Announcement of the SONATA BIS 11 call

Proposals in the call may be submitted by the following entities specified in the Act on the National Science Centre (NCN):

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 other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland;

   • 5 a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws, item 534, as amended);

   • 5 b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;

6. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
7. other entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis;
8. groups of entities (at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company);
9. scientific and industrial centres laid down in the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1350, as amended);
10. research centres of the Polish Academy of Sciences laid down in the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1183, as amended);
11. scientific libraries;
12. companies operating as R&D centre 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);
13. legal entities with registered office in Poland;
14. natural persons and;
15. companies conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13.

The principal investigator must be a researcher with a PhD degree conferred within 5 to 12 years before the proposal submission year (between 01 January 2009 and 31 December 2016). This period may be extended in well-justified cases (§6 (3) of the Resolution on the terms of the SONATA BIS).

The principal investigator’s scientific achievements must include at least one paper published or accepted for publication. For research in art, 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.

Scientific achievements should cover the period of the last 10 years before the proposal submission year (as of 2011). In specific cases, this period can be extended (§ 7 (6) (a) of the Resolution on the terms of the SONATA BIS call).

Yes. 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 can act as the principal investigator in a research project financed under the SONATA BIS call only once.

Please note: A person named as the principal investigator in a proposal submitted to the OPUS call for which the funding decision has not become final must not be named as the principal investigator in a proposal submitted to the SONATA BIS call. The foregoing does not apply to the principal investigators in proposals submitted to the OPUS LAP call.

The principal investigator must reside in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration period and be available to the participating entity for the project. This period includes documented business trips directly connected with the project and holiday leave subject to labour law. 

The principal investigator must be a person employed by the host institution for the research project under an employment contract at least on a half-time basis for the entire project duration period. The employment requirement does not apply to recipients of Social Security pension.

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.

Under the call, research projects may be planned for a period of 36, 48 or 60 months.

Pursuant to the Regulations, the tasks to be performed under the project must not include:

1. researchers holding an academic title, title of professor, habilitation degree or equivalent degree or title (this condition must be met on the last day of submitting proposals under the call. It does not apply to investigators involved in the project who will receive their academic title, title of professor, habilitation degree or equivalent degree or title in the course of the project); and
2. researchers who have cooperated in the implementation of a research project funded following a call for proposals.

Tasks to be performed under the project must involve a PhD student(s), for the total period of at least 36 months pursuant to Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre.

A PhD student who will receive NCN scholarship for research must be selected in an open call.

Apart from the principal investigator and PhD student(s), research tasks in the project funded under the SONATA BIS call may be performed by additional investigators, including: 

• post-docs,
• person occupying a specialist supporting position,
• students.

A post-doc type post is a full-time post designated by the principal investigator for a person who has been awarded a PhD degree within 7 years before joining 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 post-doc type post can be occupied by a person who has been conferred a PhD degree by another entity than the one planning to employ them at this post or has completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in another entity than the participating entity 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. 

A specialist supporting position is a full-time employment position planned by the principal investigator for a person involved in solving research problems related to the project, with specialist knowledge and experience, such as lab-managers, senior technicians, statistical analysts, etc. Persons employed at specialist supporting positions must meet the requirements laid down in the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects.

However, the rationale for involvement of individual members of the research team in the project shall be evaluated by the expert team. The project must include the description of competencies and tasks to be performed by individual members of the research team. For more information on the budget for remuneration and scholarships, go to 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 well-justified as regards the subject and scope of research, based on realistic calculations and must specify the expenditures to be covered by the NCN (eligible costs).

The terms of the call do not specify the total minimum or maximum amount of funding that can be requested.

The project budget (eligible costs) includes direct and indirect costs.

Direct costs include funds for:

1. remuneration for the principal investigator: 160,000 PLN per annum if the principal investigator is employed full-time and up to 8,000 PLN per month if the principal investigator is employed otherwise;
2. remuneration for co-investigators:

• full-time remuneration for post-docs: 120,000 PLN per annum (which may be increased in well justified cases);
• salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students (up to 10,000 PLN per each month of project implementation);
• the so-called additional remuneration for members of the research team; if the principal investigator is not to be employed full-time in the project, his/her remuneration is paid from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;

3. purchase or manufacturing of research equipment, devices and software;
4. purchase of materials and small equipment;
5. outsourced services;
6. business trips, visits and consultations;
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 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) are not eligible until positively reviewed 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 the costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data.

 

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

More on costs in NCN-funded research projects

Together with other European research-funding institutions, the National Science Centre is a member of 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 (VoR2) or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM3) 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.

Yes, unless funds are applied for by a natural person. For more information, go to the State aid section.

If a project is carried out in an entity, for which funding constitutes state aid, funds for students and PhD students may only be planned as remuneration for students and PhD students specified in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre.

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

Proposals are subject to an eligibility check and merit based-evaluation

Eligibility check is carried out by the scientific coordinators. Only complete proposals that meet all requirements of the call announcement are accepted for merit-based evaluation. A proposal may also be rejected as ineligible at the later stage of evaluation. 

Eligible proposals are subject to merit-based evaluation performed in two stages:

1. preliminary 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. Then, based on the discussions, a list of proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation is drafted by the expert team at the first meeting.

   Please note: Proposals which are assigned at least one auxiliary review panel from another panel than the one to which they are submitted and identified by the chair as requiring an additional individual review are deemed interdisciplinary proposals. In well-justified cases, interdisciplinary proposals are subject to an additional expert review at the first stage of evaluation.

2. specialist evaluation of proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation. Proposals are addressed to at least two external reviewers and evaluated thereby based on the data included in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the short project description. Specialist evaluation is performed in the form of:
   • individual reviews drafted by at least two reviewers who are not members of the Expert Team evaluating the proposal at the first stage,
   • Expert Team’s verdict consisting in discussing the individual reviews and
   • results of an interview with the principal investigator by the experts. 

During the second meeting following the discussion on all proposals, a ranking short list of proposals recommended for funding is drafted by the expert team.

An interview with the principal investigator is held at the second stage of merit-based evaluation in Polish or English and is planned for January/ February 2022.

Additional information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the Detailed procedure for evaluating proposals by the expert teams.

Please note: The short and full project descriptions must only be drawn up in English.

The evaluation of proposals focuses in particular on:

1. compliance with the criteria of basic research,
2. quality and innovative nature of research or tasks to be carried out,
3. project’s impact on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
4. evaluation of feasibility of research;
5. scientific achievements of the principal investigator, including publications in renowned academic press/ journals;
6. reasons justifying the creation of a new research team and manner in which it is created;
7. evaluation of other projects carried out by the principal investigator and funded by the NCN and/or from other sources;
8. relevance of the planned costs to the subject and scope of the research and
9. preparation of the proposal and fulfilment of other requirements of the call announcement.

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

Proposals are evaluated by inter-panel teams (consisting of experts from respective panels, i.e. HZ, ST or NZ).

In the case of a proposal which is assigned an auxiliary review panel specifying disciplines covered by other NCN panels than the one to which the proposal is submitted, the chair of the expert team may decide to seek a second opinion from a member of another expert team.

Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among eminent 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 will be announced on the NCN website and communicated to the applicants by way of a decision of the NCN Director within 6 months of the proposal submission date, by March 2022 at the latest.

For more information on the call, read the Information for applicants on the NCN website and Guidelines for applicants to complete SONATA BIS 11 proposals.

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

If you are intending to submit a proposal to SONATA BIS 11, you should:

1. read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:
   • terms of the SONATA BIS 11 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 as regards research projects,
   • Proposal submission procedure,
2. obtain data from the applicant that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (project costs, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal); if the proposal is submitted by a group of Polish entities, draw up a Research project cooperation agreement, and
3. prepare letters of acceptance from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section includes papers accepted for publication but not published yet).

Before the proposal is submitted to NCN:

1. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in ZSUN/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. make sure that all tabs are completed in the correct language
3. disable editing of the final version of the proposal to NCN; and
4. download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the host institution.

Once the proposal is completed and all required annexes are attached, use the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button to submit the proposal to the NCN electronically via ZSUN/OSF.

Upon the end of the call for proposals:

1. evaluation of proposals will be carried out,
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision of the NCN Director will be announced,   
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into and
4. the project will be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement and Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects, post-doctoral fellowships and doctoral 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.