JPND 2024
4 January 2024
The National Science Centre (NCN), in cooperation with the JPND network (EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research), is pleased to announce a call for international research projects with the aim of improving the understanding of disease mechanisms and advancing measurability of disease progression at early and pre-symptomatic stages of neurodegenerative diseases.
The title of the JPND Call 2024: Mechanisms and measurement of disease progression in the early phase of neurodegenerative diseases.
Funding proposals may be submitted by international consortia composed of at least 3 (and no more than 7) research teams from at least 3 countries participating in the call. The principal investigator of the Polish research team must hold at least a PhD degree.
Countries participating in the call: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey
Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the NCN Council has decided that proposals submitted to NCN calls must not provide for any collaboration between Polish and Russian entities. Where such collaboration is planned, the proposal may be rejected.
The application procedure:
Stage I:
- International level: a joint pre-proposal drafted by the Polish research teams in cooperation with the foreign partners (in English) and submitted to the electronic submission system of the JPND network.
Joint pre-proposals must be submitted to the electronic submission system of the JPND network. At this stage, Polish applicants submit no documents to the NCN.
Stage II:
- International level: a joint full proposal drafted by the Polish research teams in cooperation with the foreign partners (in English) and submitted to the electronic submission system of the JPND network.
- National level: an NCN proposal concerning the Polish part of the project drafted by the Polish research team and submitted to the NCN electronically via the OSF electronic submission system within 7 days of the joint full proposal submission date at international level.
Call Timeline:
- Submission deadline for joint pre-proposals: 5 March 2024, 12 noon CET
- Call for joint full proposals: May 2024
- Submission deadline for joint full proposals: 25 June 2024, 12 noon CEST
- Submission deadline for NCN proposals in OSF: 2 July 2024
- Call results: October 2024
Under JPND Call 2024, funds can be awarded for salaries of the research team members, salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students, purchase or manufacturing of research equipment and other costs crucial to the research project.
The total funding allocated by the NCN for research tasks to be performed by the Polish research teams under the call is EUR 1,000,000.
The EUR budget for the Polish part of the research project in the joint proposal must be calculated according to the following exchange rate: EUR 1 = PLN 4.3334.
Please read:
- the call documents on the website of the JPND network (applicable to all applicants in the call);
- information for applicants below and annexes hereto (applicable only to applicants requesting NCN funding).
Who may apply for NCN funding?
Proposals in the call may be submitted by entities specified in the Act on the National Science Centre, namely:
- universities,
- federations of science and HE entities,
- research institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences operating pursuant to the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1796, as amended),
- research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1383, as amended),
- international research institutes established pursuant to other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland,
5a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 2098),
5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network,
- Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences,
- other entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis (other than set forth in sections 1-6),
- groups of entities (at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company),
- scientific and industrial centres laid down in the Act on Research Centres of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1383, as amended),
- research centres of the Polish Academy of Sciences laid down in the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws 2020, item 1796),
- scientific libraries,
- companies operating as R&D centres laid down in the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovation Activities of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws 2021, item 706),
- legal entities with registered office in Poland,
13a. President of the Central Office of Measures,
- natural persons and
- companies conducting research in other organisational form than set forth in sections 1-13a.
Under JPND Call 2024, NCN proposals must not be submitted by entities for which funding constitutes state aid.
If research projects are carried out by two or more Polish partners applying for NCN funding, they must set up a group of entities (see item 8 above) and as such submit NCN proposals. NCN proposals are submitted by a leader named in the research project cooperation agreement concluded by the group of entities. An institution employing the principal investigator acts as the leader of the group of entities.
If, pursuant to Article 27 (1) (2) of the NCN Act, Polish entities cannot set up a group of entities, they are not eligible to apply for NCN funding of a joint research project.
Who may act as a principal investigator?
The principal investigator of the Polish research team must hold at least a PhD degree when submitting a proposal. Restrictions on submitting NCN proposals are described in detail in Chapter IV of the Terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO, annexed to NCN Council Resolution No 32/2023 of 16 March 2023.
What are the subjects covered by the call?
Proposals submitted to the call (Mechanisms and measurement of disease progression in the early phase of neurodegenerative diseases) must focus on one or several of the following neurodegenerative diseases:
- Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias,
- Parkinson’s disease and PD‐related disorders,
- Prion diseases,
- Motor neuron diseases,
- Huntington’s disease,
- Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA),
- Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).
The subjects of the call cover research in the following areas:
- Unraveling the influence of molecular, physiological, psychological and social factors and pathways on disease progression as well as discovering new factors and pathways;
- Defining key regulatory steps affecting the disease onset and progression;
- Combining molecular, psychological, social and physiological markers in order to increase the robustness of the diagnosis;
- Harmonization of the use of novel technologies and clinical measures to increase reliability and reproducibility of disease detection and monitoring;
- Identifying molecular, environmental, social and behavioural modulators of disease progression with the ultimate aim of determining risk, protective and resilience factors;
- Examining pathological processes related to neurodegeneration by using Artificial Intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to understand the role of mechanistic pathways;
- Enhancing patient stratification by establishing measures and technologies to characterize clinical subgroups at pre-symptomatic stages, e.g. ‘risk phenotypes’ or ‘at-risk’ groups;
- Identifying compensatory mechanisms associated to early stages of neurodegenerative diseases;
- Systematically analysing the influence of genetic, epigenetic and phenotypic variability underlying neurodegenerative diseases on disease progression.
More information on the subject of the call can be found in the call text of JPND Call 2024.
Polish researchers may apply for NCN funding of their basic research projects for the purposes of Article 2 (1) of the NCN Act.
NCN proposals comprising research tasks overlapping with research tasks laid down in another proposal that has been already submitted in any NCN call or with respect to which an appeal has been initiated, may only be submitted once the funding decision has become final.
What is the project duration period?
Research projects may be planned in the call for a period of either 24 or 36 months.
What are the positions for members of the research team?
Apart from the principal investigator, research tasks may be performed by co-investigators, including students, PhD students and post-docs.
A post-doc type position is a full-time position, scheduled by the project’s principal investigator for a person who has been conferred a PhD degree within 7 years prior to the year of employment in the project. This period may be extended pursuant to the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.
Persons employed as post-docs must have their PhD degree awarded by another institution than the one employing them at this post or must have completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in another institution than the host institution for the project and in another country than the one in which they have been conferred a PhD degree. Persons employed as post-docs in the project must be recruited in an open call procedure.
PhD students who are NCN-scholarship grantees must be recruited in an open call procedure.
An international expert team will review the relevance of involvement of particular members of the research team in the project. The competences and tasks to be performed by particular members of the research team must be described in the proposal. For more information on the budget for salaries and scholarships, please read the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.
The terms of the call do not specify the maximum number of research team members.
Scholarship grantees and post-docs must not be named in either joint or NCN proposals.
How should the project budget be planned?
The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and based on realistic calculations. The budget must include expenditures eligible for funding from NCN resources (the so-called eligible costs).
The terms of the call do not specify the minimum or maximum (total) funds that may be requested.
The budget in the NCN proposal must be quoted in PLN, while the budget in the joint proposal, in EUR.
The EUR budget for the Polish part of the research project in the joint proposal must be calculated according to the following exchange rate: EUR 1 = PLN 4.3334.
The project budget (eligible costs) includes direct and indirect costs.
Direct costs include:
- remuneration for the principal investigator;
- remuneration for co-investigators in the project:
- full-time remuneration for post-docs,
- salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students,
- the so-called additional remuneration for members of the research team. If the principal investigator is not to be employed full-time in the project, his/her remuneration is paid from the pool allocated for additional remuneration;
- purchase of research equipment, devices and software;
- purchase of material and small equipment;
- outsourced services;
- business trips, visits and consultations;
- compensation for collective investigators and
- other costs crucial to the project according to the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.
The costs of publication of monographs (as defined in §10 of the Regulation on Evaluation of the Quality of Research Activity passed by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws 2019, item 392) resulting from research projects may only be incurred following a positive review by the NCN.
Indirect costs include:
- indirect cost of Open Access (up to 2% of direct costs) that may be designated only for the cost of open access to publications or research data;
- other indirect costs (up to 20% of direct costs) that may be spent on costs that are related indirectly to the research project, including the cost of open access to publications and research data.
The costs of open access to publications may only be incurred as indirect costs. The cost of open access planned as direct costs will be regarded as a formal error.
Where unjustified costs are planned, the proposal may be rejected.
We recommend that Polish applicants should consult the budget table of the Polish part of the project with the NCN. The budget table in .xlsx format should be sent to alicja.dylag@ncn.gov.pl by 23 February 2024.
Open Access publication of research results
Together with other European cOAlition S agencies, the National Science Centre has drafted its Open Access Policy. In accordance with its vision of open access to research results and publications, the NCN requires that all research results should be made available in full and immediate open access. In accordance with the principles of Plan S, the National Science Centre recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with its open access policy:
- publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journals(DOAJ);
- publication in subscription journals (hybrid journals in which some of the articles are open access and some require payment of a publication fee), as long as the Version of Record (VoR, i.e. a version of record published in a journal with its own typeface and branding. Other terms: published version or publisher’s pdf) or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, i.e. the final manuscript version created by the author, including all the revisions introduced after the peer review, and accepted for publication in the journal. Other terms: post print, author accepted manuscript) is published, by the author or publisher, in an open repository immediately upon the article’s online publication;
- publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements that must be inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry) and in transformative journals (i.e. journals actively committed to transitioning from a subscription journal to a fully open access journal. The current list of transformative journals is available here). Transformative journals must meet the criteria laid down in the Guidelines on the Implementation of Plan S and must allow open access publication of original scientific articles.
This publication route only applies to articles accepted for publication or published before 31 December 2024.
Manuscripts must be published using the CC-BY licence (in the case of transformative journals, the CC-BY-SA licence can also be used). The CC-BY-ND licence may also be used (regardless of the publication route selected).
More information on open access publication terms can be found here, as amended.
We also encourage to read the Open Access Instructions.
In grant agreements concluded after 1 January 2021, the data underpinning the scientific publications resulting from the project funded by the NCN must be well-documented pursuant to the FAIR Principles standing for machine or manual Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability or Reusability (the so-called “FAIR Data”). Where possible, data must be made available in the repository, according to the Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 licence (that allows the distribution of data to public domain. Pursuant to the licence, authors can give up their intellectual property rights to the extend allowed by domestic law; the licence does not affect patent rights, rights of publicity or privacy). The data citation principles laid down in the Declaration of Data Citation Principles by FORCE 11 and the TOP Guidelines must be complied with. Metadata describing the data sets must be in line with the OpenAIRE.
Can proposals in this call include application for state aid?
State aid must not be requested under JPND Call 2024.
You can find out more about state aid here.
What is the proposal evaluation procedure?
Joint proposals are subject to an eligibility check performed by the NCN, other agencies participating in the JPND Call 2024 and the Secretariat of JPND Call 2024.
Joint proposals that have passed the eligibility check are subject to a merit-based evaluation carried out by an international expert team pursuant to the terms set forth in the call text.
NCN proposals are subject solely to an NCN eligibility check carried out by the scientific coordinators.
The eligibility check of NCN proposals involves verification of proposal for completeness, compliance with all terms set forth in the call documents and Resolution No 32/2023 of the NCN Council of 16 March 2023, including compliance of the budget with the Annex thereto, i.e. “Costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre in international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO”.
The information provided in NCN proposals and in joint proposals must be consistent and identical.
Who performs the merit-based evaluation of proposals?
Only joint proposals are subject to a merit-based evaluation performed by an international expert team established by the JPND network. For more information on the evaluation of proposals, please go to the call text available at the website of the JPND network.
When and how will the results be announced?
The JPND Call 2024 will be concluded in October 2024. Firstly, project coordinators will be notified of the outcome. Polish research teams will be notified of the results by way of a decision of the NCN Director.
In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements related to actions performed by the NCN, the applicants may lodge an appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council.
Where can additional information be found?
For more information on the call, please go to the website of the JPND network. The terms and regulations on awarding NCN funding in the call are set forth in the Annex to NCN Council Resolution No 32/2023.
Should you have any questions or queries, please contact us by phone or by e-mail:
- Alicja Dyląg, (between 9 a.m. and 12 noon)
- Jadwiga Spyrka (before calling, make an e-mail appointment)
Useful information
If you are intending to submit a proposal to JPND Call 2024, please read:
- all call documents, in particular:
- call text of JPND Call 2024 on the website of the JPND network;
- terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO.
National level: before an NCN proposal is submitted to the NCN:
- obtain data from the applicant required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and performance of the research project (project costs, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal); if a group of Polish entities applies for funding, draft a research project cooperation agreement;
- make sure that the information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Checking the proposal for completeness in OSF with the Sprawdź kompletność [Check completeness] button does not guarantee that all information entered is correct and the required annexes have been attached;
- make sure that respective tabs are completed in the correct language;
- disable the final version of the proposal to the NCN and
- download the confirmation of proposal submission which must be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the host institution.
Once the proposal has been completed and the required annexes attached, use the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button to submit the proposal to the NCN electronically via the OSF submission system.
Once the call for proposals has been closed:
- proposals will be evaluated;
- if a proposal is recommended for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into;
- the project will be performed pursuant to the funding agreement and Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO;
In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements, the applicant may appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council. The appeal must be lodged within 14 days of the effective delivery of the decision.
Call documents
The JPND network:
The call documents required from all applicants are available at the website of the JPND network.
The National Science Centre:
- Terms and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded or co-funded under international calls launched by the National Science Centre and carried out as multilateral collaboration UNISONO
- Budget table of the Polish research team
- NCN Review panels
- Regulations for awarding scholarships in NCN-funded research projects
- NCN proposal form template
- Research project cooperation agreement (mandatory if a group of entities applies)
- State aid in JPND 2024
- State aid rules
- Guidelines for applicants to complete NCN proposals in the OSF submission system
- NCN proposal submission procedure in OSF
- Guidelines for applicants to complete the data management plan form in the proposal
- Guidelines for applicants to complete the ethics issues form in the proposal
- NCN’s Open Access Policy, as amended.
- Instructions: Open Access Policy
- Code of the National Science Centre on research integrity and applying for research funding
- NCN’s position on collaboration with the Russian Federation within the framework of NCN-funded grants
Documents concerning evaluation of proposals:
- Service of decisions of the NCN Director
- Guidelines for appealing against the NCN Director’s decisions
Documents to read before starting an NCN project:
- Agreement template (Agreement template for winners of the previous Era-Net call launched by the NCN – draft version that may be amended when the agreement is signed with the NCN)
- Procedure of conducting audits on host institution premises
- Guidelines for entities auditing the implementation of research projects funded by the National Science Centre
- Evaluation of monographs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre
