SONATINA 8

Proposals for funding of a research project under SONATINA 8 may be submitted by entities laid down in the Act on the National Science Centre (“NCN”), hereinafter referred to as the “applicants”, for which project funding does not constitute state aid, 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 other acts and acting 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 1-7 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 2020, items 1383, 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 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, and

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 2021 and 31 December 2023) or will earn a PhD degree by 30 June 2024. The 3-year period may be extended by the career breaks laid down in the Resolution

• 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 Chapter III of the Regulations.

One can act as the principal investigator under a SONATINA call only once.

The project must cover either basic research or applied research.

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

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

Research projects may be planned for a period of either 24 or 36 months.

Foreign fellowships 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 8. If an unjustified budget is planned, the proposal may be rejected.

The project budget includes 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 (applies to costs other than obligatory foreign fellowship) ,
• 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 costs of publication of monographs (as defined in §10 of the Regulation on Evaluation of the Quality of Research Activity passed by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 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.
• The institution must arrange with the principal investigator for the distribution of at least 25 per cent of funds arising from the other indirect costs actually incurred in the project.

Under SONATINA 8, 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) flat-rate funds to cover the applicant’s living expenses at a foreign research institution hosting the fellowship, multiplied by the percentage correction rate set for a given country:

• PLN 12,000 per each month of the fellowship,
• PLN 3,000 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,

b) flat-rate funds to cover the return travel expenses:

• PLN 1,000 to PLN 10,000, 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 and special auxiliary post holders must not be planned under SONATINA.

NCN scholarships and doctoral scholarships must not be planned under SONATINA.

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

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 cannot 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 104/2023 of 9 November 2023.

The proposal form is available here.

Please note: As of the calls launched on 15 December 2023, project literature SHALL NOT count towards the page limit in the short and full project descriptions.

What is reviewed in the evaluation of proposals?

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

Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers who are at least PhD holders. Expert Teams are set up 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 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 2024.

Together with other European cOAlition S agencies, the National Science Centre has drafted its Open Access Policy. In accordance with its vision of open access to research results and publications, the NCN requires that all research results should be made available in full and 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 in which some of the articles are open access and some require payment of a publication fee), as long as the Version of Record (VoR, i.e. a version of record published in a journal with its own typeface and branding. Other terms: published version or publisher’s pdf) or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, i.e. the final manuscript version created by the author, including all the revisions introduced after the peer review, and accepted for publication in the journal. Other terms: post print, author accepted manuscript) 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 that must be inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry) and in transformative journals (i.e. journals actively committed to transitioning from a subscription journal to a fully open access journal. The current list of transformative journals is available here). Transformative journals must meet the criteria laid down in the Guidelines on the Implementation of Plan S and must allow open access publication of original scientific articles.

Please note: This publication route applies to articles accepted for publication or published before 31 December 2024.

Manuscripts must be published using the CC-BY licence. In the case of transformative journals, the CC-BY-SA licence can also be used. The CC-BY-ND licence may also be used (regardless of the publication route selected).

More information on open access publication terms/instructions can be found here, as amended.

For more information, please read the Open Access Instructions.

In grant agreements concluded after 1 January 2021, the data underpinning the scientific publications resulting from the project funded by the NCN must be well-documented pursuant to the FAIR Principles standing for machine or manual Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability or Reusability (the so-called “FAIR Data”). Where possible, data must be made available in the repository, according to the Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 licence (that allows the distribution of data to public domain. Pursuant to the licence, authors can give up their intellectual property rights to the extend allowed by domestic law; the licence does not affect patent rights, rights of publicity or privacy). The data citation principles laid down in the Declaration of Data Citation Principles by FORCE 11 and the TOP Guidelines must be complied with. Metadata describing the data sets must be in line with the OpenAIRE.

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

If you are intending to submit a proposal to SONATINA 8:

1. read the call documents included in the call text, in particular:

a) Resolution on the terms and conditions of the SONATINA call for proposals,

b) proposal form template where you can find out about information and annexes required to complete the electronic proposal form in the OSF submission system;

c) 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 (full months);
5. obtain a document (in English) confirming approval by the mentor from the research institution hosting the fellowship according to the template in the OSF submission system (Consent to the fellowship);
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 (by 30 June 2024);
7. obtain information from the host institution that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal submission and project performance (procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
8. draw up the following documents:

a) in Polish:

• description for the general public (1 standard page, A4);
• 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;

b) in English:

• project’s abstract;
• description for the general public (1 standard page, A4);
• work plan including research tasks;
• research project descriptions: short project description (up to 5 standard pages, A4) and full project description (up to 15 standard pages, A4), (Project literature does not count towards the page limit);
• 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, A4);
• 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 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 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.

When the proposal is completed and all required annexes are attached, use the Send to NCN button to submit the proposal to the NCN electronically via the OSF submission system.

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 served;
3. if the proposal is recommended for funding, a research project funding agreement will be entered into; and
4. the project will be carried out 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.