Top researchers and quantum industry representatives from all over Europe, Israel and Turkey will get together next month. On 20-21 September, QuantERA, the largest European network that funds quantum technology research and innovation, is scheduled to hold a Strategic Conference in Kraków.

QuantERA promotes ambitious research on cutting-edge quantum technology engineering solutions, supports cooperation between researchers and research-funding agencies, monitors public quantum technology policies and strategies, and drafts responsible research guidelines. “Many research problems cannot be studied or investigated in just one country; to address them, you need the knowledge and experience of multiple teams. QuantERA enables an influx of new ideas within the field of quantum technology”, says prof. Konrad Banaszek from the University of Warsaw, programme’s Scientific Coordinator

The network currently consists of 39 research-funding agencies from Europe, Israel, and Turkey. As an ERA-NET Co-fund Programme, it is co-financed by the member agencies and the European Commission. Thus far, it has launched three calls (in 2017, 2019 and 2021) and funded a total of 77 projects carried out by 400 research teams.

FAMO laboratory, UMK, fot. A. Romański The conference planned for 20-21 September in Kraków will bring together QuantERA Project Leaders, the QuantERA Strategic Advisory Board, composed of top researchers and quantum industry representatives, member agency delegates, European Commission officials, and representatives of the European Union Quantum Flagship program. Conference guests will have an opportunity to discuss a variety of quantum technology development strategies developed in different countries, as well as commercially relevant applications of quantum research. They will be also able to present the outcomes of projects funded under the first QuantERA call and report on the progress of those selected in 2019. Principal investigators who won grants in 2021 will be given the floor to discuss their research plans and expected results.

From idea to product

In the future, the advancement of quantum technologies may lead to revolutionary change in fields as diverse as connectivity, cryptography, metrology, robotics, telecommunications, as well as complex system simulation. We can expect the advent of new sensors, detectors and more accurate clocks. Some of our medical diagnostic techniques will also change; procedures such as magnetic resonance, for example, will likely become faster, more accurate, cheaper and less invasive.

The scope of research funded by QuantERA is very broad and covers quantum communication, quantum simulation, quantum computation, quantum information sciences, quantum metrology sensing and imaging.

Researchers are free to choose their own research problem and each QuantERA call text includes a declaration of openness to new initiatives. “All the new ideas that emerge in Europe, for which Europe is so well known and appreciated around the world, have a space to flourish here. We provide a platform for communication between researchers, create a forum for dialogue between them and research-funding agencies, and offer funds to put their ideas into practice”, says Sylwia Kostka, QuantERA Coordinator at the National Science Centre. Sylwia Kostka emphasises that the network significantly strengthens European ties. “We bring together so many research groups that we are now able to create a truly European research space in the field of quantum technology”, she adds.

Quantum laboratory at University of Warsaw, fot. M. Parniak Initially, the network funded mainly basic research, but recently, in the last call, grants were also awarded to applied research projects. “We really promote basic research because the area is still so fresh, especially that the path from idea generation to implementation and to a finished product can be really short”, says Professor Banaszek. Quantum random number generators are one such example. First-generation devices are already available; in the future, they may find applications wherever secure communication is of the essence, including in critical infrastructure of key importance to national security.

Poland in QuantERA

The QuantERA Programme is coordinated by the National Science Centre (NCN). The NCN also manages the CHANSE consortium of organization that fund research in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences; these are the only networks of this type in Horizon 2020 to be coordinated by an institution from one of the EU-13 countries, i.e., the new members of the European Union.

Polish teams are involved in 29 of the 77 projects that won grants in the three QuantERA calls launched thus far. Basic research is funded by the National Science Centre and applied research by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR). To date, the NCN has funded 22 projects with a total budget of more than 4 million euro, while the NCBR financed 7 projects worth more than 2 million euro.

The winners of the last call include 15 projects involving Polish researchers, affiliated with the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology and the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Creotech Instruments S.A.

The first winning project selected from among proposals submitted in 2022 under the Weave-UNISONO call will be carried out by a group of researchers from the Warsaw University of Technology in collaboration with the Austrian partners. The NCN will allocate 416,000 PLN to fund their research. 

The winning project in mathematics (“Boolean Methods, Expectations, Resolvents, Free Probability”) will be carried out by Polish researchers lead by Kamil Szpojankowski in collaboration with Franz Lehner’s team from the Graz University of Technology. 

Weave-UNISONO

Weave-UNISONO is a call launched within the framework of a multilateral cooperation between research-funding institutions that make up the Science Europe association. It was launched to simplify submission and selection procedures for proposals in all disciplines of science, which bring together researchers from two or three different European countries.

The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for the merit-based revaluation of submitted proposals; the other partners agree to accept its results.

Under Weave, cooperating research teams submit their research proposals in parallel: to the lead agency and to the relevant domestic institutions participating in the programme. Their joint proposal must include a coherent research plan that clearly spells out the added value of international cooperation.

The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to carefully read the call announcement and submit their funding proposals.

Funding agreements that have been successfully delivered to NCN are currently waiting for the formal check. We would like to remind you that they will be signed by the NCN’s Director only after we receive a document confirming that the principal investigator/Polonez fellow has been employed by the host institution under the conditions defined in §2 (1-2) of the funding agreement (throughout the funding term under a full-time employment contract, solely for the purpose of performing research and training activities related to the POLONEZ BIS project’s implementation). 

The employment confirmation should be submitted in electronic form (signed with a qualified electronic signature in PAdES format by the representative of the host institution), to the address of National Science Centre’s Electronic Delivery Box: /ncn/SkrykrytkaESP, within 7 days of the day the fellow’s employment begins. Fellow’s employment for the purpose of POLONEZ BIS project must begin on the project start date.

We have just published the results of the 6th edition of the SONATINA call for proposals. 32 recent PhD holders from all over Poland will receive a total of over 22 million PLN for their research and fellowships in prestigious foreign research institutions.

SONATINA is targeted at researchers who earned their PhD within 3 years prior to the proposal submission year or by 30 June 2022. This edition attracted 157 proposals and NCN experts recommended 32 of them for funding, totalling over 22 million PLN. The success rate was 20.4%. The grants will go toward the costs of the winners’ full-time employment at the Polish research institutions, basic and applied research as well as foreign fellowships of 3 to 6 months.

Researchers applying under Physical Science and Engineering received the largest number of grants (13), totalling over 8 million PLN. A similar amount was awarded to researchers applying under Life Sciences. Under Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, 11 proposals were recommended for funding, totalling over 6 million PLN.

Ranking Lists

List of Funded Projects (PDF)

SONATINA 6 Call Winners

The winners of the 6th edition of the SONATINA call for proposals address research problems that are crucial for modern science, e.g. in agriculture or ecology.

Dr Katarzyna Tyśkiewicz from the New Chemical Syntheses Institute incorporated in the Łukasiewicz Research Network searches for the sources of natural substances with antifungal activity and develops methods for their separation and purification. She claims that the annual level of food production worldwide is reduced even by 50% due to severe atmospheric and environmental conditions but also the negative influence of pests and microorganisms. She believes that supercritical brown macroalgae extracts can be used to produce new plant protection products.

Another grant winner, Dr Katarzyna Tołkacz from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, analyses an influence of climate change on the distribution of external parasites (e.g. ticks and fleas) and blood parasites they carry, using three species of penguins: Adelie penguins, gentoo penguins, and chinstrap penguins – all of which inhabit the South Shetland Islands. Parasite expansion in West Antarctica may impact the health and population of the unique Antarctic fauna.

In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, grants went to projects addressing modern challenges as well as socio-economic and religious context of the past. Funding awarded under SONATINA 6 will allow Dr Karolina Frank from the University of Warsaw to examine the roles and status of women living in Epirus, Greek Illyrian colonies, and Thessaly between the fourth and first century BC. Her research may verify our previous theories of the life of women in Greek society during the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods and prove that they enjoyed a more remarkable position in their communities. 

Service of Decisions

Decisions concerning proposals recommended or not recommended for funding under SONATINA 6 will be served on 29 July 2022. Decisions of the NCN Director will be served on the applicants in an electronic format to their e-mail address provided in the proposal.

If the applicant is an entity described in Article 27 (1) – (7) and (9) of the Act on the National Science Centre, the decision of the NCN Director will only be served to their Electronic Delivery Box address (ESP ePUAP) address. If a natural person acting as the applicant indicates their ePUAP address in the proposal, the decision will be sent to that address. If a natural person acting as the applicant fails to indicate their ePUAP address, information with an electronic address from which the NCN Director’s decision may be downloaded will be sent to their e-mail address provided in the proposal.

Decisions of the NCN Director are also communicated to the principal investigator and, if the applicant is a natural person, also to the participating entity named in the proposal.

If the applicant has not received the decision, it is recommended to check whether the electronic address provided in the proposal (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail) is correct or to contact the Programme Officer named in the OSF submission system.

The sizable group of 111 researchers who have already benefited from NCN programmes targeted at scientists fleeing the war will now be joined by students and PhD candidates. We have the pleasure to announce a new scholarship programme for young researchers, funded from the EEA and Norway Grants.

A presentation of NCN initiatives for Ukrainian researchers, 6th July, photo: Jan Bielecki for NCN Several days after the Russian aggression, the National Science Centre drafted a special programme targeted at Ukrainians seeking refuge in Poland. We also created an option for NCN grant winners to hire them under ongoing NCN projects. These initiatives have already allowed 111 Ukrainian researchers to find employment at universities and research centres throughout Poland. Now, they will be joined by their younger colleagues.

Previous initiatives were targeted at PhD holders. The new scholarship programme, on the other hand, reaches out to students and graduates who have not yet earned their PhD degree. Its purpose is to enable them to continue their studies, work on their MA thesis or PhD dissertation, or pursue other forms of education in Poland.

The scholarships will be paid out over a period of 6 to 12 months. What’s new is that their holders will be able to spend up to half of that time in Ukraine and carry out their grants remotely.

Applications can be submitted by universities and other research centres. The host institution must name an advisor delegated to support the scholarship holder. The application should also explain how the institution is planning to integrate the winner with the Polish research community and outline the benefits that their new skills and experience will bring to Ukrainian science.

The maximum funding for one applicant is 5,000 zlotys (applicants can request a lower sum and cover some of the costs from their own resources).

The scholarship programme is funded from the EEA and Norway Grants under the Basic Research Programme operated by the NCN. Its terms and conditions have been approved by the programme’s partner, the Research Council of Norway.

Just like in previous initiatives targeted at Ukrainian researchers, the formal submission and assessment requirements have been reduced to the minimum. Please consult the official announcement for additional information and detailed terms and conditions.

A seventh research component has now qualified for NCN funding under NAWA’s “Polish Returns 2021”. Dr inż. Ewa Kowalska will arrive at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków to work on plasmon-enhanced photocatalysis as a green solar energy conversion and environmental remediation technology. The budget awarded to her research project equals 200 thousand zlotys.

See the ranking list

The NAWA announced “Polish Returns 2021” on 14 May 2021. The purpose of the program is to enable outstanding Polish researchers working abroad to return to Poland and conduct their research at Polish host institutions.

Proposals submitted to the NAWA can include a basic research component, which is funded by the National Science Centre. In this particular call, the NAWA peer review team selected 11 projects, 9 of which meet this criterion. Before they can start working on their projects, the scientists first need to submit a funding application to the NCN. The application will only undergo a formal eligibility check.

The NCN accepts applications on a rolling basis from the moment NAWA decides to grant funding under the “Polish Returns 2021” scheme until the last proposal with the research component is submitted.

The NCN Council has set aside a total budget of 3 million zlotys for “Polish Returns 2021”.

Dr Dawid Pinkowicz, Professor at the Jagiellonian University and winner of the 2019 NCN Award received an ERC Consolidator Grant.

ERC Consolidator Grants are addressed at researchers with 7-12 years of experience since completion of PhD. In March 2022, ERC grants were awarded to Prof. Marta Bucholc from the University of Warsaw and Dr Jarosław Wilczyński from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Prof. Pinkowicz from the Jagiellonian University has recently joint the group of ERC grant winners. Prof. Pinkowicz is a chemist and 2019 NCN Award winner in Physical Sciences and Engineering for designing innovative multifunctional molecular magnets and quantum nanomagnets. The European Research Council will fund his project entitled: “Bringing molecular photomagnets to light – achieving magnets through visible light excitation at room temperature (LUX-INVENTA)”. The aim of the project is to discover molecular photomagnets working at room temperature and to understand their operation mechanisms, thus paving the way for research on their application in everyday objects.

“The aim of my research is to understand new phenomena and new chemical processes, but I must admit that that each time I crystalize a new substance or study its properties or structure I hope for a small scientific revolution” he said in our video promoting the NCN Awards in 2019.

This month, the ERC has also awarded an Advanced Grant to Prof. Andrzej Indrzejczak from the University of Łódź.

This call tackles the challenge of open research data and software from the perspective of their possible reuse. The objective is to create the conditions for research in any domain (within, at the interface or outside ICT) based on open or shared data and software.

Applicants should address in their project at least one of the following target outcomes:

1. Create, enrich or prepare ‘reference data sets’;
2. ‘Editorialization’ of data: Reduce the distance between data producer and expected or even unexpected data re-user;
3. Processes and tools to describe, share, reference, and archive software source code, with the goal to enhance reproducibility of research results.

The call will require that projects are submitted by international consortia with minimum of three eligible and independent partners requesting funding to organisations in the call from at least three different participating countries.

Deadline for proposal submission is 14 December 2022.

A Partner Search Tool to find partners is provided by the CHIST-ERA network, by consulting the list of the so-called Expressions of Interest (EoI) and/or by submitting your own EoI.

The list of countries and funding organisations which have shown preliminary interest in participating in the ORD Call can be found at the CHIST-ERA website.

Please note that this pre-announcement is for information purposes only. It does not create any obligation for the CHIST-ERA consortium nor for any of the participating funding organisations. The official Call Announcement, to be published later, shall prevail.

The leaders of the Dioscuri Centres have taken part in the workshops on various topics, including project funding and training of young researchers. The meeting was held between 11 and 12 July in Munich at the headquarters of the Max Planck Society (MPG).

Dioscuri is a programme devised by the Max Plank Society and carried out jointly with the National Science Centre. It is aimed to create the Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence in Central and Eastern Europe. The programme is cofounded by the National Science Centre with the funds of the Polish Ministry of Education and Science and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The first five DCs have been created in Warsaw: two at the Nenecki Institute of Experimental Biology, one at the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, one at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and one at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

In May 2022, leaders of the three new DCs were announced. The new DCs will be established at the Jagiellonian University.

On 11 and 12 July, the old and new winners of the Dioscuri Programme took part in the workshops organised by the Max Planck Society to provide them with helpful tools for the establishment and management of the centres and to facilitate knowledge sharing with German researchers. The workshop covered various topics, such as applying for ERC, DFG and NCN funding, leadership, networking and training of young researchers. The participants met with, inter alia, MPG President Prof. Martin Stratmann and visited the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPI).

Fot. Denise Vernillo/MPG

Prof. Andrzej Indrzejczak from the University of Łódź and NCN grant winner has been awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council. He is the second AdG winner and fourteenth researcher working at a Polish research institute with an ERC grant awarded this year.

Prof. Andrzej Indrzejczak is a logician and author of numerous papers on proof theory and non-classic logics. He teaches logic, philosophy and fundamentals of computer science. He is the Head of the Department of Logic and Methodology of Science at the Faculty of Philosophy and History of the University of Łódź. The European Research Council will fund his research entitled “Coming to Terms: Proof Theory Extended to Definite Descriptions and other Terms”. His project will be carried out at the Centre for the Philosophy of Nature of the University of Łódź which conducts interdisciplinary research in the area of philosophy, natural science, physics and mathematics.

He is a winner of two NCN grants awarded under the OPUS call for proposals. His current project focuses on the investigation of some important proof systems for nonclassical logics.

In April 2022, an ERC Advanced Grant was awarded to Prof. Wojciech Knap from the Institute of High Pressure Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, leader of the project entitled “Towards On-Chip Plasmonic Amplifiers of THz Radiation”.

Advanced Grants are dedicated to well-established and outstanding researchers with significant research achievements. In March 2022, the ERC also awarded Consolidator Grants. The winners of the call addressed at researchers with 7-12 years of experience since completion of PhD included two researchers from Poland. At the beginning of the year, the ERC awarded Starting Grants addressed at researchers with 2-7 years of experience since completion of their PhD. It was a record-breaking edition of StG for Poland with 10 grants awarded to researchers from the Polish research institutions. They are all also NCN grant winners.

A list of Polish winners, including winners of the previous editions of ERC calls, is available on the website of the National Contact Point.

fot. M. Kaźmierczak/Uniwersytet Warszawski An interactive map of ERC-funded research projects is available on the website of the European Research Council.

This month, the European Research Council awarded the “Public Engagement with Research Award” addressed at ERC grant winners who perform research involving non-research communities. Dr Artur Obłuski, an archaeologist from the University of Warsaw is one of nine winners of the call. He is also a grant winner of two NCN calls. Dr Obłuski carries out his research in Old Dongola in today’s Sudan. In his work he considers the local point of view and traditional knowledge on cultural heritage.