Representatives of the National Science Centre and QuantERA network will participate in the Women in Tech Summit 2024 that will take place on 12 and 13 June in Warsaw.
The Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit is one of the most important conferences for women in new technologies in Europe. The organisers estimate that the event will gather 7,000 people, including science and technology students, experts, researchers and employees of tech companies. It will feature 150 speakers from 50 countries.
The event is organised for the sixth time and this year will be attended by NCN representatives. On 13 June, at 9 a.m., Sylwia Kostka, coordinator of the QuantERA network and Anna Wieczorek, NCN coordinator will talk about the NCN portfolio, and the opportunities offered to scientists by the QuantERA programme.
QuantERA funds ambitious research in quantum technologies (QT), supports collaboration between researchers and research-funding agencies, monitors public policies and strategies in quantum technologies, and creates responsible research guidelines. QuantERA strengthens scientific excellence in the countries where research and innovation capacity are below the average EU level (the so-called widening countries) and actively promotes equal participation of male and female researchers in research teams.
NCN representatives’ speech entitled: Navigating Research Funding: A Guide to NCN and QuantERA Opportunities will be delivered at the Science Stage.
Visitors can get more information at the booth of the NCN and QuantERA network where their questions will be answered by the NCN coordinators: Anna Wieczorek and Magdalena Jarosz.
Following high demand, the National Science Centre and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw decided to extend access to the research data management courses on the NAVOICA platform.
The new course end date is 30 June 2024.
Until then, all those enrolled in the courses can continue working towards completion.
Access can only be extended for those who are already registered for the courses.
We are happy that the courses are so popular. Since October, they have attracted over 5,300 people. The next courses will probably start in autumn.
Dr inż. Wojciech Danowski is yet another winner of an NCN grant for the research component under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme. He will receive funding of PLN 200 thousand.
Dr inż. Wojciech Danowski’s research focuses on molecular machines, switches, and porous materials. He has received funding for his project on porous organic crystals which will be carried out at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw.
The Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme enables Polish researchers who have conducted research abroad to continue their scientific work at Polish universities and research institutions.
The National Science Centre conducts a continuous call for proposals to fund research components in the project from the date the funding decision is issued by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme until the last proposal recommended for funding in the call is submitted to the NCN. Proposals submitted to the NCN are only subject to an eligibility check.
Research components can be carried out by returning scientists or project team identified in a proposal submitted to the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme.
The NCN Council has awarded PLN 2 million for basic research projects carried out under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme.
A funding boost in the NCN’s budget will enable 485 researchers to receive over PLN 693 million for their basic research under recently concluded OPUS 26 and SONATA 19. We will fund 237 projects that are included in the standard ranking lists and all 248 projects on the waiting lists compiled by the experts in the calls.
Under the OPUS call, which is addressed to a wide range of researchers, proposals may be submitted by all those whose publication track record includes at least one paper published or accepted for publication, and there are no restrictions on experience, academic degree, or title. Proposals may cover Polish research projects as well as projects with foreign participation and with the use of international research equipment by the Polish research teams. Similarly to other editions of the call launched each autumn, OPUS 26 was also open to funding proposals for projects carried out in international cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) under the Weave Programme, where researchers could carry out their projects in collaboration with research teams from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium – Flanders that applied for funding of the same projects from their respective research funding agencies under the Weave Programme.
Under OPUS 26, the National Science Centre received 1737 proposals for a total of nearly PLN 2.6 billion, of which almost PLN 441 million was awarded to 267 research projects. The projects recommended for funding in the call included 127 proposals from the waiting lists, for a total value of PLN 191.9 million. The success rate was 15.4%. As regards 34 proposals for international research projects conducted pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure, recommended for funding by the Expert Teams of the National Science Centre, they must be approved by the partner institution, which is why they are not included in the lists we have just published. The funding decisions on proposals submitted to OPUS 26+LAP/Weave will be made on a rolling basis, following approvals from the respective partner agencies (Result Publication Schedule).
SONATA 19 is addressed to researchers with a PhD degree conferred within 2 to 7 years before the proposal submission year and aims to support innovative research of researchers at the onset of their research career. In this round of the call, 1148 proposals were submitted to the National Science Centre for a total value of over PLN 1.25 billion. 218 projects with a value of nearly PLN 252.4 million were recommended for funding, out of which 121 projects with a value of almost PLN 141.3 million were originally placed on the waiting lists, although due to the funding boost of the NCN’s budget, they will ultimately receive funding. The success rate under SONATA 19 was 19%.
On 8 April 2024, the NCN Council passed a resolution on the OPUS 26 and SONATA 19 waiting lists which have been compiled by the experts at the second stage of evaluation. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education awarded additional PLN 200 million to the National Science Centre and approved its material and financial schedule at the beginning of May, which is why the NCN Council decided to increase the budget of OPUS 26 and SONATA 19 pursuant to Resolutions Nos 47/2024 and 48/2024. This enabled us to fund all 248 projects on the waiting lists.
The lists of projects recommended for funding under OPUS 26 and SONATA 19 and their descriptions for the general public are available on our website (Call Results).
Today, the funding decisions will be served for both proposals recommended for funding and not recommended for funding under OPUS 26 and SONATA 19. The funding decisions of the NCN Director will be served on the applicants in an electronic format and will be sent to the electronic address indicated in the proposal.
If the applicant is an entity described in Article 27 (1) – (7) and (9) of the Act on the National Science Centre, the funding decision of the NCN Director will only be served to the applicant’s Electronic Delivery Box (ESP ePUAP) address specified in the proposal. If a natural person applies and provides their ePUAP address in the proposal, the funding decision will be sent to that address, however, if no ePUAP address is specified, they will receive an e-mail with an electronic address from which they will be able to download the NCN Director’s decision.
The funding decisions by the NCN Director are also sent to the principal investigator and, if a natural person applies, to the participating entity specified in the proposal.
Applicants who have not received a decision are recommended to check if their electronic address (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail) provided in the proposal is correct and if they provide an incorrect e-mail address, they should contact the NCN Program Officer in charge of the proposal specified in the OSF submission system.
The first results of the eighth round of MINIATURA are now in! 40 researchers from all over Poland will get a total of more than PLN 1.7 million in funding for research activities such as preliminary and pilot studies, library and archive research, research fellowships, research visits and consultations.
First MINIATURA 8 ranking list
In the eighth round of MINIATURA, experts selected 12 applicants who will go on to work on research tasks in the field of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Their subjects include human relationships, especially those within the closest family, and parental care. Dr Albert Pielak from the Warsaw University of Technology, for instance, will carry out library and archive research focusing on parental responsibility in a comparative legal perspective.
14 winners in the Physical Sciences and Engineering panel will receive funding for projects that touch on issues such as current environmental and agricultural challenges. Dr Ewa Grabska-Szwagrzyk from the Jagiellonian University will join a consultation trip focused on identifying primeval forests and old tree stands using teledetection data.
In Life Sciences, 14 projects were recommended for funding. Their themes largely revolve around issues of health and disease. In her preliminary research, Dr Patrycja Mołek-Dziadosz from the John Paul II Hospital in Kraków, for instance, will assess the relationship between the degree of plasma protein carbonylation and fibrin clot phenotype in patients with atrial fibrillation.
All winning projects can be found on ranking lists:
Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – PLN 397,276
Physical Sciences and Engineering – PLN 641,561
Life Sciences – PLN 665,827
The total budget of projects on the first ranking list comes up to PLN 1,704,664.
About MINIATURA
The objective of the MINIATURA call is to finance research activities carried out in preparation for future research projects that will be submitted to NCN calls for proposals, as well as other domestic and international calls. Researchers can apply for funding from PLN 5,000 to PLN 50,000 for a research activity planned over a period of up to 12 months.
The total budget of this year’s call is PLN 20 million. Funds available for research activities are divided proportionally between the months during which proposals are accepted. A project can be recommended for funding only as long as there is sufficient resources available for any given month.
Proposals are being accepted until 31 July 2024.
The call, which funds preliminary or pilot studies, library and archive research, research fellowships, research visits or consultations, is open to PhD holders who earned their degree no earlier than 1 January 2012 and have never served as principal investigators in a project funded by the National Science Centre. They must demonstrate that tier scientific achievements include at least one paper published or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art. They must not be winning applicants of an ETIUDA call for doctoral fellowships or other call for fellowship s funded by the NCN and must not be applicants, principal investigators or fellowship candidates in proposals submitted to or recommended for funding under other NCN calls.
Decisions
Funding decisions, both positive and negative, for proposals submitted under MINIATURA 8 in February, were sent out on 20 May 2024.
Justifications are available in the OSF submission system, where you can also check the status of your proposal.
Let us remind you that decisions are delivered electronically to the ESP ePUAP address indicated in the proposal. If you have not received a decision, please make sure that the address listed in the proposal is correct. If it is not, contact the officer in charge of the proposal named in the OSF submission system.
NCN Days are held once per year, always in a different academic town in Poland. The event consists of two full days of meetings, workshops, panels and lectures, providing scientists and research project administration professionals from all over the region with a rare opportunity to talk to NCN representatives in person and ask everything they want to know about the way in which research projects are funded, carried out and billed at the NCN.
“The NCN is a governmental agency established expressly to support research in Poland, and it is modelled on the best international organizations of this kind. Our guiding idea was to promote our work far and wide and also reach out to various local centres that we could visit. We have already travelled to most voivodeships, and this year, it was time to come to Bydgoszcz,” said Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, NCN Director.
“We are gearing up for two days of inspiration and sharing that will contribute to our future cooperation for the development of research not just in Bydgoszcz, but throughout the whole Kuyavian-Pomeranian region,” emphasised Prof. Marek Adamski, Rector of the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, during the opening session.
“I hope that this event will deliver a boost to research in Bydgoszcz so it will experience even more dynamic growth and attract more grant funds for projects that our local scientists have in the pipeline,” added Iwona Waszkiewicz, Deputy Mayor of Bydgoszcz.
The opening session of NCN Days 2024 featured presentations by three researchers from different universities in Bydgoszcz. Dr hab. Jakub Lipski, from the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, talked about his research in 18th-century British literature, which he is working on in cooperation with various international teams, thanks to funding from the NCN and similar institutions. In his presentation, Lipski stressed that his research career was crucially advanced by activities that are often seen as rather useless, such as attending niche conferences or publishing in non-scored journals. Contrary to all expectations, these seemingly pointless endeavours helped him win grant after grant and expand his research, because they caught the attention of reviewers in various calls.
Dr hab. Barbara Bojko (photo by Łukasz Bera)Dr hab. Barbara Bojko, Prof. UMK, who represented the Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz (an extension of the Nicolaus Copernicus University), talked about her research career, spanning cities such as Sosnowiec, Toronto and Bydgoszcz, and introduced the audience to solid phase microextraction, a unique diagnostic technique that is minimally invasive and very easy to use. SPME makes it possible to analyse biological material without physical tissue sampling and preparation, which means it can be used for brain cancer testing and organ graft quality assessment in the peri-transplant period. “For my team, the funding we got from the NCN provided a safe cushion that allowed us to pursue our research in Bydgoszcz, but also served as a springboard for future projects, research, and industrial cooperation”, emphasised Prof. Bojko.
Another scientist to talk about his research at the opening session of the NCN Days was Prof. Dr hab. n. med. Marek Harat from the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, who delivered a presentation entitled “Hot research problems in neurosurgery: deep brain stimulation and improvements in the treatment of gliomas. My personal experience”. The scientist recounted how he first entered the field of functional neurosurgery interventions and how he established and developed a pioneering surgery centre in Bydgoszcz, which now treats conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, eating disorders (including obesity), cerebral palsy and aggressive and self-destructive behaviour disorders.
In the afternoon, during a session entitled “Tip Time”, members of the NCN Council, supported by Discipline Coordinators responsible for NCN grant calls, shared their advice, explaining what kind of research can be founded at the NCN and what the procedure looks like, what to pay attention to when preparing a research proposal, and described the proposal review and selection process.
This has followed by a discussion panel “NCN grants: application, evaluation, implementation - is it worth it?”, during which NCN representatives and Bydgoszcz scientists discussed the funding opportunities currently available to Polish researchers, especially in the context of the difficult budget situation at the National Science Centre.
“If you are up for an exciting research adventure and ready to go all Panel discussion: NCN grants: application, evaluation, implementation - is it worth it? (photo by Łukasz Bera) the way from student or PhD candidate to independent researcher, the answer to the question is simple: you need to apply for grants, regardless of what the broader financial landscape in Polish research is like”, emphasised Prof. Robert Hasterok, President of the NCN Council. Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, NCN Director, added that it now seems that, with the additional resources the NCN has recently received from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the situation is beginning to improve and success rates are expected to increase.
During the panel, the role of grants in research development, the conditions for research in Poland, and the current challenges faced by the grant system were also addressed by Dr hab. inż. Łukasz Skowroński, Deputy Rector for Research and Evaluation of the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, Dr hab. inż. Aleksandra Dunisławska, member of the Polish Young Academy, and Prof. Dr hab. Jarosław Burczyk, Deputy Rector for Research of the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz.
“The best place for young researchers to be is in teams working on research projects that offer scholarships for students and PhD students. Grants will enable them to take part in academic conferences outside their home institution, which are crucial for career growth, allowing them to make their name known, present their work and, most importantly, meet the broader research community”, emphasised Prof. Aleksandra Dunisławska.
The panel was moderated by Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz, the Communication Representative of the NCN Director. The panel debate concluded with a Q&A with the audience. Panellists discussed issues such as the principles of the review process in NCN calls and the grant-supported projects carried out by visual art scholars.
The meeting wrapped up with a quiz about the National Science Centre. The winner answered all the questions correctly in a little over 1 minute, winning the main prize: an invitation to the NCN Awards ceremony, which will take place in Kraków in October. After the session, researchers could hold individual consultations with NCN representatives in charge of proposals and projects, as well as those responsible for international cooperation.
The second NCN Day started with a meeting between the NCN Council and Director and representatives from voivodeship authorities and the local research community, including university rectors and their deputies, as well as directors of research institutions from all over the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Participants discussed the NCN call portfolio, the funding opportunities available under the current budget, NCN call documentation and different research record assessment criteria. Other topics included the practical aspects of grant spending under NCN projects conducted in the public procurement mode.
All the events held during NCN Days 2024 on 15-16 May were hosted by the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology at its campus in Bydgoszcz-Fordon.
The event was initiated by the Mayor of Bydgoszcz, hosted by the Technical University of Bydgoszcz, and co-organised by the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, the Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz (an extension of the Nicolaus Copernicus University), the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music, the Kujawy and Pomorze University in Bydgoszcz, the University of Bydgoszcz, the University of Economy of Bydgoszcz, the College of Health Sciences in Bydgoszcz, the WSB Merito Bydgoszcz University, and the Rother’s Mills Centre for Science and Culture.
On 21-26 May, the Copernicus Festival will be held in Krakow and online. This year, the festival will focus on “Machine”. The National Science Centre is a partner of the event, and our grant and award winners will participate in the festival discussions.
The Copernicus Festival aims to promote science and to explain its impact on social life. It is addressed to the public at large and has been co-launched by the Copernicus Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of the Jagiellonian University, the Copernicus Centre Foundation, the “Tygodnik Powszechny” Foundation and the publisher of “Tygodnik Powszechny”. The festival has been underway since 2014 and this year it will focus on “Machine.”
Our grant winners and NCN Award winners will mark their appearance at the event.
The “Confrontation” programme, created jointly with the National Science Centre, will feature talks and discussions with:
21 May: Radosław Zyzik, Wojciech Załuski (Are people rational?)
22 May: Alicja Puścian, Marek Binder (Is brain a machine)
23 May: Katarzyna Jaśko, Jan Argasiński, Łukasz Lamża (The future of science, the future of AI)
24 May: Marek Kuś, Karol Życzkowski (The harmony of the spheres: chaos and order of the cosmos)
25 May: Anna Łosiak, Marcin Gawroński (The search for life in the cosmos)
The Copernicus Festival will be held in the Museum of Engineering and Technology at ul. Wawrzyńca 15 in Krakow and online. The admission is free. You can follow the event on the Copernicus You Tube channel:
The latest issue of “Tygodnik Powszechyny” features a supplement on the Festival, including a profile on the NCN.
In the first episode of the second series of our podcast, we will discuss scientific cooperation with, inter alia, Switzerland. Our guests today are Barbara Świątkowska and Justyna Woźniakowska who are in charge of our international programmes.
MAPS is an initiative launched by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to support multilateral research projects of Swiss researchers, carried out in collaboration with research teams from Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. We discuss the terms that must be met by Polish researchers who would like to join the programme and suggest how to search for project partners. Barbara Świątkowska from the EEA and Norway Grants Team, who handles similar funding mechanisms as well as MAPS, explains what to look out for when preparing proposals submitted to the SNSF and talks about the project review. She reiterates the fact that the programme is also available to researchers who have already reached the limit of proposals submitted to the NCN, as MAPS is not subject to the limits imposed by the NCN Council.
My guests acknowledge that interest in the MAPS call is very high. “It honestly surprises me how many people ask about the call, while the Weave programme, where cooperation with Switzerland was also possible, attracted much less attention,” says Justyna Woźniakowska, Head of our International Cooperation Department. Weave was launched in 2021 to promote bilateral or trilateral cooperation of researchers from Poland, Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium (Flanders) and Luxembourg. Justyna Woźniakowska explains the programme principles and encourages Polish researchers to join it.
The podcast is hosted by Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz.
Principal Investigator
:
Dr hab. Anna Dyrdał, prof. at the UAM
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM)
Panel: ST3
Funding scheme
: GRIEG
announced on
17 June 2019
The 2Dtronics project covers the fundamental aspects of solid-state physics and magnetism related to the interdisciplinary research in the field of spin electronics, in particular , nanospintronics and two-dimensional spintronics. In principle, the project is focused on the efficient control of the spin state and utilization of the electron spin on equal footing with its electrical charge.
Nowadays, the key objective of spin electronics is to find a highly efficient way of all-electrical control of electron spin state. Additionally, the control should involve very low energy consumption. Therefore, the one of the project objectives is to theoretically verify various possibilities to couple the spin degree of freedom with other degrees of freedom (sensitive to electric field), e.g. the valley or orbital ones. Another objective is to explore topological properties of matter, and their application possibilities for construction of electronic devices with extremely low energy dissipation.
The new paradigms for future electronics are indeed essential as it is expected that in 2025, the global power consumption of IT appliances will reach 4.6 trillion kWh, which corresponds to 15% of the global power generation. Furthermore, approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day. These two staggering numbers clearly show an urgent demand for novel solutions that could result in low-power, ultrafast, and high-density storage and processing devices.
fot. Michał ŁepeckiTherefore, the main emphasis in the project is put on novel materials, where quantum effects manifest in a wide range of energetic and length scales. The quantum materials, such as graphene, van-der-Waals heterostructures, topological insulators, or Weyl semimetals, exhibit their peculiar properties which follow from reduced dimensionality or collective excitation properties. In consequence, quantum materials serve as a platform for phenomena where the topological nature of quasiparticle states plays an essential role.
One of the project goals is to combine the spin and valley degrees of freedom with the symmetries and topological properties of the system to describe and propose phenomena that could allow us to work out new strategies for low-power-consumption electronics and logic devices.
Fascinating systems that host many exotic phenomena, such as unconventional superconductivity, non-linear Hall effects, or chiral magnon Bose-Einstein condensation are novel two-dimensional materials discovered over the past decade. Importantly, in quantum materials, the interactions related to spin, charge, lattice, and orbital degree of freedom are energetically comparable with electronic kinetic energy. Therefore, the properties of quantum materials are highly sensitive to external fields or forces that may relatively easily lead to quantum phase transitions. In this project, the quantum materials are studied theoretically to address burning questions, such as, : (i) how to modify the topological properties of 2D systems by external fields and forces, (ii) how to exploit emergent phenomena observed in 2D crystals and interfaces in the new generation of spintronic devices, (iii) how to account for the recently observed non-linear effects in quantum materials (non-linear system response, non-linear interactions), (iv) how to achieve the low-dissipation and long-range spin transport in novel low-dimensional magnetic systems, (v) how important are many-body effects in the low-dimensional quantum materials, etc..
Within the framework of the project, we new methods and protocols have been developed, to manipulate the order parameters typical to quantum materials, and to propose efficient ways to design electronic, magnetic, and topological properties of low-dimensional structures. We have focused on the efficient methods for modifying topological properties of 2D systems by external fields and forces.
Project title: Spin and charge transport in low-dimensional novel quantum materials (2Dtronics)
Dr hab. Anna Dyrdał, prof. at the UAM
Kierownik - dodatkowe informacje
Theoretical physicist researching the theory of condensed matter in nanoscale. Particularly interested in the theory of spin-dependent electronic transport in semiconducting heterostructures, two-dimensional materials of graphene type, van-der-Waals heterostructures, and topological insulators. Specializes in theoretical description of the phenomena induced in electronic transport due to spin-orbital effects.
Her research experience was developed in many scientific institutions, including The Institut Català de Nanociència and Nanotecnologia ICN2 and Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales – Université Paris-Saclay.
Head of the Department of Mesoscopic Physics at the Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and member of Polish Young Academy, Polish Academy of Sciences.
Webinars will be held on the ClickMeeting platform. Registration is not required but a limit of 200 persons per meeting applies. The topics and dates of other meetings and links to the courses are available on our website at Schedule of 2024 Online Open Science Courses.
Should you have any questions or queries, please contact Ms. Gabriela Czarny at
The Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit is one of the most important conferences for women in new technologies in Europe. The organisers estimate that the event will gather 7,000 people, including science and technology students, experts, researchers and employees of tech companies. It will feature 150 speakers from 50 countries.
