The first transnational Dioscuri Symposium in Krakow showcased the achievements of the Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence to date, and sparked discussions on the responsibility of science towards society, as well as science communication. The fifth Dioscuri call will be launched in the first half of 2026.

Dioscuri Symposium The first transnational Dioscuri Symposium took place at the National Science Centre in Kraków on 3–4 November 2025, bringing together around one table the leaders of the Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence from Poland and the Czech Republic, members of their research teams, administrative coordinators of the Dioscuri Centres, research partners from Germany and representatives of the Scientific Advisory Boards. The discussions were also attended by members of the Dioscuri Committee, chaired by Prof. Joachim Sauer with Vice-Chair Prof. Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, as well as the Director of the National Science Centre Poland (NCN), Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, and the Vice President of the Max Planck Society (MPG), Prof. Christian Doeller. Representatives from the diplomatic sphere, including delegates from the German Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Sport, Culture and Youth of the Czech Republic, followed the deliberations. The research-funding organizations were represented by the Dioscuri Programme Coordinators at NCN and MPG, responsible for the symposium: Dr Małgorzata Jacobs-Kozyra (NCN), who chaired the event together with Dr Agnes Limmer (MPG).

Dioscuri – high impact

Presentation by Mikołaj Frączyk, Jagiellonian University The aim of the Dioscuri Symposium was not only to showcase the frontiers of research conducted at the Dioscuri Centres at both PI and early-career levels, but also to address the topic of science communication and to provide targeted training sessions. In a session moderated by Prof. Ulman Lindenberger, the audience heard ten presentations by leaders of the Centres of Scientific Excellence and ten presentations by ECRs, spanning the wide scientific spectrum represented in the Centres - from cell biology and optics to theoretical and applied mathematics. Discussions highlighted the substantial impact of the ongoing research on the development of their respective disciplines, as well as the high-risk, high-gain nature of the projects. Particular attention was drawn to the poster session featuring early-career researchers, who presented their sub-projects and thereby demonstrated the Centres’ broad research scope - further emphasising the autonomy of the Leaders in their supervision and the creation of new leadership in science through the funding of these Centres of Excellence.

Science communication in an era of declining trust in science

Keynote by Christian Doeller, Max Planck Gesellschaft Prof. Christian Doeller, Vice President of the Max Planck Society honored the symposium with a keynote speech. He introduced the relevance of science-communication mechanisms not only from the perspective of individual scientists but also from the vantage point of research-performing and research-funding institutions. The keynote highlighted the responsibility of science towards society as a key aspect of science communication. Therefore he advocated for communication channels tailored to specific audiences but also encouraged to proactively seek opportunities for communication. Prof. Doeller illustrated the importance of science communication by showing how scientific work can be framed in relation to current events or societal phenomena.

His narrative referenced the forthcoming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro: while the scientists’ paper focused on achieving electron-microscopic resolution of the human actomyosin complex, the research news began with Usain Bolt and the question of why he is the fastest person on Earth - explaining that this can be understood by examining the interplay of muscle proteins at such high resolution.

Finally, the keynote addressed the issue of declining public trust in science. He pointed out that the algorithms on social media do not distinguish between serious, fact-based information and misinformation. A study investigated how many climate-change-related videos produced by scientific institutions reach 100,000 views: only two did. By contrast, twenty chemtrail-conspiracy videos reached that threshold. Raising the threshold to one million views removes scientific organisations from the sample entirely - leaving one video by a YouTube influencer and three conspiracy videos. Prof. Doeller clearly stressed the importance of science communication performed by both communication professionals as well as professional scientists to counter this global trend.

Dioscuri as a European success story

The symposium also provided space for a critical and constructive discussion on the opportunities, challenges and future of the Dioscuri Programme, chaired by Prof. Marta Miączyńska, Head of IIMCB.

The National Science Centre opened this discussion by announcing the upcoming fifth call for proposals for two interdisciplinary Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence in Poland. Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, Director of NCN, together with Prof. Christian Doeller, Vice President of the Max Planck Society, invited the scientific community to apply - emphasising the programme’s openness to all scientific disciplines and its focus on research excellence and interdisciplinarity.

The debate further addressed expectations regarding the Dioscuri Programme from the perspectives of the scientific communities in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the programme’s achievements to date, which could form the basis for a future initiative of this kind.

To round up the Symposium Programme a set of training sessions offered opportunities to acquire new skills: a Planck Academy workshop led by communication professional Rhea Wessel, in which Dioscuri Leaders focused on practical aspects of thought leadership and science communication; a training session delivered by NCN Discipline Coordinators for ECRs, who were introduced to NCN funding opportunities and the principles of the evaluation process; and a meeting led by the Dioscuri Programme Coordinators from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, during which administrative coordinators discussed current issues related to the day-to-day operation of the Centres and benefited from an international platform for knowledge exchange.

The research team headed by Prof. Dr. hab. Włodzimierz Zwonek from the Jagiellonian University has received funding of their research into Complex Analysis, PDE, geometry and the pluripotential theory. The project “Analysis and Geometry in Several Complex Variables” involves collaboration of three leading Central European groups working in Complex Analysis, represented by the Jagiellonian University, University of Vienna and University from Wuppertal. The Austrian research team will be headed by Bernhard Lamel and the German research team, by Stefan Nemirovski. The proposal was evaluated by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the evaluation results were approved by the NCN and the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the Weave collaboration. The potential areas of research collaboration includes holomorphically invariant functions (for instance Bergman kernel and metric), Lempert Theorem, pluripotential theory, MongeAmpere equation, properties of plurisubharmonic functions, uniformization problem and Bergman and Kobayashi hyperbolicity of special domains.

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure 

Weave-UNISONO is a result of multilateral cooperation between the research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The winning applicants are selected pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure according to which one partner institution performs a complete merit-based evaluation of proposals, the results of which are subsequently approved by the other partners.

Under the Weave Programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the Lead Agency and their respective institutions participating in the Programme. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly identified.

Weave-UNISONO is carried out on an ongoing basis. Research teams intending to cooperate with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are urged to read the call text and apply for funding.

1. The budget of the Polish part of the project in the joint proposal should be calculated according to the following exchange rates:
   • in joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed in and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2025: 1 EUR = 4,2717 PLN;
   • in joint proposals, for which NCN proposals are processed in and submitted via the OSF submission system from 1 January 2026: 1 EUR = 4,2626 PLN.
2. NCN proposals processed in the OSF submission system in 2025, with the exchange rate of 1 EUR = 4,2717 PLN, must be completed in and submitted via the OSF submission system by 31 December 2025 at 23:59:59. Otherwise, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case the Polish research team must prepare a new proposal, with the exchange rate 1 EUR = 4,2626 PLN, and complete it in the OSF submission system. If a joint proposal has already been submitted to the lead agency, with the budget of the Polish part of the project calculated according to another exchange rate, the NCN proposal will be inconsistent with the joint proposal and as a consequence the proposal may be rejected on the grounds that it does not meet the eligibility criteria.
3. As of 1 January 2026, the updated Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure shall apply.
4. Please consult the updated call documents.

Bartosz Szyszko, 2025 NCN Award winner, will deliver an online lecture: ‘Chemical topology: From Molecular Knots to Molecular Machinery’. The event is organised by the Copernicus Centre and will be held on 17 December, at 6 p.m..

Bartosz Szyszko, photo by Łukasz Bera/NCN Dr hab. Bartosz Szyszko, Professor at the University of Wroclaw, specialises in supramolecular chemistry. Last October, he was presented with the NCN Award for outstanding research achievements.

‘Chemists usually study molecules connected through classical covalent or ionic bonds, whereas I wanted to explore chemical topology”, he says. ‘At the core of this field are systems that form a whole through a non-obvious interlinking of their components’.

Prof. Szyszko’s team will focus on the synthesis and investigation of rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular knots – mechanically interlocked molecules that resemble the links of a chain. Such systems exhibit entirely different properties, dynamics and reactivity compared with compounds known from classical chemistry. The achievements of his group include the development of new methods for constructing structures with nontrivial topology, including approaches that use metal ion clusters as structural templates. The researchers have also discovered a new type of molecular motion in rotaxanes, which they have termed “fluttering.” ‘Understanding the behaviour of individually mechanically interlocked molecules, gaining greater control over their dynamics, and explaining why they undergo specific reactions in one way rather than another brings us closer to the stage of their practical application in the design of advanced, intelligent materials and nanomachines – whose potential uses we may not yet be able to fully imagine’, he adds.

Rotaxanes are already being used for the controlled release of active substances within the body and for the production of gel-based materials capable of changing their volume in response to external stimuli – applications that are finding use, among others, in soft robotics. The researcher’s work may provide the foundation for the development of new functional materials and nanoscale devices, such as chemical sensors, substance carriers, nanomachine components or intelligent catalysts. 

Prof. Szyszko’s research footage.

The lecture will be streamed online on 17 October, at 6 p.m. 

With reference to the NCN Director’s Communique of 9 June 2025 and pursuant to Point 3 (3) (5) of NCN Council Resolution No 64/2023 of 5 July 2023 on the terms of the International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine (IMPRESS-U) call for research projects carried out as multilateral collaboration under the IMPRESS-U programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure, please note that as funds allocated by one of the partner institutions for research projects under IMPRESS-U have been fully used and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) suspended the call for proposals, the NCN Director decided to end the call for proposals under IMPRESS-U.

Three research projects in Physical Sciences and Engineering, and one project in Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences, will be funded under Weave-UNISONO. Polish research teams have been awarded over PLN 3,500,000.

Greenwashing - Consumers Bamboozled 

Prof. Dr hab. Monika Namysłowska from the University of Lodz will look into the regulatory challenges of greenwashing in the EU, Czechia and Poland. Together with the Polish and Czech research teams (the latter headed by Dr. iur. Rita Sik-Simon LL.M from the Palacký University in Olomouc), she will pursue a research project aimed to protect consumers in the context of digital and environmental transitions. The Polish budget is over PLN 500,000. Greenwashing, which means misleading consumers through unsubstantiated claims that exaggerate or falsify alleged environmental benefits of goods and services, is raising serious concerns in the context of digital and environmental transitions. It undermines public trust and violates the principles of fair competition, where targeted algorithms and social media influencers are increasingly used in commercial practices. The GRETA project studies the implementation and enforcement of EU regulations on consumer protection and environmental communication in Poland and Czechia, identifies legal loopholes and barriers to effective application. The ultimate goal is to evaluate the efficiency of the existing regulations as well as to develop recommendations to limit greenwashing, strengthen consumer protection and increase the transparency of ecological communication. The research findings are expected to support public decision-makers, honest entrepreneurs and consumer organisations, contributing to the development of a more transparent and sustainable EU marketplace.

Understanding Nanoscale Magnetism

Another project funded in this round will aim to develop a unique tool to learn and understand nanomagnetic properties of non van-der-Waals two-dimensional systems. The Polish research team will be headed by Prof. Dr hab. Ryszard Zdyb from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, with the support of Mgr. Jan Filip from the Palacký University in Olomouc, who will supervise the Czech research team. The Polish research team will receive over PLN 1,000,000 for their three-year project. Two-dimensional materials, known in part due to graphene, reveal potentially new research and technological opportunities, especially due to their thickness of several layers. The project focuses on hematene (an ultrathin iron oxide), which may exhibit completely different magnetic properties from its “thick” equivalent. Studies show that transitioning to the 2D regime and modifying the surface of hetametene with single atoms and metal clusters enables precise control of its magnetism. The goal of the project is to learn and understand magnetic properties through the production and comprehensive study of ultrathin iron oxides and their derivatives. The results may contribute to the development of new-generation technologies, such as ultrathin magnetic storage media as well as innovative materials for catalysis and photocatalysis.

Antibacterial Light: New Methodologies to Treat Bacterial Infections

Dr Dorota Anna Chełminiak-Dudkiewicz from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and RNDr and Miloslav Macháček Ph.D. from the Charles University in Prague, alongside their research teams, will aim to develop photoactive supramolecular biopolymer materials for antimicrobial photodynamic therapy. The Polish research team will receive over PLN 700,000 for their research. Due to increasing antibiotic resistance, the treatment of infections is becoming a major challenge in contemporary medicine. The project focuses on the development of a new safe methodology to combat bacterial infections with light, called antimicrobial photodynamic therapy, which is especially suitable for treatment of wounds and skin infections. This project aims to develop novel photoactive biopolymer materials, such as films, sponges, gels, and nanoparticles, for wound dressing, where photosensitizers are combined with biopolymers, thus increasing therapeutic efficiency and reducing the risk of damaging healthy tissue. Such materials will effectively eliminate resistant microorganisms, support wound healing and protect the wound against further damage and infections. The project may result in the development of an innovative, patient- and environment- friendly alternative to current methods of bacterial treatment of infections.

New Antibiotic Development Strategy

The last winning project is about the amphiphilic peptidomimetics containing metallacarboranes as a design strategy for future antibiotics. The Polish research team will be headed by Dr Krzysztof Konrad Fink from the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences. Czech researchers will be supervised and headed by Ing. Mariusz Uchman Ph.D. from the Charles University in Prague. The Polish research team will receive nearly PLN 1,300,000 for their project, which aims to find an attractive alternative to conventional antibiotics, such as peptidomimetics that have potent antibacterial activity while preserving human cells. The unique mechanism of damaging bacterial membranes makes them susceptible to bacterial resistance. The purpose of research is to develop a new class of stable and safe metallacarborane-containing peptidomimetics and to understand the underlying molecular principles of the observed biological effects. The project findings may contribute to the development of effective therapies targeting multidrug-resistant pathogens and reinforce the future of infectious disease treatment.

All proposals had been evaluated by the Grantová agentura České republiky (GAČR), and the evaluation results were then approved by the NCN within the framework of Weave collaboration. 

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure 

Weave-UNISONO is a result of multilateral cooperation between the research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The winning applicants are selected pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure according to which one partner institution performs a complete merit-based evaluation of proposals, the results of which are subsequently approved by the other partners.

Under the Weave Programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the Lead Agency and their respective institutions participating in the Programme. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly identified.

Weave-UNISONO is carried out on an ongoing basis. Research teams intending to cooperate with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are urged to read the call text and apply for funding.

We are announcing the SONATINA 10 call. It is designed for researchers at an early stage of their careers and offers an opportunity to gain the experience and skills needed for further academic development.

SONATINA 10 is open to researchers who obtained their PhD degree between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025. Proposals may also be submitted by candidates who do not yet hold a PhD; however, if such a proposal receives a positive expert evaluation, it may be funded only if the principal investigator is awarded a PhD degree by 15 May 2026. The eligibility period may be extended in the case of career breaks, including those related to childbirth or incapacity for work. Each researcher may receive a SONATINA grant only once.

Projects may be planned for either 24 or 36 months. The grant provides funding for basic and applied research, as well as full-time employment of the principal investigator for the entire project duration at the host institution (where at least one discipline has been assigned a scientific evaluation category) other than the one from which the principal investigator has earned a PhD degree.

A central element of the SONATINA grant is a mandatory fellowship at a foreign research institution for a period of 3 to 6 months. During the fellowship, the principal investigator will receive a guaranteed monthly scholarship of PLN 7,500, along with lump sums to cover subsistence, accommodation, and travel costs, depending on the destination country.

For the first time in the history of the call, the fellowship component will be funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. Under the terms of the agreement in place, proposals will undergo a merit-based evaluation performed by the National Science Centre. NAWA will approve the results of the evaluation and award fellowship funding to SONATINA winners, who will only be required to submit proposals within a dedicated programme launched by NAWA. This cooperation model between the two agencies has been operating successfully for many years, including within the NAWA Polish Returns programme, where NCN finances the research components.

There are no minimum or maximum funding limits for a single SONATINA project; however, all costs included in the budget must be well-justified.

The NCN Council has allocated PLN 50 million for the tenth edition of SONATINA. NAWA has earmarked up to PLN 4.8 million for fellowships, with the final amount to be confirmed in the call text.

Call for proposals and evaluation procedure

The SONATINA 10 call for proposals will be open in the OSF submission system from 16 December to 16 March 2026, until 2 p.m. CET.

Proposals will be evaluated by inter-panel teams consisting of experts from the relevant fields, i.e. the Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences (HS), the Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST), and the Life Sciences (NZ). Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish and international researchers holding at least a PhD degree.

The merit-based evaluation of the proposal will, as usual, be carried out in two stages. In the first stage, each proposal will receive at least two individual reviews, and the team will evaluate it during the first panel meeting, taking the submitted reviews into account. In the second stage, at least two reviews will be prepared by external reviewers, and the principal investigator will additionally be invited to an interview conducted in English at the NCN headquarters in Kraków in July 2026. The team will make the final decision on the proposal based on the individual reviews and the outcome of the interview. The results will be announced by the end of September 2026.

Research teams from Poland and Belgium-Flanders will receive nearly PLN 3.3 million for their research projects investigating holography, cyclostationary signals and mystery of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The three proposals have been evaluated by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the evaluation results were approved by the NCN under the Weave collaboration. 

Ultra-High Definition Holography

Prof. Dr hab. inż. Tomasz Kozacki from the Warsaw University of Technology, together with his team, will analyse ultra‐wide‐angle holography and ultra-high definition holography representing groundbreaking technologies. This type holography solves the primary shortcoming of conventional 3D displays that lies in the vergence‐accommodation conflict by providing an extended visual field of view bigger than 100°. Enabled by extremely dense light modulators, colour holography, and advanced processing algorithms, the encoding and display of large 3D objects in ultra-high quality becomes feasible, albeit at the cost of enormous computational demands and the need for novel methods of data acquisition, generation, and compression. The UltraHolo project addresses these challenges by developing a complete system, spanning from hologram generation and management through displays based on a resolution of 16K × 16K and a sub‐wavelength pixel pitch of 250 nm as well as quality assessment toolsets. The overall goal is to enhance achievement of a realistic and immersive 3D visualization systems in education, health, design, architecture and entertainment applications. The project budget of the Polish research team is over PLN 650,000. The Flemish research team from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel will be headed by Peter Schelkens.

Signals Exhibiting Natural Rhythm and Periodicity 

Another awarded project will be pursued by Dr hab. inż. Agnieszka Wyłomańska from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology. Together with her research team, she will address the advanced signal processing techniques for cyclostationary modelling. The project focuses on the development of advanced methods for analysing signals exhibiting natural rhythm or periodicity in the presence of strong interference, both typical (Gaussian) noise and more challenging impulsive noise. Researchers aim to better understand the sources of such signals and interference, develop realistic mathematical models and algorithms enabling their detection, description and cleaning, for example by separating overlapping signals, segmentation or classification. The new, noise-robust representations, including generalised frequency- frequency maps, will be analysed for their accuracy and computational complexity. Although universal, those methods will be evaluated on the basis of rotating machinery, where the analysis of cyclostationary signals allows to detect faults in gears and rolling element bearings. The new tools will enable detection of cyclostationary signal sources, but also support further processing, e.g. identification of the frequency band containing the most diagnostically useful information, improving detection of faults in laboratories and under industrial conditions. The Polish research team will receive nearly PLN 1.3 million for the three-year project. Konstantinos Gryllias from the KU Leuven will head the Flemish research team.

Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry  

The last project awarded in this round aims to develop Monte Carlo generators for future neutrino oscillation experiments. The Polish research team will be headed by Prof. Dr hab. Jan Sobczyk from the University of Wrocław, while Natalie Jachowicz from the Ghent University will head the Flemish research team. Over PLN 600,00 has been awarded for the Polish part of the project. Researches will address the mystery of matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe which is currently attempted with, for example, neutrino-oscillation experiments. In Europe, the ESSnuSB+ collaboration is preparing for a contribution to this quest. Leveraging the unique opportunities offered by the intense neutrino beams that can be produced at the European Spallation Source, the collaboration proposes to measure this asymmetry at the second neutrino oscillation maximum with discovery precision, which primarily operates with neutrino energies ranging from 200 to 300 MeV, where conventional tools fall sort. The project aims to extend the neutrino simulation tool NuWro, grounded in microscopic theoretical models developed in Ghent, to fill this caveat and enable investigation of basic neutrino physics.

Weave-UNISONO and Lead Agency Procedure 

Weave-UNISONO is a result of multilateral cooperation between the research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures in all academic disciplines, involving researchers from two or three European countries.

The winning applicants are selected pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure according to which one partner institution performs a complete merit-based evaluation of proposals, the results of which are subsequently approved by the other partners.

Under the Weave Programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the Lead Agency and their respective institutions participating in the Programme. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly identified.

Weave-UNISONO is carried out on an ongoing basis. Research teams intending to cooperate with partners from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are urged to read the call text and apply for funding.

We present a preliminary timeline for calls operated by the National Science Centre in the year 2026.

The call timeline does not include multilateral calls launched by the international networks of research funding agencies, including the NCN, which are announced and pre-announced on the NCN website all year round according to the decisions of the participating agencies.

2026 call timeline

Download the NCN 2026 call timeline

The European Research Council has just revealed the winners of its Consolidator Grant 2025. 4 out of 349 winners are former NCN grant winners affiliated with Polish research institutes: Dr hab. Wojciech Czerwiński, Dr hab. Maria Nowak and Dr hab. Michał Pilipczuk from the University of Warsaw, as well as Dr hab. Sławomir Porada from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology. Congratulations!

Maria Nowak, photo by Mirosław Kaźmierczak/UW Dr hab. Maria Nowak works at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on, inter alia, classic Greek papyrology, legal papyrology, legal practice in the Roman Empire, and issues of multi-legal systems in antiquity. She has received ERC funding of EUR 1.9 million for the project “A provincial capital polis at the end of the Roman era. Periphery or a center of power? (PeriPolis)” aimed to present the late Roman Empire as a state struggling with challenges strikingly similar to those faced by modern societies. Dr Nowak will seek to reveal whether crisis is an intrinsic feature of the collapse of empires, or whether the two phenomena may occur independently. She will also try to gain a deeper understanding of everyday life in times of decline – both for ordinary inhabitants and political elites. Maria Nowak is a former winner of NCN’s SONATA 9 and OPUS 18.

Wojciech Czerwiński, photo by Mirosław Kaźmierczak/UW ERC Consolidator Grants 2025 will also go to two researchers from the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics at the University of Warsaw. They will both receive ERC grants for the second time. Dr hab. Wojciech Czerwiński received nearly EUR 2 million for his project “Reachability in Infinite Systems at High Resolution (POLARIS)”. The researcher works on computational models known as state-based systems, and will seek to solve one of the key dilemmas in computer science, namely the limits of achievability in systems with an infinite number of states. The bulk of his project concerns determining whether it is possible to devise an algorithm faster than existing ones that allows a given programme to move from its initial situation to its final one. Wojciech Czerwiński is a former winner of NCN’s SONATA 11.

Michał Pilipczuk, photo by Mirosław Kaźmierczak/UW Dr. hab. Michał Pilipczuk’s research focuses on graphs, which are fundamental mathematical objects used to model all kinds of networks. His project ”Towards a unified structure theory for dense graphs (WYDRA)”, which has been awarded nearly EUR 2 million in funding, will aim to develop a coherent and robust theory describing the structure of dense graphs. The results of his research will pave the way for many new applications – in both combinatorics and algorithm design and will indicate interesting directions for further research at the intersection of graph theory and theoretical computer science. Michał Pilipczuk is a former winner of NCN’s SONATA 6.

Sławomir Porada, photo by Politechnika Wrocławska For the first time, a CoG ERC was awarded to a researcher affiliated with a Wrocław University. Dr hab. inż. Sławomir Porada from the Faculty of Chemistry, Wrocław University of Science and Technology. He has received nearly EUR 2 million in funding for his project “Small Differences, Big Impact: Achieving Effective Selective Separations from Water by Tuning Ion Transport Processes”. Dr Porada will seek to better understand ion transport mechanisms for ions with very similar properties - especially how ions are adsorbed and desorbed over time in electrode materials. This will form the basis for developing a new class of separation processes that use not only material properties but also smart control of the process operating time and cycle. Sławomir Porada is a beneficiary of NCN’s research component under the NAWA Polish Returns Programme.

The ERC Consolidator Grant is one of the most prestigious international grant programmes. It is open to researchers who are 7 to 13 years after completing their PhD and can demonstrate outstanding scientific achievements. This time, a total funding of EUR 728 million will go to researchers from 44 countries, including 25 from Europe.