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MINIATURA 7 results are in

The MINIATURA 7 call for research activities was open to researchers employed at the Polish research institutions who were conferred their PhD degree after 1 January 2011. The NCN funding will allow the early-stage researchers to get their first grant implementation experience and to prepare the basis for research projects that will be later submitted to the NCN calls or other national or international calls for proposals.

Sixth ranking list

Research activities under MINIATURA 7 can be carried out in the form of preliminary/pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits and/ or consultations. The winners of the sixth and final round of the call address a variety of research subjects important and relevant for the societies and the environment of the 21st century. The subjects include human existence in virtual reality, optimisation of disease therapy or innovative methods of counteracting the negative impact of civilisation development and human activity in nature.

The largest group of winners on the ranking list represents Life Sciences. They will carry our 98 research activities worth a total of over PLN 4.5 million, including activities oriented towards improving or seeking new therapies for human diseases, including cancer. Paweł Hikisz from the University of Lodz will carry out a preliminary/pilot study as part of the activity entitled “Pyrazoline derivatives condensed with chromanone or flavanone in colorectal cancer therapy: analysis of molecular anticancer activities”. Joanna Bogusławska from the Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education will address the impact of probiotic strain L. lactis on gene expression in keratinocytes, looking for therapeutic potential in the treatment of psoriasis.

82 researchers selected in Physical Sciences and Engineering will tackle, inter alia, the problems of natural or man-made disasters disasters. One of the funded activities is a fellowship of Piotr Kopka from the National Centre for Nuclear Research who will travel to Japan where he will be involved in the reconstruction of the source term from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident using the JRODOS system and measurement data at the Fukushima University. Emilia Karamuz will research the application of novel measurement methods to improve the description and modelling of drought at the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences. Nearly PLN 3.2 million will be spent on research activities in the field of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the MINIATURA grants will go to 58 researchers, including Marcin Rządeczka from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin who will go on a research visit to analyse the therapeutic chatbots bias in artificial intelligence mental health technology algorithmic fairness bias mitigation strategies. Dagmara Gałajda from the University of Silesia in Katowice will carry out a preliminary/pilot study on Generation Z, group dynamics, communicative competence, willingness to communicate, digital body language, well-being, Danish higher education, and Polish higher education. Over PLN 1.6 million will be spent on research activities in the field of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

The sixth ranking list – funding per panel

Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: 58 research activities, PLN 1,642,014
Physical Sciences and Engineering: 82 activities, PLN 3,193,840
Life Sciences: 98 activities, PLN 4,563,147

The total value of research activities on the MINIATURA 7 ranking list is exactly PLN 9,399,001.

About MINIATURA 7

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 for a research activity planned over a period of up to 12 months.

Funds for research activities carried out under the MINIATURA 7 call were divided proportionally between the months during which proposals were accepted. In this edition, the submission deadline was 31 July 2023.

MINIATURA was first announced in 2016. The original idea was to increase the numbers of NCN programme winners, encourage applicants from smaller academic centres and reduce interregional inequalities. A total of over 3.8 thousand research activities have been funded by the NCN in the previous six rounds of the call.

MINIATURA 7 funding was awarded to 621 proposals: 243 in Life Sciences, 205 in Physical Sciences and Engineering and 173 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

The success rate was over 34.7%.

The winning applicants include researchers at the onset of their research career: 424 with a PhD degree and 166 researchers with a degree in engineering.

More proposals were submitted by women than men and the majority of winners are female researchers. Funding was awarded to 374 female researchers and 247 male researchers.

74.5% of proposals involve preliminary/pilot studies.

Nearly 83% of all grants will go to universities, with the Jagiellonian University and the University of Lodz leading the fray.

Research activities will be carried out by 85 universities, research institutes of PAS and the Łukasiewicz Centre as well as other institutes. The largest number of projects will be hosted by the Jagiellonian University and the University of Lodz. The top ten institutions with the largest number of research activities to be funded also include the Gdańsk University of Technology, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, University of Warsaw, Poznań University of Medical Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice and University of Wrocław.

A total of over PLN 24 million was handed out within the framework of MINIATURA 7.

MINIATURA 7 call annauncement

MINIATURA 7 results

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.

New approaches in determining the impacts of chemical pollution to protect the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea

Principal Investigator :
Prof. dr hab. Ksenia Pazdro
Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences

Panel: NZ8

Funding scheme : BiodivProtect
announced on 1 October 2021

Marine ecosystems today are facing many problems, such as anthropogenic threats, climate change and other factors that negatively affect their health and function. This is also true of the Baltic Sea. The peculiar geographical and hydrological features of the Baltic make it particularly vulnerable to different anthropogenic pressures.

Prof. Ksenia Pazdro, photo by Michał Łepecki The Baltic Sea is a semi-enclosed basin with brackish waters and relatively low biodiversity. It is located in a densely populated region, with intensive agricultural and industrial activity underway within its catchment area. In addition, its waters account for c. 15% of global marine transport. As a result, chemical pollution is a major threat, which negatively affects the health of Baltic fauna and flora and, by corollary, its overall biodiversity. National, regional and EU remediation measures thus far have improved the situation; the amount of hazardous substances discharged into the sea has been reduced. However, they continue to be present in the ecosystem, and extreme weather phenomena, such as sea storms, increase the risk of their reintroduction into the Baltic. Attention should also be drawn to a new group of compounds, known as micropollutants (such as pharmaceuticals, plasticizers, detergents, personal protection agents). Micropollutants are eliminated during wastewater treatment to varying degrees, but little is known about their impact on living organisms. Keeping a large ecosystem like the Baltic Sea in good health thus requires further, decisive measures by institutions responsible for marine ecosystem protection. To this end, however, they need modern, reliable and useful tools. Monitoring activities thus far have focused on two lines of investigation: the chemical composition of the environment and the assessment of the health of marine organisms. However, to date, research has only considered the impact of selected, individual substances, rather than the entire “cocktail” of chemical elements and compounds present in the Baltic.

Prof. Ksenia Pazdro, photo by Michał Łepecki The Detect2Protect project proposes a change of paradigm in Baltic protection and a shift toward a more holistic approach focused on biological effect-based methods (EBM). There is increasing evidence that effect-based methods may help distinguish chemical toxicity from other possible causes of biodiversity loss and serve as an early warning sign of potential threats. The goal of the project is to improve our understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships between environmental pollution and changes in biodiversity and develop a tool for environmental risk assessment in different Baltic regions. To this end, we will use specific biomarkers, i.e. biochemical indicators of the impact of pollutants on marine organisms. The project involves harmonised research by teams from marine research institutions in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Poland and Italy, with the aim of tracking relationships between chemical pollution in the Baltic and potential biodiversity loss, based on existing chemical pollution monitoring and biological data. We will also carry out joint fieldwork in the coastal regions of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Finland to compare polluted sites with reference sites. Our project will involve measurements of chemical pollutant concentrations in various elements of the environment and their biological effects in representative species of molluscs, crustaceans, polychaeta and fish in each region. Biodiversity will be assessed through eDNA metabarcoding. In order to develop appropriate predictive modelling tools, we will also need a thorough analysis and integration of collected data.

We hope our findings will help define the relationship between water pollution in the Baltic Sea and the biochemical reaction of its organisms, as well as to identify indicator species and biomarkers for different marine regions which, it is hoped, will facilitate biodiversity protection. Our findings, including a field-tested set of biological indicators (as an early warning tool) and recommendations for use in different areas of the Baltic Sea, will be presented to interested institutions, such as HELCOM. We will also share what we have learned with the general public, so as to raise public awareness of the impact of chemical mixtures on potential biodiversity loss in the Baltic Sea.

Project title: Detect2Protect: New approaches in determining the impacts of chemical pollution to protect the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea

Prof. dr hab. Ksenia Pazdro

A marine chemist, she graduated in oceanography from the University of Gdańsk. Since the early days of her career, she has been affiliated with the Department of Marine Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot. In 2021, she earned the title of professor ofexact and natural sciences. Her research interests centre on the circulation of persistent organic pollutants and emerging pollutants (e.g. pharmaceuticals) in marine ecosystems (the Baltic Sea and the Svalbard fjords) and assessing their impact on marine organisms. She is an author of several publications in international journals and has participated in the work of the Polish Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, PAS for many years.

Prof. Ksenia Pazdro, photo by Michał Łepecki

Impact of the rotating magnetic field on drug efficacy against bacterial biofilms

Principal Investigator :
Prof. Dr hab. Karol Fijałkowski
West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin (ZUT)

Panel: NZ6

Funding scheme : OPUS 14
announced on 15 September 2019

Bacterial infections caused by organised microbial communities, known as biofilms, have been a growing, complex and multidisciplinary medical issue. Such structures are covered by a protective extracellular matrix, which makes it significantly more difficult for antibiotics and antiseptics to reach bacterial cells that are hidden inside it. This is one reason why biofilms exhibit up to 1000 more resistance to antimicrobial agents than cells of the same microorganism in free-swimming (a.k.a. planktonic) form (without the protective matrix layer). Despite significant progress in science and technology, there are still no sufficiently effective methods of preventing and combating infections caused by biofilms.

Prof. Karol Fijałkowski, photo by Michał Łepecki In our earlier research, we discovered that a Rotating Magnetic Field (RMF) of specific parameters increased the antimicrobial activity of antibiotics and antiseptics against pathogenic biofilms. We realised this discovery might be of fundamental importance for the development of innovative methods of preventing and combating biofilms, but for this to happen, we needed to elucidate the mechanisms behind the effects we had observed. Accordingly, the primary goal of this project was to explain the mechanisms of this increased activity of antimicrobial compounds, antiseptics and antibiotics, against bacterial biofilms in the presence of RMF.

Research was performed with the aid of RMF generators constructed within the framework of a previous project, “Lider V”, funded by the National Centre for Research and Development.

Using advanced spectrometry techniques, we showed that the RMF changed the chemical composition of the biofilm matrix, i.e., causing it to become more porous, as seen with electron microscopy. We also observed changes in protein concentrations in the cell walls of bacteria exposed to the RMF, and showed differences in their metabolism manifesting, for instance, in changed concentrations of information-transmitting molecules. We proved that the effect of the RMF (in the absence of any antimicrobial compound) was manifested on a spectrum of relatively subtle changes that accumulated primarily in external cellular structures, cell walls and membranes, and the biofilm matrix. The activity of the RMF was so subtle that the cells were able to eliminate damage relatively quickly, which meant there was no lasting post-exposure effect. However, once an antibacterial agent was introduced into bacterial cultures exposed to the RMF, especially an agent designed to alter cell wall structures, its efficacy was significantly increased, as evidenced by a rise in the number of dead cells. This RMF-induced increase in the efficacy of the antimicrobial agent was also observed at lower concentrations and with shorter contact time, as opposed to the effects achieved in a set-up that had not been exposed to the RMF. We determined that the increase in efficacy was due to a number of changes induced by the RMF in the morphology of bacteria, as well as their metabolomic and proteomic processes, which meant that the antimicrobial agent acted against functionally- and structurally-weakened cells and, in the case of biofilms, also a partially degraded matrix.

The project was carried out in a consortium with the Łukasiewicz Research Network – PORT Polish Centre for Technology Development. The PI on the partner side was Dr hab. Adam Junka, Professor at the Medical University Wroclaw.

Project title: Analysis of mechanisms of increased efectivness of antimicrobial substances against biofilms in the presence of a rotating magnetic field

Prof. Dr hab. Karol Fijałkowski

Microbiologist, academic teacher, professor of Physical and Life Sciences, specialised in biology and biotechnology. Head of the Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology at the ZUT Centre for Nanotechnology Research and Education in Szczecin. Together with his team, he has conducted interdisciplinary research into the impact of magnetic fields on microbes. His current research interests are focused on using magnetic fields to increase the efficacy of antimicrobial agents against pathogenic bacteria.

Online lectures by winners of 2023 NCN Award

Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Łukasz Opaliński and Katharina Boguslawski will deliver lectures in the “Science at the Centre” series launched by the Copernicus Centre and the National Science Centre. The first meeting will be held on 14 November.

The first “Science at the Centre” lectures were delivered by the 2020 NCN Award winners. Together with the Copernicus Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, we have already hosted nine meetings which had over 246 thousand viewings.

The first lecture this year will be delivered by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, 2023 NCN Award winner in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. She specialises in cultural studies, Czech studies and ethnology at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Her lecture is entitled: “Things acting as “ghosts”. Displacements and emergence of new cultures in Central Europe”.

This is how she announces her talk:

“We often think about ghosts as the spirits of the dead haunting the living. But what if we understood them as material remains, bringing to light overlooked past and enabling us to grasp the experience of the otherness? I propose such an approach in research on the effects of displacement associated with the end of WWII when territories previously inhabited by German and German-speaking communities were forced to migrate from today’s Poland, Czechia and Slovakia, and replaced by new inhabitants. What was the settlers’ experiences with things and spaces the previous inhabitants had left behind? How was it remembered and how does it live on in the memory of the next generations? I will answer these questions using the research tools of cultural anthropology (in particular, participant observations and field interviews) and archive material analysis, and will discuss the new cultures of Poland’s “Recovered Territories” and Czech "pohraničí.”

The lecture will be streamed online on the YouTube Channel of the Copernicus Center, on 14 November at 6 p.m. and will be followed by a discussion. Participants are welcome to ask questions.

The next lecture will be delivered on 28 November by Prof. Łukasz Opaliński, 2023 NCN Award winner in Life Sciences and the last lecture will be given by Prof. Katharina Boguslawski, 2023 NCN Award winner in Physical Sciences and Engineering.

More information:

NCN Award ceremony

NCN podcast on NCN Award, featuring K. Ćwiek-Rogalskiej and Prof. Joanna Golińska-Pilarek, NCN Council member.

Heterogeneous diamond biosensing nanoarchitectures

Principal Investigator :
Dr hab. inż. Robert Bogdanowicz
Gdańsk University of Technology

Panel: ST7

Funding scheme : OPUS 22
announced on 15 September 2021

Our project represents an important innovation in the field of carbon nanomaterials. Nanostructures are geometric, complex, often periodic surfaces of nanometric size, i.e., approximately 1/100 thinner than a human hair. Our project focuses on developing periodic diamond nanostructures with extraordinary optical and electronic properties, which are difficult or impossible to achieve using conventional technologies. Importantly, we use synthetic diamond for that purpose, which means we can obtain materials characterised by exceptional chemical stability and biocompatibility.

Diamond is well known for its incredible hardness, which means it is very difficult to nanostructurise, i.e., have its surface shaped in nanoscale with the use of atoms. However, thanks to advanced technologies used in the semiconductor industry, we are able to deposit synthetic diamond in form-defined matrices to create three-dimensional nanostructures. Another approach is to fabricate three‐dimensional nanostructures from diamond composites that induce periodicity.

dr hab. inż. Robert Bogdanowicz, fot. Michał Łepecki The aim of our project is to develop and study new three-dimensional diamond nanostructures, optimised for applications in medicine and biosensor production. What makes our structures unique is the possibility of obtaining simultaneous optical and electrochemical signals, which reduces the risk of error and shortens measurement time as compared to traditional sensors. Taken together, optical and electrochemical data are very reliable and useful for early diagnostics. This advance allows us to detect specific biological targets, such as viruses, cancer cells, bacteria and disease markers in a highly selective and sensitive manner. Biosensors are detection platforms that use biological receptors, such as antibodies, to detect different biological targets. In order to achieve adequate selectivity for a given biological target, the sensors need to be bio‐functionalised; their surface must be sensitised to specific biological interactions with specific proteins, which are antigen proteins in our case.

The project crucially involves international cooperation between Polish and Czech researchers. Researchers based in Prague specialise in developing and diagnosing periodic diamond structures; researchers in Gdańsk focus on modifying their electrochemical parameters; and our Warsaw team has expertise in optoelectronics, mainly dealing with biosensors. This synergy of expertise and experience will help us understand and develop the potential of these fascinating nanostructures.

Project title: Heterogenous diamond biosensing nanoarchitectures: opto-electro-chemical interactions with antibody complexes

Dr hab. inż. Robert Bogdanowicz

Bogdanowicz earned a PhD in electronics (summa cum laude) from the Gdańsk University of Technology in 2009, and went on to devote the next few years of his career to researching and developing innovative technologies. In 2010-2011, he worked as a post-doc in Germany and, upon his return to Poland, took leadership of a research team at the Department of Metrology and Optoelectronics of the Gdańsk University of Technology. His research focuses on the development of CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) diamonds and their applications in biomedical, environmental and biochemical sensors. In 2015, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award Program fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he joined a team led by Professor William Goddard (Materials and Process Simulation Center), working on hybrid 3D diamond structures. He is the author of more than 200 articles, book chapters, conference materials and special issues of scientific journals such as “Diamond and Related Materials”, as well as the owner of 8 patents. His innovative diamond-based sensor technology is already being developed by industry.

Conference promoting the Basic Research Programme carried out under the EEA and Norway Grants

The National Science Centre is organising a third conference to promote Basic Research under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants. The conference will be held on 16 November, in the Krakow headquarters of the National Science Centre and will focus on Humanities and Social Sciences.

Research projects funded under the EEA and Norway Grants and carried out by the research teams and individual researchers from the Polish research centres, will be presented at the event. The conference will also include a panel discussion on Social Transformations in the Age of Polarization, moderated by Prof. Nina Witoszek from the University of Oslo.

Registration form

More about the Basic Research Programme under the EEA and Norway Grants

EOSC Festival 2023. The National Tripartite Event Poland online

Join us at the “EOSC Festival 2023. The National Tripartite Event Poland” during which we will discuss, inter alia, the Widening Countries’ perspective of the future of EOSC.

The event will be held on 6 and 7 November 2023 at the Headquarters of the National Science Centre in Krakow. The first day will be streamed online.

The EOSC Festival is organised by the National Science Centre as part of its mission in the European Open Science Cloud and a mandated organization (national representative) in the EOSC Association.

The main objectives of the event are to:

present the European Open Science Cloud,
enhance cooperation and dialogue between key EOSC stakeholders in Poland and in the region,
discuss the directions of EOSC strategic development,
increase EOSC’s visibility in Poland, i.e., by notifying the national academic community of the implementation of EOSC in Poland.

The Festival will be officially opened on 6 November 2023, at 11 a.m. in the Headquarters of the National Science Centre at Twardowskiego 16 in Krakow, Poland.

Registration for the online and in-person participation.

Due to the limited spaces, the registrations for the event at the NCN headquarters will be accepted in the order they are received.

Festival’s agenda

The participation on the second day is by invitation only.

Online stream part 1

Online stream part 2

Online stream part 3

Krzysztof Jóźwiak appointed new Director of the National Science Centre

On 31 October, Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak was appointed as the new Director of the National Science Centre. Prof. Jóźwiak is a former NCN Council member who knows the National Science Centre very well.

Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences involved in molecular pharmacology and drug chemistry. He is the Head of the Department of Biopharmacy and Chair of Chemistry at the Medical University of Lublin. Between 2018 and 2022, Prof. Jóźwiak was a member of the Scientific Council of the Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow.

“I am determined to do my best to push for an increase in the NCN grant-in-aid. I believe it to be the most urgent task and hope the Ministry of Education and Science will understand that concern. Without decent quality-oriented science and education funding, we will not be able to create a modern knowledge-based economy in Poland”, says the new NCN Director.

Prof. Jóźwiak knows the National Science Centre very well. He is a former member of the NCN Council (2012-2020) and former Head of the Council’s Life Sciences Committee.

“[Prof. Jóźwiak] is one of those who were involved in the formation of the agency and understands its mission very well. I am convinced that under his leadership the NCN will use the opportunities the nearest future will bring”, says prof. Zbigniew Błocki about his successor.

Prof. Jóźwiak had to wait nearly eight months for his appointment as NCN Director although he should have started his work at the beginning of March 2023, when Prof. Błocki’s term of office ended.

An open call for NCN director was held at the turn of the year. The NCN Council accepted Prof. Jóźwiak’s candidacy in middle of February 2023. Over the next few months, everyone waited for Minister Przemysław Czarnek to officially nominate Prof. Jóźwiak as NCN Director. According to the Act on the National Science Centre, Prof. Zbigniew Błocki has acted as an interim Director.

The new Director was officially appointed on 31 October, at the headquarters of the National Science Centre. Minister Czarnek was represented by Prof. Włodzimierz Bernacki, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Education and Science.

Prof. Włodzimierz Bernacki, Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, Prof. Zbigniew Błocki

NCN’s operation over the past two years and condition of Polish science and research institutions after the election are discussed in episode 9 of our podcast.

Verification of the neural noise hypothesis of dyslexia

Principal Investigator :
Prof. Dr hab. Katarzyna Jednoróg
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS

Panel: HS6

Funding scheme : OPUS 18
announced on 16 September 2019

Everybody knows that fluent reading is very important in various areas of life. However, it is still unknown why as many as 10% of children struggle with learning to read, despite having normal or above-average intelligence. These children have developmental dyslexia, i.e., a specific reading difficulty which is present in every language and does not remit with age. Researchers are still trying to understand the neurobiological mechanisms and reasons why reading can be so challenging for some children.

The purpose of our research is to verify neural noise hypothesis according to which reading difficulties are caused by disruptions in neurotransmission. According to this hypothesis, the concentration of glutamate (the main excitatory neurotransmitter) may be elevated in dyslexic individuals, leading to increased noise and instability in information processing. This, in turn, hinders the integration of information from different senses and the distinguishing of speech sounds (phonological awareness) — both vital for reading development. Our study involves assessing reading ability, phonological awareness, multisensory integration, and employing non-invasive brain imaging methods. All this to determine whether the neuronal noise hypothesis indeed effectively explains the mechanisms of reading difficulties.

Prof. Dr hab. Katarzyna Jednoróg, photo by Michał Łepecki Using EEG, we measured the level of neural noise in teenagers with dyslexia and those with good reading skills. Although higher neural noise is characteristic of neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, our results show that it does not seem to be the case in dyslexia. Individuals with dyslexia, however, exhibited lower phonological awareness. Additionally, we discovered that problems related to multisensory integration are specific for dyslexic boys. Only in boys was the multisensory integration linked to reading skills. This is probably an additional risk factor for dyslexia in boys, among whom dyslexia is more common than in girls.

Once we analyse the experimental data, we will be able to describe the connections between specific neurotransmitters, neuronal noise and cognitive abilities in typical reading development and dyslexia. This will represent a significant advancement in the field of dyslexia research and an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about the actual causes of reading difficulties in children.

Project title: Verification of the neural noise hypothesis of dyslexia

Prof. Dr hab. Katarzyna Jednoróg

MA in psychology at the Jagiellonian University. PhD in neurobiology at the Nencki Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences. Post-doctoral fellowship in France, in cooperation with Franck Ramus (École Normale Supérieure). Cooperated with Kenneth Pugh (Haskins Laboratories, USA) under the mentoring programme of the Foundation for Polish Science. For the last five years, Head of the Laboratory of Language Neurobiology at the Nencki Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences.

Podcast 9. Science After the Election

Episode 9 of our podcast features a conversation between our host Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz and Prof. Zbigniew Błocki in which he talks about NCN’s recent situation and condition of Polish science and research institutions after the election.

Anna Korzekwa-Józefowicz, Zbigniew Błocki Prof. Zbigniew Błocki was the Director of the National Science Centre from March 2015 to March 2023 (two terms of office) and interim Director since March 2023

In October 2021, the Minister Przemysław Czarnek said that he would “put the National Science Centre back on its feet”. In August 2023, he promised that in autumn he would close the National Science Centre down and merge it with the National Centre for Research and Development and the Medical Research Agency.

At the same time, the NCN’s budget was frozen.

Prof. Zbigniew Błocki talks about the attempts to “reform” and “starve” the National Science Centre or rather “starve Polish science”.

However, the main part of the conversation was about the future. Prof. Błocki talked about the need to increase the NCN’s budget in the coming years, NCN development directions and new tasks that could be assumed by the NCN. When asked about a “list of tasks” for the new minister and suggestions for what should be done with recently created programmes and institutions (e.g., the Nicolaus Copernicus Academy) or institutions that have succumbed to political pressure (e.g., the National Centre for Research and Development, “NCBR”), our guest said that “[it needs to be] thoroughly reformed, the time is ripe” referring to the National Centre for Research and Development. “I have heard people saying that the National Centre for Research and Development had been working perfectly until now, but a year or year and a half ago a new team came, and the scandals started. Well, it was not really like that. People who are aware of what is happening know that the NCBR did not work well from the very beginning. We have injected tens of billions of zlotys into the so-called innovations (...) and the result is that our innovation rankings are falling”.

At the end, Prof. Błocki summed up his work at the National Science Centre. “I have been saying for quite some time that working for the National Science Centre was the greatest adventure of my life. I am saying that now because this chapter will soon be over. I am very happy that I managed to avoid the greatest threat the National Science Centre was facing [restricted independence]. However, I believe that the recent years have been wasted in terms of opportunities and challenges facing science, but the National Science Centre has survived in its present form, therefore it can still do a lot of good things for Polis science”, he concludes.

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