Our new podcast episode is devoted NCN’s international cooperation. Justyna Woźniakowska and Dr Malwina Gębalska from the NCN meet Dr Miłosz Miszczyński, NCN call winner, to discuss the currently-open IMPRESS-U and CHANSE calls and share their tips on what to keep in mind when preparing a proposal.

The NCN seeks and develops international partnerships to effectively support Polish teams in their cooperation with foreign partners. An important objective for us is to influence international research policies. “We are involved in what’s going on in Europe for the benefit of Polish research teams and institutions. We belong to the research-funding network Science Europe, which is involved in lobbying in Brussels, and the Era-Learn project, which supports the participation of researchers from our part of Europe in network programs funded by Horizon Europe”, says Justyna Woźniakowska, Head of the International Cooperation Department at the NCN. She then adds that the NCN has always prioritised its mission to create opportunities for active researchers to “conduct joint research with international teams and receive funding in synchrony with their partners”.

The conversation, moderated by Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz, focuses on two currently-open calls for proposals organised by the NCN in cooperation with other agencies.

IMPRESS-U is a new offering in the NCN call portfolio. It is targeted at Polish researchers planning to conduct research in cooperation with partners from Ukraine or the US and, optionally, from the Baltic countries, i.e. Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. Justyna Woźniakowska emphasises that IMPRESS-U opens up new avenues for the cooperation of Polish teams with American partners. “In NCN grant programmes to date, such opportunities have been few and far between and usually restricted to specific research areas. This call facilitates cooperation in all the disciplines supported by the NSF”, she says. The American agency funds research in any discipline except medical sciences and the humanities. Woźniakowska talks about NCN’s cooperation with the NSF, lays out the terms and conditions of the programme, explains how to find partners and suggests what you might want to keep in mind when preparing a proposal.

In the second part of the episode, our guests discuss Crisis and Well-being, two calls in the humanities and social sciences organised by the CHANSE network. Dr Malwina Gębalska, CHANSE coordinator, gets together with Miłosz Miszczyński from the Leon Koźmiński University in Warsaw, the principal investigator under the Polish part of the HuLog project, which won a grant in the network’s previous call, to discuss the terms and conditions of the network’s programmes. CHANSE calls are open to teams of 4 to 6 partners from the programme’s participating countries. The NCN coordinator emphasises that the experts who evaluate proposals can have really high requirements. “I want to impress on all applicants how important it is to make sure the project is coherent and based on shared premises. It is not enough for it to be the sum of its parts. It has to have a coherent vision…of a given research objective”, Gębalska explains. Miszczyński, in turn, says that the most important and work-intensive aspect of his proposal preparation had to do with laying down the “theoretical framework and making sure that the proposal would clearly show its potential in the field of basic research. If I were to give advice to future candidates, I think I would say: put an emphasis on the importance of the project for the discipline and make sure it is an objectively good research project. Thinking about numbers and technicalities should really be the your last worry”.

Towards the end of the episode, our guests discuss the impact on the NCN’s precarious budget situation on international cooperation. “This is extremely limiting, because we pick up on signals that, for instance, a spark has been kindled for a potential new international partnership, but it is practically impossible to use. This is a problem that really affects us all”, says Justyna Woźniakowska. “We know how demanding the [international] calls can be. We always had good news for applicants, reassuring them that anything that’s recommended for funding will in the end be funded. And now this is no longer so obvious”, adds Dr Malwina Gębalska. This is echoed by the NCN call winner: “It is really important to help researchers, and we need support, because the NCN is a very safe choice when it comes to research-funding institutions. If you want to break out into the wider European research community you need this kind of support. If the support is lower, this makes it more difficult for us to succeed”.

 

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The NCN announces IMPRESS-U, a call aimed at supporting Ukrainian research potential and opening up new opportunities for cooperation between researchers from Poland, Ukraine, the USA and the Baltic states.

IMPRESS-U (International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine) is a call organised by institutions from six countries: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the US. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is the initiator and the lead agency, responsible for the merit-based evaluation of all submitted proposals.

The call is open to Polish researchers planning projects in cooperation with researchers from Ukraine or the US or, optionally, from any of the other participating countries.

“The main objective is to support high-quality projects, promote and stimulate the integration of Ukrainian researchers into the global research community and rebuild the research potential of Ukraine”, says Justyna Woźniakowska, Head of the International Cooperation Department at the NCN. The expert points out that IMPRESS-U also opens up avenues for Polish teams to cooperate with American partners. “In NCN grant programmes to date, such opportunities have been few and far between and usually restricted to specific research areas. This call facilitates cooperation in all the disciplines supported by the NSF”, she adds.

The American agency will fund research in any discipline except medical sciences and the humanities. Whenever the Polish team requests NCN funds, proposals submitted under IMPRESS-U will be accepted and peer reviewed by the NSF under the EAGER call and will thus be required meet its terms and conditions.

Polish PIs need to hold at least a PhD degree and their research teams may include students and PhD students, as well as post-docs.

Proposals will be accepted until the end of 2025. This period might be attenuated if funds at the NCN or any of the partner institutions run out earlier. The NCN Council has set aside 10 million zlotys in funding for Polish teams.

IMPRESS-U call announcement

Partner institutions that will accept proposals from foreign partner teams include: the US National Academy of Sciences (US NAS) – for Ukrainian researchers, the Research Council of Lithuania (LMT), the Latvian Council of Science (LCS) and the Estonian Research Council (ETAG).

Polish researchers may also submit their IMPRESS-U proposals to the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). NAWA will fund those projects in which an American partner team applies to the NSF for so-called International Supplements, i.e. additional resources to support the internalisation of projects already in progress and supported by the NSF. For more information, go to the NAWA website.

2 August 2023

The National Science Centre (NCN) is launching the International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine (IMPRESS-U). IMPRESS-U is a call for research projects and is carried out in a multilateral collaboration under the IMPRESS-U programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (“LAP”) with the National Science Foundation (NSF) acting as the lead agency in charge of merit-based evaluation of proposals.

The goals of the partnership initiative are to:

• support excellence in science and engineering research, education and innovation through international collaboration and
• promote and catalyse integration of Ukrainian researchers in the global research community.

The IMPRESS-U call for proposals is addressed at research teams from Poland which will conduct joint research together with research teams from Ukraine and the United States (optionally from Lithuania, Latvia and/or Estonia) within the framework of a joint research project.

In order to facilitate the process of establishing the international research teams that will apply for project funding under the IMPRESS-U call, the Partner Search Tool for finding potential partners has been made available at the following link https://www2.ncn.gov.pl/partners/impressu

Joint research projects must be carried out by a Polish research team and partner research teams. Each research team must identify its principal investigator in the proposal. Joint projects must include a coherent research programme and must build on a well-balanced and complementary contribution from all research teams involved in the project.

IMPRESS-U launched by the National Science Centre is open to domestic basic research proposals for projects on subjects specified in the terms of the lead agency’s call for proposals launched by the NSF.

According to the terms of the National Science Centre, Polish research teams submit their NCN (domestic) proposals via the OSF submission system appended with joint proposals identical to the proposals submitted to the NSF. Joint proposals must be drafted according to the terms of the NSF applicable to the EAGER call (see: NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) and Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) and must include the documents required by the NSF. Complete joint proposals must be submitted to the NSF by the coordinating applicant affiliated in the United States of America within the timeframe required by the NSF.

Under the IMPRESS-U scheme, foreign research teams apply for parallel funding of joint research projects to their respective partner institutions pursuant to the terms and conditions thereof.

PLEASE NOTE: Under the IMPRESS-U scheme, Polish researchers who are members of the team seeking International Supplements funding for projects already underway at the NSF can only apply for funding from the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). Funding proposals submitted to the NAWA in English via https://programs.nawa.gov.pl. Ms Katarzyna Pietruszyńska from the Research Programme Department (katarzyna.pietruszynska@nawa.gov.pl) is the contact person. The call text as well as call documents and guidelines for applicants are available at: https://www.nawa.gov.pl/ .

The NCN Council has decided to allocate 10,000,000 PLN to fund research projects carried out by Polish research teams under the IMPRESS-U scheme.

The call for proposals at the lead agency will be open between 2 August 2023 and 31 December 2025.

PLEASE NOTE: The call may be suspended if the total amount of funds allocated by the NCN Council for projects performed by the Polish research teams under IMPRESS-U has been depleted or if the total amount of funds set by any partner institution has been depleted.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pursuant to the NCN Council Resolution, proposals submitted in response to NCN calls must not provide for any collaboration between Polish and Russian entities. Proposals providing for such collaboration will be rejected as ineligible.

Please read the call documents available below.

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What is IMPRESS-U?

What is the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) and who can act as the lead agency in the IMPRESS-U call?

Who may submit NCN proposals?

What can the subject of proposals cover?

What is the project duration?

Who may act as a Principal Investigator of the Polish part of the project?

What can the number of Polish research team members be?

How can the budget of the Polish part of the project be planned?

Can proposals in the call include application for state aid?

How should the proposals be drafted?

Are there any restrictions to submitting proposals for research projects under the IMPRESS-U calls?

Which documents and information should be included in NCN proposals?

How can NCN proposals be submitted?

Checking completeness of NCN proposals

When should proposals be submitted?

How are proposals evaluated and what is taken into account?

When and how will the results be announced?

What is the appeal procedure?

Open Access Publication of Research Results

Additional information

 

38 researchers at the onset of their research career have been awarded grants under the SONATINA 7 call for proposals. The NCN has allocated over PLN 32 million for two- or three-year research projects.

The objective of the call is to support the career development of early-stage researchers. The seventh edition of the call has been addressed at individuals who have been granted their PhD degree between 1 January 2020 and 31 June 2023. The projects will foster performance of basic research or applied research and full-time employment in Polish research institutions other than the ones from which they have earned their PhD degree. During the project, the principal investigator will be expected to complete a foreign fellowship of 3 to 6 months enabling them to gain valuable knowledge and experience in first-rate foreign research institutions.

185 proposals have been submitted to the NCN under the call, for a total of nearly PLN 150 million. In the course of a two-stage evaluation procedure, the NCN experts have recommended 38 projects for funding, for a total of over PLN 32 million. The numerical success rate was 20.5% and the financial success rate was 21.5%. 11 grants will go to Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), 9 grants will go to Life Sciences and 18 grants will go to Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST).

List of projects funded under the SONATINA 7 call

List of projects funded under the SONATINA 7 call (.pdf)

Current challenges for human civilisation among the subjects of the winning projects

The winning projects under SONATINA 7 include projects responding to the challenges relating to the progress of civilisation and population ageing.

In the area of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Magdalena Chułek from the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw will address the issue of ageing in locations theoretically unsuitable for housing and yet inhabited. As a result of climate change, floods and long-lasting drought in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia force local populations to search for new, safe places to live, which often leads them to slums in the local cities, i.e. areas of poverty. Dr Chułek will study how older inhabitants of slums cope with the conditions they live in and adapt to them and how their strategies of coping with and adapting to slum conditions are affected by their perception of their surrounding environment and attachment to their place of origin (and vice versa). She will conduct her research based on the slums in Nairobi and Dhaka.

Jagoda Płaczkiewicz, PhD from the International Centre for Transitional Eye Research (ICTER) at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences will conduct a research project in Life Sciences entitled "Chimeric Rhodopsin as a novel optogenetic tool”. Together with her research team, she will study therapy strategies in retinal diseases. Visual impairments are affecting millions of people worldwide, and the number of visually disabled people is increasing due to the aging of the population and chronic diseases. Gene therapies based on adeno-associated viruses have already been developed and approved worldwide, and clinical trials are underway using various variants of light-sensitive opsins (glycoproteins found in the retina involved in vision). Gene therapies have been developed and approved worldwide and clinical trials have been performed focusing on opsins that perform their function in high light intensities (glycoproteins in the retina involved in the vision process). Nevertheless, there is still a need to design an optogenetic tool that would be successfully activated by relatively low light stimulation. Dr Płaczkiewicz’s research focuses on the development of new opsins with exceeded functionality. Chimeric RecRho variants may constitute a new gene therapy strategy in retinal diseases.

Agata Sotniczyk from the National Centre for Nuclear Research will carry out a research project in Physical Sciences and Engineering, entitled “Novel metastable titanium beta-phase alloys based on the Ti-Mo system for applications in the modular total hip replacements”. Degenerative diseases of hip and knee joints have been ranked at the 11th place of the most frequent health disabilities observed worldwide. In case of patients who experience chronic pain and severe limitation of their mobility, Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) gives a chance to significantly improve the quality of their life. Work is constantly underway to improve the materials used to manufacture hip replacements that could increase their safety and longevity. Researchers study a new generation of titanium-based materials that contain only biocompatible chemical elements, however metastable β phase alloys turn out to demonstrate insufficient wear resistance. Dr Sotniczuk will try to fabricate a new metastable titanium β phase alloys based on Ti-Mo system that will demonstrate the desirable combination of high mechanical strength and ductility.

Evaluation of proposals

Proposals submitted to SONATINA 7 are subject to a merit-based evaluation performed by the Expert Team in two stages. During stage I, proposals are evaluated by at least two Research Team members. Then, proposals are recommended for stage II based on the decision of the Expert Team taken at the meeting, following a decision on the evaluation of each proposal. At stage II, a review is drafted by at least two external reviewers, interview with the principal investigator, the final decision is taken, and a ranking list is established by the Expert Team.

Under SONATINA, proposals are evaluated by three inter-panel teams comprising experts appointed under particular research domains, i.e. Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST) and Life Sciences (NZ). Experts are selected by the NCN Council among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers holding at least a PhD degree. The proposal evaluation procedure applicable to SONATINA 7 is laid down in the call text (the “Proposal evaluation procedure” tab).

11 Polish teams are all set to carry out ten bilateral projects with partners from the Czech Republic and one trilateral project involving researchers from the Czech Republic and Austria under the OPUS 24+LAP/Weave scheme. The NCN has slated a total of more than 13.7 million zlotys in funding for their research.

Researchers from Bydgoszcz, Kraków, Poznań, Warsaw and Zabrze will carry out 10 bilateral Polish-Czech projects: 6 in Physical Sciences and Engineering and 4 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This round’s winners include Prof. Tomasz Jankowiak from the Poznań University of Technology, who will work on a land engineering project devoted to the response of structures and materials to dynamic actions during fires. His material of interest is structural steel, as its properties at high temperatures and high strain rates have not been well-researched to date. Jankowiak’s team will answer a number of questions and gather experimental results to understand the mechanism of fire-induced building collapse, including incidents such as falling elements, impacts and explosions. This will allow them to develop models and principles for designing structures exposed to a combination of thermal and dynamic actions. The research will be conducted in cooperation with Prof. František Wald from the Czech Technical University in Prague.

Funding was also awarded to one trilateral Polish-Czech-Austrian project, submitted by researchers based in Wrocław. Headed by Prof. Elżbieta Gumienna-Kontecka from the University of Wrocław, in tandem with Prof. Elżbieta Wojaczyńska from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the team will work on a trilateral Polish-Czech-Austrian OPUS LAP project entitled “Artificial siderophores for molecular imaging applications”, looking to enhance medical tools and methods used to detect the development of diseases, e.g., to track tumour growth. Specifically, the researchers will be searching for contrast agents, which can effectively support combined imaging techniques: Positron Emission Tomography (PET), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and optical fluorescence imaging (OFI). The Polish team will join forces with Dr Petřík Miloš from Palacky University in the Czech Republic and Prof. Clemens Decristoforo from the Medical University Innsbruck in Austria to design and develop synthetic biomimetic analogues of natural hydroxamate siderophores with a potential as basis for novel non-invasive in vivo imaging agents.

List of all projects qualified for funding in the OPUS 24+LAP/Weave call

List of Polish-Czech bilateral projects

Polish-Czech-Austrian project

Polish teams under these projects will be funded by the National Science Centre, while their Czech and Austrian partners will get their funding from the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), respectively.

Lead Agency Procedure – LAP

In the latest OPUS 24+LAP/Weave call, which concluded in May, the NCN received 1921 proposals with a total budget of nearly 2.7 billion zlotys. Researchers could request funding for projects conducted without international partners, as well as bi- or trilateral LAP projects involving foreign cooperation or access to large international research equipment. The call was open to researchers at all career levels.

LAP is a new proposal evaluation standard adopted by European research-funding institutions, designed to facilitate the funding application process for international research teams and streamline proposal review.

OPUS LAP projects were reviewed at the same time and by the same expert teams as other OPUS proposals, but also underwent an additional evaluation that looked at the research record and the previous projects of the principal investigators in foreign partner teams. Experts also made sure that the contribution of all teams to the project is balanced and complementary.

Decisions and their delivery

The decisions for OPUS LAP proposals qualified for funding under OPUS 24 in bilateral cooperation with the Czech Science Foundation and trilateral with Austrian Science Fund (FWF) have already been sent out. Please remember that the decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to the applicant electronically, to the e-mail address indicated in the proposal. Learn more about how decisions are delivered

We would like to invite researchers interested in the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) for Social Sciences and Humanities Call Democracy, Governance and Trust (DGT Call 2023), to participate in the live webinar on Tuesday, 8th of August 2023, 15:00 (CEST). During the webinar, detailed information about the Call will be presented, including research scope and Full Proposal submission process. To optimize the Q&A session, questions may be submitted in advance via registration form. Webinar will be held in English.

Click here to register. The webinar will be available on YouTube after the live broadcast.

Webinar Agenda and detailed information can be found on the FAPESP - São Paulo Research Foundation website.

We are proud to announce the list of winning bilateral international projects carried out jointly by Polish and Swiss researchers. The total budget of the winning projects amounts to nearly PLN 9.2 mln.

List of all projects qualified for funding in the OPUS 24+LAP/Weave call

List of Polish-Swiss OPUS LAP projects

In the category of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHS), there will be one Polish-Swiss project carried out, led by Dr hab. Agnieszka Otwinowska-Kasztelanic of the University of Warsaw. In cooperation with Prof. Raphael Berthelé from the University of Fribourg, the Polish researcher will conduct multilingual research to explore how foreign language learners acquire new vocabulary both incidentally and intentionally, with the use of digital tools. The research will focus on Polish learners of English as the second language, and Swiss learners who speak German and French learning English as the third language. The project outcomes may be directly applicable to language teaching in the contemporary digitalised world.

In the category of Life Sciences (LS), there will be two Polish-Swiss OPUS LAP projects carried out. The first of these will be supervised by Prof. Ewa Stępień of the Jagiellonian University. Together with the Swiss team led by Prof. Kuangyu Shi of the University of Bern, Prof. Stępień will conduct multi-faceted research into high-throughput PET imaging by decoding multi-photon signals on long axial field-of-view PET using physics-guided artificial intelligence. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a molecular imaging modality widely applied in clinical practice; however, until now, due to certain methodological and equipment-related limitations no additional physiological measurements have been under clinical conditions. Recent advancements in PET detectors have significantly increased their measurement capacities. The research conducted by the Polish and Swiss researchers focuses on methodological development and verification of positronium images using a clinical PET scanner.

The second winning project in the LS category is an “Investigating the effect of protein and fibre on lipid digestibility in oil-in-water emulsions using an in vitro model”. The research conducted in Poland will be led by Dr. inż. Mirosław Kasprzak of the University of Agriculture in Kraków, who will partner with Prof. Peter Fischer of ETH Zurich. The researchers will focus on the problem of overconsumption of high-fat foods which at the same time are high in sugar and low in dietary fibre, such overconsumption leading to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension or heart disease. The main objective of the research is to unpick the mechanism of lipid digestion by the addition of fibre or structuring the lipids by plant protein to slow down their digestion. The data obtained over the course of the project will determine the direction for the design of food with satiety-enhancing ingredients.

In the area of Physical Sciences and Engineering, the winning project include the research conducted by Dr hab. inż. Joanna Ferdyn-Grygierek of the Silesian University of Technology in cooperation with Dr Agnes Psikuta of the Empa Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology. The researchers will investigate the topic of energy-efficient building design. The building performance simulations (BPS) which have been used until now to optimise building parameters are not perfect, as they don’t always take all of the factors involved into consideration. The researchers want to develop and validate by measurement a human-building avatar for precise prediction of human comfort and energy demand in buildings under conditions of variable internal and external loads during the year.

The second winning project in the PSE category aims to respond to the currently high demand for food products, especially apparent in the agricultural production sector. Dr inż. Wiesław Fiałkiewicz of the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, together with Prof. Oliver Schilling of University of Basel will attempt to develop an advanced method for sustainable crop fertilisation to reduce environmental pollution resulting from the presence of excess nitrogen from fertilisers used by farmers to protect and maximise crop yields. The method developed by the researchers will be supported by real-time modelling to help farmers to use sustainable fertilisation to achieve high yields without degradation of the local water environment.

Lead Agency Procedure – LAP

In the latest OPUS 24+LAP/Weave call, which concluded in May, the NCN received 1921 proposals with a total budget of nearly 2.7 billion zlotys. Researchers could request funding for projects conducted without international partners, as well as bi- or trilateral LAP projects involving foreign cooperation or access to large international research equipment. The call was open to researchers at all career levels.

LAP is a new proposal evaluation standard adopted by European research-funding institutions, designed to facilitate the funding application process for international research teams and streamline proposal review.

OPUS LAP projects were reviewed at the same time and by the same expert teams as other OPUS proposals, but also underwent an additional evaluation that looked at the research record and the previous projects of the principal investigators in foreign partner teams. Experts also made sure that the contribution of all teams to the project is balanced and complementary.

More about the call

Decisions and their delivery

The decisions for OPUS LAP proposals qualified for funding under OPUS 24 in bilateral cooperation with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) have already been sent out. Please remember that the decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to the applicant electronically, to the e-mail address indicated in the proposal.

Learn more about how decisions are delivered

 

55 researchers from all over Poland will each complete a single research task, such as a preliminary/pilot study, library or archive search, research fellowship or research/consultation trip, thanks to more than 2 million zlotys in research funding from the NCN. Check out the third ranking list of the MINIATURA 7 call, this time for proposals submitted in April.

In this round of MINIATURA 7, the life sciences panel attracted the largest number of successful proposals, with grants awarded to as many as 24 scientists. Some of these will tackle growing antibiotic resistance. At the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Dr inż. Ilona Foik is all set to conduct a preliminary/pilot study on the role of free-floating extracellular DNA and cathelicidin in bacterial response to antibiotics used in the treatment of polymicrobial UTIs. Dr Leszek Kadziński from the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education will work on phage therapies, i.e. therapies that rely on bacteriophages (viruses that only attack bacteria) to combat bacterial infections. Specifically, he will turn his attention to what he terms the “silica shield” and strive to enhance the stability and efficacy of endolysins produced by bacteriophages through their entrapment in silica composites.

Under the art, humanities and social sciences panel, grants were awarded to 17 researchers. Their research problems include, e.g. stressful situations and circumstances in our lives and our coping strategies. For instance, Dr Paweł Ziemiański from the Gdańsk University of Technology, will study the negative aspects of commitment to business activities among start-up founders, while Dr Krzysztof Stanisławski from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw will use his MINIATURA grant to develop and validate a situational version of the Coping Circumplex Inventory (CCI), his own original solution that integrates different variables to describe various stress-coping strategies.

Experts in the MINIATURA 7 call also selected 14 winners in physical sciences and engineering. Dr inż. Katarzyna Witt from the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology will attempt to synthesise new water-insoluble β-ketoimines from sβ-diketone and aminosilane derivatives that would be able to bind metal ions from aqueous solutions. Dr Andrzej Giza from the University of Szczecin will conduct a pilot study on the impact of sea storms on seasonal changes in benthic habitats (i.e. those related to the sea floor) and coastal morphology.

Ranking lists (in Polish)

List No. 3 (in Polish)

Funding per panel:

• Art, Humanities and Social Sciences – PLN 408,042
• Physical Sciences and Engineering – PLN 627,448
• Life Sciences – PLN 1,054,222

The total budget of projects that made the cut for the third MINIATURA 7 ranking list amounts to over 2,089,712 PLN.

About the MINIATURA 7 call

The main objective of the 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 PLN for a research activity planned over a period of up to 12 months. The call is open to PhD holders who earned their degree no earlier than 1 January 2011 (except in cases specified in the terms and conditions of the call). They need to be employed by the host institution and demonstrate a research record of at least one published paper or at least one achievement in art or art research.

Funds for research activities carried out under the MINIATURA 7 call are divided proportionally to the number of months during which proposals are accepted. In this edition, proposals may be submitted until 4 pm, 31 July 2023.

Remember that funding decisions are sent 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 not, contact the person in charge of handling the proposal, as indicated in the OSF system.

The Carpathians, photo by Dominik Kaim The first global Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) map has just been published by “Nature”. “My role in this research was made possible by the NCN”, says Dr Dominik Kaim, a geographer from the Jagiellonian University, one of the authors of the article.

Wildland-urban interface areas take up less than 5% of the Earth’s land surface, but are inhabited by nearly 3.3 billion people (41% of the world’s population). It is a space where interactions between humans and the environment are particularly intense.

In an article just published in “Nature”, scientists from the US, Israel, Germany and Poland have relied on detailed data to create the first global WUI map. WUIs are particularly widespread in Europe, but research has also identified previously undocumented areas of this kind in, e.g. Eastern Africa, Brazil, and Southeast Asia.

Until now, WUIs have been studied with a focus on fire risk. The new global map of settlement may also have an impact on future research into the effects of contact between domestic animals and wildlife and the penetration of invasive plants grown in house gardens into natural areas.

Dr Dominik Kaim studied the spatial distribution of WUIs in Poland. His results may now be used for spatial planning to minimise conflicts between people and animals and to launch environmental protection campaigns.

“My MINIATURA and SONATA projects, which were funded by the NCN, allowed me to complete international research fellowships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as part of a team led by Professor Volker Radeloff, with whom I have studied WUIs for several years now. In addition, the research I have conducted under the SONATA scheme in Poland gave me an opportunity to test the preliminary versions of the global map, which has now been published by “Nature” in its final form”,  explains Kaim.

 

Results are now in for the OPUS 24+ LAP/Weave call for projects proposed by Polish researchers in cooperation with teams from Belgium-Flanders. Grants were awarded to 6 bilateral proposals, two in each discipline panel. In total, research teams will get more than 9.5 million zlotys in funding.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, for instance, one grant will go to a project prepared by Dr hab. Mateusz Stróżyński from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in tandem with Anthony Dupont from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, entitled Z biblioteki na trybunę: Teologiczne i etyczne znaczenie performatywnego przedstawienia manicheizmu w kazaniach i listach Augustyna /From the Library to the Tribune: Theological and Ethical Significance of the Performative Presentation of Manichaeism in Augustine’s Sermons and Letters/. The project will expand our knowledge of Augustine’s interaction with Manichaean ideas and their impact on his philosophical and theological thinking, help trace the development of his thought and provide insights into the special, “performative” genres, i.e. sermons and letters, which in antiquity often served as a means of public communication.

Dr hab. Dariusz Kużelewski from the University of Bialystok will conduct a research project entitled "Risk as a subjective phenomenon – integrating cognitive science into the concept of risk in European data protection law". His research partner is Prof. Niels Van Dijk from the Delft University of Technology. 

In Life Sciences, Dr hab. Natalia Rozwadowska from the Institute of Human Genetics, PAS, will team up with Prof. Jolanda van Hengel from Ghent University. Their project Bo do tanga trzeba dwojga – modelowanie kardiomiopatii w zespole Marfana z zastosowaniem komórek serca oraz konstruktów tkankowych (EHT) uzyskanych z hiPSC /It takes two to tango – a decryption of Marfan cardiomyopathy using human iPSC-derived cardiac cells and engineered heart tissues/ aims to thoroughly examine the effects of DNA changes behind Marfan syndrome and associated signalling pathways. This will allow the two researchers to propose new therapeutic approaches and explain the mechanisms of action of drugs that are used to alleviate the symptoms associated with the malfunctioning of the cardiovascular system in patients with this disorder.

Prof. Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa from the University of Wroclaw within her OPUS LAP grant will investigate "Function, organization, dynamics, and evolution of hyperbranched receptor-binding protein systems in Klebsiella jumbo phages and their interactions with bacteria", together with Prof. Yves Briers from the Ghent University.

The OPUS LAP ranking list for Physical Sciences and Engineering features a project devoted to the adaptation of molecular crystals in response to external stimuli, proposed by Dr hab. Liliana Dobrzańska from the Nicolaus Copernicus University of Toruń, in cooperation with Prof. Wim Dehaen from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The latest research on crystals shows that their structure is not as rigid as was previously thought. It turns out that, despite certain spatial limitations, molecules can undergo significant shifts or rotations within the crystal, changing both the molecular and the crystal structure. In their project, the two researchers will study when this process occurs and analyse what requirements have to be met for the molecules that make up the crystal to awaken from their dormant state.

Prof. Jacek Mąkinia from Gdańsk University of Technology received a grant for the project "Model-based optimization of the operational conditions for mitigation of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from an aerobic granular sludge reactor performing integrated nitrogen and phosphorus removal". Prof. Jan Dries from University of Antwerp will be his research partner.

Ranking lists for OPUS 24 call

List of Polish-Belgian OPUS 24 LAP projects qualified for funding

Lead Agency Procedure – LAP

In the latest OPUS 24+LAP/Weave call, which concluded in May, the NCN received 1921 proposals with a total budget of nearly 2.7 billion zlotys. Researchers could request funding for projects conducted without international partners, as well as bi- or trilateral LAP projects involving foreign cooperation or access to large international research equipment. The call was open to researchers at all career levels.

LAP is a new proposal evaluation standard adopted by European research-funding institutions, designed to facilitate the funding application process for international research teams and streamline proposal review.

OPUS LAP projects were reviewed at the same time and by the same expert teams as other OPUS proposals, but also underwent an additional evaluation that looked at the research record and the previous projects of the principal investigators in foreign partner teams. Experts also made sure that the contribution of all teams to the project is balanced and complementary.

More about the call

Decisions and their delivery

The decisions for OPUS LAP bilateral proposals qualified for funding under OPUS 24 in cooperation with the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) have already been sent out. Please remember that the decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to the applicant electronically, to the e-mail address indicated in the proposal.

Learn more about how decisions are delivered