Grants for yearly-career researchers awarded

We have selected 76 successful early-career researchers under SONATINA 10. They will be awarded a total of over PLN 60 million for their development, including basic and applied research, full-time employment and foreign fellowships.

SONATINA 10 was open to early-career researchers whose PhD degree was conferred between 1 January 2023 and 15 May 2026, who are at the onset of their research careers, and are actively establishing their position within the research community. SONATINA supports them at this stage of their career development, providing funds for, inter alia, full-time employment of the principal investigator throughout the project period. An institutions from which the principal investigator has earned their PhD degree must not be the host institution for the project or place of principal investigator’s employment. The latest edition of the call includes an additional requirement whereby institutions employing the principal investigator must have at least one discipline with an assigned scientific evaluation category. 

SONATINA projects must be carried out over a period of 24 or 36 months. They may include a foreign fellowship lasting between 3 to 6 months enabling early-career researchers to gain knowledge and experience during fellowships in first-rate foreign research institutions. For the first time, fellowship costs will be borne by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange.

Statistics 

The number of SONATINA proposals is constantly growing, as is the case in other NCN calls. Over the past five years we have noticed an increase by over 100% – in the sixth edition of SONATINA 157 proposals were submitted with a total value of nearly PLN 106 million, whereas in the currently concluded tenth edition, as many as 333 proposals for over PLN 263 million. Five years ago, funding was awarded to 32 proposals with a value of PLN 22.4 million, and in the latest edition 76 proposals with a total budget of over PLN 60 million. 

Over the past five years of SONATINA’s five editions:

• the number of proposals doubled,
• the value of submitted proposals increased 2.5-fold, partly as a result of increasing research costs,
• the number of funded proposals also increased nearly 2.5-fold, and
• NCN funding for research projects increased 2.67-fold.

Over the last five years, SONATINA success rate ranged between 20 and 23%. Only once, in 2024, the success rate decreased significantly, falling to as little as 16%, which was due to the NCN budget issues. The situation changed when the National Science Centre received bonds from the Prime Minister at the end of 2024, with a par value of PLN 500 million. Bond proceeds with interest will be used for the calls 2026 -2028, in particular those addressed to early-career researchers.

Peatlands, hydrogel and constitutional silence to be addressed by successful applicants 

The winning applicants in Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences (HS) include Dr Marta Michalska, who will pursue a research project at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, studying the narratives of anti-noise campaigns in the Second Polish Republic. She will study the sounds of the past generated by everyday life in the interwar Poland, intensity and perceived level of noise. The point of departure for her analysis will be the slogan ‘a fight against noise’ announced by a number of Polish newspapers from1918–1939. Dr Anna Mędrzecka-Stefańska will conduct a research project at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, studying how modern Polish poetic language was formed during a unique historical period when Poland did not exist as an independent state, and literary activity developed across three partitioned territories and within émigré communities. The project will create a balanced corpus of nineteenth-century Polish poetry, including women’s poetry, that will later be analysed employing digital methods at three levels: vocabulary, style and versification. Dr Dominik Łukowiak will addresses the problem of constitutional silence at the University of Warsaw, a situation in which a constitution leaves certain issues unsaid, which in constitutional practice often gives rise to serious interpretative disputes, where the lack of clear laws can be regarded as a loophole or an intentional decision to leave a particular sphere to competent authorities or institutions. The purpose of the project is to develop a coherent model for analysing constitutional silence as a distinct interpretative category which may enhance an increased transparency and predictability of case law.

The group of successful applicants in Life Sciences (NZ) includes Dr Mateusz Wdowiak, who will carry out a research project at the University of Warsaw, studying novel pathogen control strategies in the context of their growing drug-desistance. He will study antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) - small, natural molecules that form part of the immune defence systems of many organisms and kill microbes by destabilizing their cellular envelopes. Their instability in the human body is a major limitation, therefore the project will aim to improve peptide stability and performance as analogues composed of the D-amino acids, as well as their variants stabilized through the introduction of intramolecular “stapling.” Dr Kamila Urbańczyk will carry out a multicentre study at the Provincial Specialist Hospital in Wrocław, evaluating complex clinical pharmacy services on hospitalised patients. Each year, medication errors, adverse drug reactions and incorrect combinations of medicines contribute to a large number of avoidable hospitalisations and treatment complications. Dr Urbańczyk will study the possibility of improving medication safety in patients hospitalised in surgical departments who are treated during hospitalisation, continue therapy after discharge, and often take multiple medicines due to chronic diseases. The study will involve over 700 patients hospitalised in eight hospitals in Poland. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a healthcare model known as Integrated Medicines Management (IMM), in which a clinical pharmacist participates in patient care throughout the entire hospital stay. At the Poznań University of Life Sciences, Dr Łukasz Witucki will look into potential factors responsible for the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia that leads to progressive loss of memory, cognitive abilities, and independence, while is currently untreatable. The latest research suggests that metabolic disturbances may play a crucial role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. One of the best documented risk factors is an elevated level of homocysteine in the blood, which can be converted into homocysteine thiolactone, a protein-damaging molecule. One of the enzymes responsible for eliminating this molecule is called BPHL. Dr Witecki will study its role in the brain and analyse how it could be used in diagnostics or as a starting point for the development of new therapies of neurodegenerative diseases. 

Dr Adrianna Kaczmarska-Król is among the winning applicants in Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST). She will study materials that can support tissue regeneration and improve the treatment of difficult-to-heal wounds at the Lublin University of Technology. Her research will focus on hydrogels – soft, highly hydrated structures that can maintain a moist wound environment, protect the tissue from external factors, and act as carriers for therapeutic agents. Many hydrogels currently used are often mechanically unstable and the therapeutic substance release processes are difficult to control. Dr Kaczmarska-Król will work on the development of a new type of hydrogel based on a combination of natural polysaccharides and a mineral component, and check their potential application in medicine. Another winning applicant in Physical Sciences and Engineering, Dr inż. Julia Mazurków, will work on the strategy to detect nitro-containing organic compounds in environmental samples at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. Nitro-containing organic compounds are widely used in numerous industrial sectors, in military and in armed conflicts. As a result, these substances are frequently present as contaminants in soil, groundwater, and surface waters, although they remain particularly challenging to detect. Dr Mazurków will suggest surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) combined with electrochemistry to increase the detection of nitro-containing organic compounds. Those interdisciplinary studies will combine analytical chemistry, material engineering, forensic science and sustainable development studies. Dr inż. Sebastian Kuśmierz will carry out studies on peatlands at the Marii Curie-Skłodowska Univeristy in Lublin. It is commonly believed that the restoration of drained peatlands can really help in the fight against climate change as they are among the most significant natural carbon stores, capable of reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions into the atmosphere. Recently, researchers have found out that wetland restoration may increase the emission of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a highly potent greenhouse gas which has nearly 300 times the greenhouse effect potential of CO₂. Dr Kuśmierz’s project aims to understand the conditions under which peatland restoration actually provides the expected climate benefits. The focus will be on histosols, soils rich in organic material and nutrients, which are particularly prone to contributing to high N₂O emissions, alongside potential methods for mitigating these emissions. 

The subjects of all projects recommended for funding and descriptions for the general public are available on the SONATINA 10 ranking lists.

Ranking lists

Ranking lists .pdf 

Selection of winning applicants 

Proposals were evaluated in a two-stage peer-review performed by the expert teams formed by the NCN Council, following the reviews by the external experts. The second stage of evaluation in SONATINA 10 includes an interview with the principal investigator in English, at NCN’s Krakow premises. Ther results of the interview are later considered by the expert team in determining the final grade. Experts evaluated the quality and innovative nature of research, feasibility of research and its impact on the advancement of the scientific discipline, qualifications and scientific achievements of the principal investigator, including publications in renowned academic journals/ press, and relevance of the choice of the host institution and location of the fellowship.