SONATINA 7

Proposals for funding of a research project under SONATINA 7 may be submitted by entities laid down in the NCN Act (hereinafter: “applicants”), for whom funding of the research project will not constitute state aid, namely:

1. universities;
2. federations of science and HE entities;
3. research institutes of the Polish Academy of Science 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 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 entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis;
8. groups of entities (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 established with registered office in Poland;

13a. President of the Central Office of Measures;

14. natural persons.

Principal investigators must be individuals who meet both of the following conditions:

• have earned a PhD degree in the proposal submission year or within 3 years prior to the proposal submission year (between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2022) or will earn a PhD degree by 30 June 2023. The 3-year period may be extended by any career breaks laid down in the Resolution

and/or

• will be employed in the research project pursuant to a full-time employment contract, on terms and conditions laid down in the Regulations , for the research project performance period. They must be employed by another institution than the one from which they have earned their PhD degree.

Restrictions on submitting proposals are described in detail in Chapter III of the Regulations.

One can act as the principal investigator in a SONATINA project only once.

The project must cover either basic research or applied research.

Proposals may be submitted to the call covering research in any of 26 NCN review panels, within the three core areas:

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

Please note that the review panels have been amended to include ST11: material engineering and the amended review panels have been in effect as of 15 December 2022.

A research project can be planned for a period of either 24 or 36 months.

A foreign fellowship may last between 3 to 6 months.

The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and based on realistic calculations. No maximum or minimum amount of the project budget has been set for SONATINA 7. If an unjustified budget is planned, the proposal may be rejected.

Costs in the project include direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

• remuneration for the principal investigator,
• cost of principal investigator’s mandatory foreign fellowship,
• remuneration for co-investigators in the project, the so-called additional remuneration,
• purchase of materials and small equipment,
• outsourced services,
• business trips, visits and consultations,
• compensation for collective investigators and
• other costs crucial to the research project which comply with the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre.

The project budget must not include the funds for the purchase or manufacturing of research equipment, devices or software.

PLEASE NOTE: The publication cost of monographs containing project results (for the purposes of §10 of the Regulation on evaluation of the quality of research activity by the Minister of Science and Higher Education of 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 392) is 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 costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data.
• the institution must agree with the principal investigator the coverage of at least 25% of the funds arising from the other indirect costs actually incurred in the project. Expenses incurred from that amount must meet the eligibility criteria arising hereunder.

Under SONATINA 7, funds must be planned for:

1. employment of the principal investigator pursuant to a full-time employment contract for the research project performance period, in accordance with the Regulations;
2. research projects, in accordance with the budget laid down in the proposal; and
3. principal investigator’s foreign fellowship at the foreign research institution of his choice, covering:

   a)living expenses at the foreign research institution hosting the fellowship, calculated as a lump sum of:

   − 12,000 PLN per each month of the fellowship,

   − 3,000 PLN per each month of stay at the fellowship location:

   (i) of a minor child of the principal investigator or under legal guardianship of the principal investigator or

   (ii) of the guardian of the principal investigator if the principal investigator is a holder of a certificate of severe or moderate disability, multiplied by the percentage correction rate set for a given country

   b) return travel expenses calculated as a lump sum of:

   − 1,000 to 10,000 PLN, depending on the distance between the participating entity and the research institution hosting the fellowship.

Please note that only the principal investigator may be employed with remuneration paid from the pool allocated for full-time salaries. Full-time salaries for post-docs, senior researchers or persons employed at special auxiliary posts must not be planned under the SONATINA call.

Additional remuneration can be used for salaries for students and PhD students.

NCN scholarships and doctoral fellowships must not be covered by the project.

PLEASE NOTE: The cost of open access to publications subject to the NCN’s Open Access Policy must not be planned as direct costs.

State aid must not be applied for under the call. For more information, please refer to the State Aid section.

Required information and annexes are laid down in §6 of the Annex to Resolution No 121/2022 of 10 November 2022.

The proposal form is available here.

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

The eligibility check is performed by the scientific coordinators. Only complete proposals that meet all the requirements set forth in the call text may be recommended for merit-based evaluation. Proposals may also be rejected as not eligible at a later stage of evaluation.

The merit-based evaluation of proposals is performed in two stages.

During stage I, proposals are evaluated by the Expert Team established 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. 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 request a review from a member of another Expert Team (the so-called interdisciplinary proposals).

At the first meeting, the Expert Team compiles a list of proposals approved for the second stage of evaluation.

During stage II, proposals are referred to at least two reviewers who draft their individual reviews based on the data included in the proposal and annexes thereto, with the exception of the short project description. In addition, the principal investigator is interviewed.

An interview with the principal investigator at stage II of merit-based evaluation is held in English and is forecasted for June/July 2023.

Based on the reviews, results of the interviews and discussions at the second meeting, the Expert Team compiles a ranking list of proposals, specifying proposals recommended for funding.

To find out more on the proposal evaluation procedure, please read the Proposal evaluation procedure of the Expert Teams and the video tutorial.

The following criteria are reviewed in the proposal evaluation procedure:

1. compliance with the research criteria;
2. scientific quality and novelty of research or tasks to be performed;
3. the project’s impact on the advancement of the scientific discipline;
4. feasibility of the research project;
5. scientific achievements of the principal investigator, including publications in renowned academic press/ journals;
6. evaluation of other projects performed by the principal investigator and funded by the NCN or from other sources;
7. justification of the costs as regards the subject and scope of research;
8. justification of the choice of the host institution for the foreign fellowship, including academic rank of a foreign research institution, accuracy of the choice of the research institution and impact on the development of the principal investigator’s scientific career;
9. development of the proposal and compliance with other criteria of the call text.

Proposals are evaluated pursuant to the proposal evaluation criteria applicable to the SONATINA call.

Proposals are evaluated by inter-panel teams comprising experts appointed under particular research domains, i.e. HS, ST or NZ.

Experts are selected by the NCN Council among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers holding at least a PhD degree. Expert Teams are set up for each edition of the call. The composition of the Expert Team depends on the number and topics of proposals submitted under particular domains.

The call results are published on the NCN website and communicated to the applicants by way of a decision by the NCN Director within 6 months of the proposal submission date, by the end of September 2023.

Together with other European cOAlition S research funding agencies, the National Science Centre is a member of cOAlition S. Pursuant to the Open Access Policy adopted by the NCN, all research results produced under NCN-funded research projects must be made available in full and immediate open access. The policy does not cover the publication of monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works.

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 transformation 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).

Articles must be made available using the CC-BY licence (in the case of transformation journals, the CC-BY-SA licence can also be used). The CC-BY-ND licence can also be used (regardless of the publication route selected).

For more information on the Open Access publication rules/ instructions, as amended , please go here .

For more information, please read the Open Access instructions.

Please read the Information for Applicants available on our website.

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

If you plan to submit a proposal under the SONATINA 7 call:

1. read the call documents included in the call text, in particular:
   • Resolution on the terms and conditions of the SONATINA call for proposals ,
   • proposal form template where you can find out about information and annexes required to complete the electronic proposal form in OSF;
   • Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects;
2. read the proposal submission procedure;
3. decide how long the project should last: 24 or 36 months;
4. decide on the research institution to host the foreign fellowship and duration thereof: 3 to 6 months;
5. obtain a document confirming approval by the mentor from the research institution hosting the fellowship (in English);
6. draw up a document confirming that the principal investigator has earned a PhD degree and if the principal investigator is yet to earn a PhD degree, a declaration by the PhD supervisor or certificate by a competent institution of the forecasted PhD award date;
7. obtain data from the host institution that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and the project (procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
8. draw up the following documents:
9. in Polish:
   • description for the general public (1 standard page);
   • work plan including research tasks;
   • in the case of research projects carried out by a group of entities, a research project cooperation agreement;
   • administrative declarations by the principal investigator and the host institution for the project;
10. in English:
    • project’s abstract;
    • description for the general public (1 standard page);
    • work plan including research tasks;
    • research project descriptions: short project description (up to 5 standard pages) and full project description (up to 15 standard pages);
    • information on the research team, including information on the principal investigator, as required by the call text;
    • information on the foreign research institution hosting the fellowship and justification for choosing that institution (up to 2 standard pages);
    • document confirming research institution’s consent to host the foreign fellowship of the principal investigator;
    • research project budget;
    • in the case of a research project carried out in cooperation with a foreign partner, information on international cooperation as well as description of benefits that may result from such international cooperation;
    • 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 in compliance with generally applicable laws and best practices;
    • in the case of research projects which include clinical trials with a medicinal product or a medical device, a detailed justification of the non-commercial nature of the trials;
    • in the case of research projects covering research being performed or completed by the principal investigator, or with respect to which the principal investigator applies for funding under other NCN calls or from other sources, a description of similar research tasks with reasons justifying the need to have them funded under the project; and
    • in the case of research projects to be carried out in a host institution that does not receive any operating support for research, 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 research.

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN, please:

1. check if information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in 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;
2. disable editing of the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
3. download and sign the confirmation of proposal submission in the call (signature of the principal investigator and authorised representative of the institution); and
4. attach the confirmation of proposal submission with a signature.

Once you have filled out the form and attached the required annexes, the electronic proposal must be submitted to the National Science Centre in OSF via the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

1. evaluation of proposals will be carried out;
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision of the NCN Director will be served;
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, a research project funding agreement will be entered into; and
4. project will be performed pursuant to the funding agreement.

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 service of the decision.