of mid-term evaluation of a PhD student at the doctoral school) and 6,000 PLN (after the month of mid-term evaluation of a PhD student at the doctoral school);

PhD students receiving PRELUDIUM BIS 2 doctoral scholarships cannot receive any scholarship or other remuneration granted under the heading of direct costs in other research projects funded by the NCN, with the exception of remuneration for the principal investigator in the PRELUDIUM call;

2. funding for the principal investigator in the amount of up to 40,000 PLN for the entire duration of the project (this amount may be designated for remuneration of the principal investigator and other costs of the project);
3. purchase of materials and small equipment;
4. outsourced services;
5. business trips, visits and consultations;
6. compensation for collective investigators and
7. other costs crucial to the project which comply with the Types of costs in research projects funded by the NCN.

Funding for research under PRELUDIUM BIS shall not exceed 180,000 PLN (including 40,000 PLN for the principal investigator). Furthermore, the project budget includes the cost of scholarships for PhD students and indirect costs of up to 20%. During the project implementation, the host institution shall agree with the principal investigator the coverage of at least 25% of the indirect costs.

Funds for the purchase or construction of research equipment, devices and software cannot be planned in the project.

The mandatory foreign fellowships shall be funded by the NAWA. PhD students funded under PRELUDIUM BIS 2 shall submit foreign fellowship funding proposals no later than 6 months before the fellowship. More information on the terms of foreign fellowship funding can be found in the Annex to the Cooperation Agreement between the NCN and the NAWA.

PLEASE NOTE! The costs of publication of monographs resulting from research projects (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)) may only be incurred following a positive review by the NCN.

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

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.

1. basic information on the proposal and host institution for the project (also in Polish);
2. project description (no more than 4500 characters);
3. information on the principal investigator, including information on his/her academic and research career and research experience as well as 1-10 papers published in the proposal submission year and over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; for research in art, 1-10 most important papers published or artistic achievements and achievements in research in art in the proposal submission year and over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year. In specific cases, this period may be extended (see the Regulation on the terms of the PRELUDIUM BIS call);
4. information on the required qualifications of a PhD student carrying out a research project;
5. description of research planned under the project carried out as part of doctoral dissertation, including the scientific goal of the project, significance of the research, general concept and work plan, research methodology and project literature applicable to the subject of the project (no more than 5 pages, A4);
6. information on the foreign fellowship of the PhD student, including place and date thereof as well as justification for choosing the research centre;
7. work plan (also in Polish);
8. abstract for the general public (also in Polish);
9. information on the ethical issues of the project, including any consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the project pursuant to generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline;
10. data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of a research project; and
11. project budget.

PRELUDIUM BIS PROPOSAL FORM

Institutions for which funding would constitute state aid cannot participate in the PRELUDIUM BIS 2 call.

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

1. Qualification check performed by the Expert Team appointed by the NCN.

Each proposal is evaluated by two members of the Expert Team acting independently. Then, based on the discussions, a list of proposals recommended for the second stage of specialist evaluation is drafted at the first meeting.

2. Specialist evaluation of proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation. Proposals are evaluated by at least two external reviewers.

Then, based on the reviews of external reviewers, a ranking short list of proposals recommended for funding is drafted by the Expert Team at the second meeting.

In the case of proposals which contain an auxiliary NCN Review Panel identifying disciplines covered by other NCN Review Panels than the one to which the proposal was submitted, the chair of the Expert Team may decide to require an additional individual review to be performed by another member of the Expert Team. More information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by Expert Teams.

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 research to be performed;
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. principal investigator’s participation in research projects funded under EU Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation;
8. relevance of the costs to be incurred with regard to the subject and scope of the research and
9. preparation of the proposal and compliance with other requirements set forth in the call announcement.

Please note: The NEW detailed proposal evaluation criteria are available.

Merit-based evaluation of proposals is performed by the Expert Team. 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. During the specialist evaluation, proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation are reviewed by external reviewers identified by the coordinators, including candidates identified by members of the Expert Team.

From 39^th edition of the call, a proposal which contains at least one auxiliary NCN Review Panel other than the one to which the proposal was submitted and which has been identified by the chair as requiring an additional individual review shall be deemed an interdisciplinary proposal. In well-justified cases, interdisciplinary proposals shall be subject to an additional expert review.

More information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by Expert Teams.

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 within 6 months of the deadline for submission of proposals, by June 2020 at the latest.

Read the Information for applicants available on the NCN website.

Should you have any questions, please contact us by e-mail: informacja@ncn.gov.pl or by phone: +48 12 341 90 00.

If you are intending to submit a proposal in the PRELUDIUM BIS 2 call, read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:

• terms of the PRELUDIUM BIS call;
• 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; and
• proposal submission procedure.

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

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

1. 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);
2. 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);
3. prepare the following documents in English:

• summary of the project,
• research project description,
• information on the data management plan concerning data generated or used in the course of a research project,
• information on the ethical aspects of the project, including any consents, opinions, permits and/or approvals necessary to carry out the project pursuant to generally applicable laws and best practices adopted for a specific academic discipline,
  4. prepare the following documents in Polish and English: research project title, work plan presenting research tasks and project’s abstract for the general public;
  5. check if information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. The verification of the proposal for completeness in ZSUN/OSF by pressing the Sprawdź kompletność [Check completeness] button does not guarantee that information has been entered correctly and that the required annexes have been attached;
  6. disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
  7. download and sign the confirmation of submitting the proposal in the call (principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the entity); and
  8. attach the confirmation of submitting the proposal with a signature.

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

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, a research project funding agreement shall be entered into; and
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 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 must be lodged within 14 days of the effective delivery of the decision.