In cooperation with the CHIST-ERA European Coordinated Research on Long-term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences & Technologies, the National Science Centre opens a call for international research proposals in the following fields:

1. Security and Privacy in Decentralised and Distributed Systems (SPiDDS)
2. Machine Learning-based Communication Systems, towards Wireless AI (WAI)

Funding is available to international research consortia composed of at least three research teams from three different countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

ANNOUNCEMENT

CHIST-ERA Call 2022 grants can go toward funding research team salaries, wages and scholarships for students and PhD candidates, research equipment and any other necessary project expenses.

The National Science Centre will only accept basic research proposals. The total budget put aside for Polish research teams under the call equals 500,000 euro.

How to apply?

• International level: in cooperation with their foreign partners, Polish research teams should write a joint proposal in English, which must then be submitted via the CHIST-ERA (ESS) electronic submission system.

• Domestic level: a domestic proposal focused on the part of the project to be carried out by the Polish team should be submitted to the NCN electronically, via the OSF system, within 7 days from the deadline for international proposals.

There is only one evaluation stage under the CHIST-ERA call; only full joint proposals will be accepted on the international level.

Call schedule:

• Deadline for the submission of joint proposals in the ESS system: 2 February 2023, 17:00 CET
• Deadline for the submission of domestic proposals in the OSF system: 9 February 2023
• Call results: July 2023
• Project start dates: October 2023

“Research under pressure – How do research institutions and funding organisations react to crisis?”. This is a subject of the third Polish-German Scientific Meeting held in Berlin on 27 and 28 October with the participation of 17 research institutions and research funding agencies as well as embassies from Poland and Germany.

The current global political crises and their impact on science and research in Germany and Poland, as well as possible coping strategies, were discussed at the third Polish-German Science Meeting held in Berlin that brought together 17 research institutions and funding organisations from both countries. The meeting was organised by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the National Science Centre (NCN) and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP). The institutions emphasised the importance of bilateral cooperation, especially in view of climate crisis, coronavirus pandemic and war in the Ukraine:

“Our close Polish and German relations rely on a common approach to science and belief that support for science and research is crucial for the future and well-being of our countries. It is also the reason why we have organised the Polish-German Scientific Meeting in which we participate as scientists and citizens of the united Europe. Therefore, we have strongly condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Together with our Polish partner organisations we will continue supporting persecuted Ukrainian and Russian researchers and in close cooperation we will support the reconstruction of the Ukrainian science system” says Katja Becker, President of the DFG.

“No global problem can be solved alone, therefore it is crucial that researchers and decision-makers from various countries cooperate. Cooperation between Polish and German research institutions is also a great chance for Polish science that opens many doors. For me personally, as someone who has worked as a researcher in Germany for some time (including at two Max Planck institutes) and has managed a Polish grant agency, scientific cooperation is also an investment in the future, bringing the two countries closer together.” says Zbigniew Błocki, Director of the National Science Centre. 

“For the past decades, German and Polish academics have formed a strong and successful collaboration. We believe that equal potential lies in the cooperation of organisations supporting science. In view of the current crises, we have to make every endeavour to trust each other. Furthermore, our continuous bilateral activities have a positive impact on the academic environment in the neighbouring countries, with Ukraine needing our helping hand right now”, says Maciej Żylicz, President of the Foundation for Polish Science.

The DFG has organised a series of Polish-German Science Meetings in Berlin for the third time. The previous meetings took place in Munich in 2017 and in Krakow in 2019. Over 50 representatives from almost all Polish and German science and research organisations and Embassies of both countries met in the capital of Germany. The meeting began with a number of scientific lectures and a panel discussion. On the second day, the discussions focused on the experiences, perspectives of individual institutions and organisations as well as ways in which they dealt with the current crisis.

Attendees of the 3rd Polish-German Science Meeting, DFG/Bildschön, Peter Lorenz Particular focus was paid to the activities undertaken by individual Polish and German institutions to support Ukraine. Moreover, it was even more obvious which special options for handling crises lie before cross-border cooperation. A series of Polish-German Science Meetings will be continued due to the growing importance of German-Polish relations.

“Nature” has published an article co-authored by Dr Mateusz Tałanda from the University of Warsaw, which sheds new light on the evolution of lizards in the era of the dinosaurs.

Artystyczna wizja wyglądu Bellairsia gracilis. Source: E. Panciroli/National Museum of Scotland In 2016, scientists from the University of Oxford and the National Museum of Scotland discovered a six-metre skeleton on the Isle of Skye. Known as Bellairsia gracilis, the fossil is 166 million years old and dates back to the Middle Jurassic Period. It is the most complete lizard skeleton from that era.

A major role in its investigation was played by Dr Mateusz Tałanda from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw. The Bellairsia specimen was shown to possess both ancestral traits and derived traits, which originated through evolution over time. The paper, which presents new data on the early evolution of lizards in the era of the dinosaurs, was published in “Nature” on 26 October 2022.

The project brought together scientists from the University of Oxford, University College London, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Natural History Museum in London, Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Scotland.

It was co-funded from the resources of the Mobility Plus programme of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

This is not the first article that Dr Tałanda has published in “Nature”. In 2018, the journal featured a paper on the skeleton of Megachirella wachtleri, the oldest known squamate specimen, currently kept at a museum in the Italian Alps. Tałanda was one of its co-authors, and the research was completed within the framework of an NCN PRELUDIUM. grant.

We invite researchers and host institutions interested in participation in the last POLONEZ BIS call 3 to watch the dedicated webinars. We also encourage you to take a look at the presentations and answers to questions from the Q&A sessions: 

• webinar and presentation/Q&A for host institutions (in Polish)
• webinar and presentation/Q&A for applicants (in English)

We would like to remind you that the deadline to submit proposals in the POLONEZ BIS 3 call is 15 December 2022.

Following the decision of one of the applicants not to carry out the project funded under POLONEZ BIS 1 call, the National Science Centre launched the procedure to fund proposals placed on the waiting lists. The funding decision was issued to one project representing the domain of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

Additional ranking list

The waiting lists under the POLONEZ BIS 1 Call were approved by the Expert Teams and include proposals which were awarded at least 70 points, but fell outside the limit funds allocated by the Council for research projects within specific groups of disciplines. The Centre refused to grant funds to implement the proposals placed on the waiting lists, with a reservation that a project placed on the waiting list may receive funding if another applicant resigns.

Between 24 and 26 October, the EOSC Festival – the National Tripartite Event Poland was held at the National Science Centre and online under the theme Open Science for Better Science. The purpose of the festival was to, inter alia, present the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and strengthen collaboration and dialogue between EOSC’s key stakeholders.

On the first day held under the theme “EOSC for Open Science”, panellists discussed the idea of the EOSC initiative, goals and challenges in the context of Open Science development in Poland and best practices for its implementation.

Over the next few days, guests discussed the practical aspects of Open Science implementation: funding, infrastructure, skills, competences, tools and services.

Photo gallery

Photos: Michał Łepecki

We are pleased to announce that three projects involving Polish researchers have been awarded funding in the first call of the  European Biodiversity Partnership entitled BiodivProtect: Supporting the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems across land and sea. The call announced in October 2021 covered the following subjects:

• Knowledge for identifying priority conservation areas, establishing effective and resilient ecological networks, enhancing species-based protection, and preserving genetic diversity;
• Multiple benefits and costs of biodiversity and ecosystem protection: synergies and trade-offs;
• Effective management and equitable governance to deliver bold conservation outcome.

Within the call applicants have submitted 209 proposals. Over EUR 40 million have been granted to 36 research projects.

Polish projects awarded within the BiodivProtect call:

• G4B: Grasslands for biodiversity: supporting the protection of the biodiversity-rich grasslands and related management practices in the Alps and Carpathians. Polish Principal Investigator: dr Dominik Kaim, Jagiellonian University in Cracow. The project will involve research teams from Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine.
• PrioritIce: Vanishing habitats: conservation priorities for glacier-related biodiversity threatened by climate change. Polish Principal Investigator: dr Krzysztof Piotr Zawierucha, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The project will involve research teams from France, Italy and Switzerland.
• Detect2Protect: New approaches in determining the impacts of chemical pollution to protect the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea. Polish Principal Investigator: prof. dr hab. Ksenia Eugenia Pazdro, Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The project will involve research teams from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy and Sweden.

The implementation of research projects funded in the BiodivProtect call will start in December 2022. More information and the full list of the projects recommended for funding are available on the Biodiversa+ web page.

The conference promoting the Basic Research program financed under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants was held in Gdańsk on Thursday, October 6, at the Olivia Business Center. This year's event was devoted to polar and climate research. During the conference, project teams and individual scientists from Polish academic institutions implementing projects under calls GRIEG, POLS and IDEALAB had possibility to present their projects and research results obtained so far. Assumptions of a pre-defined project CRIOS, financed from the EEA Grants, were presented. The project aims to modernize and expand an automated monitoring network focused on the cryosphere of Spitsbergen. All measurement stations will operate following the standardized measurement protocols developed as part of joint workshops and training sessions of the Polish and Norwegian project partners. Data transfer to the open repositories will occur in real-time.

The meeting allowed for the exchange of experiences between participants in the field of polar and climate research. The speakers also had the opportunity to present the results of their work obtained so far. The National Science Center was represented by the Deputy Director of the National Science Center, the discipline coordinator (The Physical Sciences and Engineering Unit) and the EEA and Norway Grants team. Among the invited guests there were representatives a.o. the Research Council of Norway, the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Research and Development.People concerned had the opportunity to watch the conference streaming. The recording is available on our YouTube channel.

The Research Programme aims to improve the results of Polish research, both basic research and research designed to fuel the development of a knowledge-based economy and society. Under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants, the Basic Research Programme is operated by the National Science Centre. On the Norwegian side, the Programme is partnered by the Research Council of Norway.

Photo gallery

Karolina Safarzyńska, Michał Bogdziewicz and Piotr Wcisło win NCN Award 2022. The awards ceremony for the most prestigious award given to early-stage researchers working in Poland was held on 12 October at the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art in Sukiennice. This year, the award was handed out for the tenth time in its history.

As many as 59 candidates vied for the award this year (there were 71 nominations in total, but some candidates were nominated by more than one person). The award is given out in three discipline panels. Dr hab. Karolina Safarzyńska, economist from the University of Warsaw, walked away with the award in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. In Life Sciences, the award went to a forest ecologist, dr hab. Michał Bogdziewicz, professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and member of the Polish Young Academy, PAS. A physicist, dr hab. Piotr Wcisło, professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, carried off the award in Physical Sciences and Engineering.

Important and urgent research

Karolina Safarzyńska, fot. archiwum prywatne Dr hab. Karolina Safarzyńska, professor at the University of Warsaw, is an interdisciplinary researcher working in complexity economics, behavioural economics, and experimental economics, as well as climate change. She is affiliated with the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Warsaw.

She won the NCN Award for her innovative theoretical models allowing to study the impact of limited rationality, preference diversity, and social interactions on climate policies.

Traditional macroeconomic models rest on a simplistic premise that people are always rational and do not interact with one another, and that “all” decisions in an economic system are optimized. “My models are a little bit more complicated than that. In complex systems such as the economy, many factors cross-influence one another. You cannot have simple policies to solve urgent problems”, says Safarzyńska.

The scientist creates theoretical models to study how a combination of policies, such as behavioural interventions and macroeconomic policies, can be effectively used to combat climate change. “If we assume that the economy is practically never in equilibrium, while people enter into a variety of social interactions and their actions are not always rational, we can influence their behaviour not only with financial incentives, but also by shaping their social networks and appealing to their emotions”, she adds.

Her research is urgent and important today. In many papers published in international journals, Safarzyńska showed, for instance, that the network effect may increase the probability of financial crises as a result of climate policies, while the diversity of consumer preferences crucially affects carbon tax levels (social interactions raise the tax, because by imitating others, we consume more, thus increasing the emissions that need to be counterbalanced).

Professor Safarzyńska earned her PhD degree at the Free University in Amsterdam and then completed research visits at institutions such as WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Oxford INET, Santa Fe Institute, as well as internships at the UN, WTO, and the World Bank. Before starting off on a research career, she worked in several NGOs and international organizations.

She has previously won a scholarship of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young scientists. She is also a winner of three NCN grants. The purpose of her current project is to develop new macro-evolutionary models for the analysis of the circular economy.

The Winner of NCN Award 2022 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – movie

A generation that fills the gap

Michał Bogdziewicz, fot. Adrian Wykrota “We know a lot about how different trees grow and how they die, but very little about how they are born. This kind of data is very difficult to collect”, says Professor Michał Bogdziewicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He studies forest ecology, focusing on the biology of mast years, i.e. the years in which trees produce a particularly large quantity of seeds, and the impact of climate change on their reproduction.

If you want to see how a tree grows under different conditions and how it’s affected by climate change, you can drill its core and measure how it was growing one or two hundred years ago. But to see how a tree produces seeds, you need to visit the same place year after year for a few decades. For logistical reasons, the problem of tree reproduction was not taken up in forest ecology for a long time. “It was taken for a fact that the seeds were just out there”, says Bogdziewicz. They only began to be monitored around thirty or forty years ago.

Professor Bogdziewicz belongs to the first generation of scientists trying to fill that gap in forest ecology. He has authored several dozen papers devoted to the complex processes involved in mast years and the impact of climate change on tree reproduction. He has described, for instance, the way in which global warming changes the patterns of seed production in the common beech, showing that more and more seeds are now destroyed by insects or fail to be pollinated at all, which may endanger the natural processes of forest regeneration. The common beech is one of the most important forest-forming species, of key importance to ecosystems and the forest economy.

Despite his relatively short career (he earned his PhD degree in 2017 and his habilitation in 2020), Bogdziewicz is already a scientist of international renown and has published several dozen articles in top research journals (e.g. PNAS, Nature Plants, Current Biology, Ecology Letters).

He is a winner of a Starting Grant of the European Research Council and five NCN grants, and scholarships from the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP). He has completed a number of foreign research fellowships. He is also a winner of the Poznań Research Award. In the spring of 2022, he became the first Polish researcher to receive the Tansley Medal for outstanding researchers in the early stages of their career, one of the world’s most prestigious awards warded to biologists who study plants. He was nominated for the NCN Award by five different scientists.

The Winner of NCN Award 2022 in Life Sciences – movie

The right path

Piotr Wcisło, fot. Daniel Lisak When he found out he won, Professor Piotr Wcisło did “what any physicist would do” – he looked at the statistics. “In Poland, we have a really strong community of young scientists. Formally, it is twice as easy to win an ERC grant as an NCN Award. And what’s more, you can’t even apply for the latter yourself”, he says. And then he adds that awards are important in any research career. “Our work often involves wading through the morass of intellectual failure, lost grants, and organizational pitfalls, but awards like this remind us that we have chosen the right path”.

He won the NCN Award for developing a new method of searching for dark matter, using optical atomic clocks and relying on high-precision laser spectroscopy to test quantum theory and look for a new physics beyond the standard model. “The standard school curriculum does not even cover the basics of quantum physics, so what I do may seem rather abstract to most audiences”, the winner says.

Wcisło developed a new experimental method of searching for dark matter, which uses high-precision laser spectroscopy based on optical atomic clock technology. He also encouraged other centres that have such clocks to create a global network of these detectors. In cooperation with partners from the USA, France and Japan, the global observatory has already conducted its first observations.

As stated in his nomination, Professor Piotr Wcisło “has boldly stepped beyond the traditional approaches to testing the standard model and searching for a new physics”. “I use cutting-edge laser systems and other instruments, e.g. vacuum and cryogenic technologies, to test quantum theory. By relying on the capabilities of modern lasers, we can make high-precision observations of molecular and atomic structure”, he explains. His lab has been creating a brand new laser system, in which current spectroscopy techniques will are used at deep cryogenic temperatures, which may dramatically improve the accuracy of measurements of the structure of a hydrogen molecule.

Wcisło has completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the American Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics; he has also been a Fulbright fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. He has won multiple awards and prizes, such as e.g. the Prime Minister’s Award for his PhD dissertation, the award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for research achievements, the scholarship of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young researchers, and an award for outstanding research of the Polish Academy of Science. He has served as a principal investigator under five NCN grants, MNiSW and NAWA projects. He has also held a FNP scholarship.

The Winner of NCN Award 2022 in Physical Sciences and Engineering – movie

22 students and entry-level researchers will now continue their studies and research projects in Poland. We have selected the winners of a programme targeted at students and PhD students looking for refuge in Poland, which is funded from the EEA and Norway Grants.

The scholarships will go to fifteen female and seven male entry-level researchers. Before the war, most studied or did their research in Kyiv and Kharkiv. They will now continue their studies, write their MA theses and work on their PhD dissertations in cities such as Warsaw, Poznań, Lublin, Rzeszów, Szczecin and Olsztyn.

Przemysław Makarowicz and Olga Zaitseva, private photo The largest group among the recent winners is interested in the past: history, archaeology, ethnology and cultural anthropology (HS3 panel). Olga Zaitseva is an archaeologist from the Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv University. Before the war, she was working on a PhD dissertation about the evolution of pottery in the Cucuteni-Trypillia cultural complex at the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. She previously took part in an excavation carried out within the framework of an NCN project entitled “Continuity and change. Barrow culture communities in the Upper Dniester River Basin in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE in the light of multidisciplinary research”, led by Professor Przemysław Makarowicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. “Last year, we carried out non-invasive research and excavations at a barrow burial site in Volitsa, in the Ternopil oblast”, Makarowicz explains. When the war broke out, his team drove to the Ukrainian-Romanian border to collect Olga Zaitseva and her children. Thanks to the NCN scholarship, Zaitseva will now be able to continue working on her PhD and study cutting-edge non-invasive investigation techniques, which she will later introduce at her home institution. The Faculty of Archaeology of the Adam Mickiewicz University is equipped with advanced non-invasive research devices, such as magnetometers, a georadar, drones, a total station and a lab with a set of microscopes. Training in the use of this equipment is provided by Professor Makarowicz’s team. “Non-invasive methods are still rarely used in Ukrainian archaeology, so I hope to draw on what I learn here to promote their use in archaeological research in my country”, says Zaitseva. She stays in touch with her home university. “We hold regular online meetings to discuss ideas and create future research and teaching strategies for our faculty”, she adds.

Iryna Miedviedieva, private photo Before the war, Iryna Miedviedieva worked at the Institute of Carpathian Ecology in Lviv, writing a PhD dissertation about the parasites that live on spruce trees. At the same time, she was involved in a variety of environmental projects and educational campaigns in the field of bird conservation. She is a birdwatcher focused on wetland ecosystems, as well as a professional nature photographer. “Her activities take on a special importance in an era that has witnessed a mass extinction of species due to environmental changes fuelled by growing human population pressure”, says Professor Ewa Węgrzyn from the University of Rzeszów. In June, Miedviedieva completed an unpaid internship with a team of ornithologists led by Węgrzyn, during which she took part in lab and field work. “Thanks to the team’s experience, I can learn about different research methods used to study bird song and plumage colouring. I will carry these skills over to my future research on Ukrainian avian fauna”, says the winner of the NCN scholarship.

The young researcher also made a lot of connections with Ukrainian zoologists, which allowed the team at the University of Rzeszów to collect updated information. “We are working with Iryna on a joint research paper devoted to the impact of the Russian aggression on the precious Ukrainian fauna, which includes many rare and protected animal species”, explains Professor Węgrzyn. In winter, Miedviedieva will join the Polish team in another bird research project in the field. “We hope this will lead to more joint publications”, adds the research project advisor.

Besides all this, Miedviedieva continues working on her PhD dissertation about the parasites of the spruce tree. “I had collected my data in Ukraine before the war broke out and before I moved to Poland”, she says. In her free time, she is also working on an atlas of birds living in the area around Rzeszów.

Olga Dushna, private photo Olga Dushna will divide her time between the University of Warsaw and her home institution, the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. In Warsaw, she will do research under the mentorship of Professor Ewa Bulska, Director of the Biological and Chemical Research Centre. The two universities, Polish and Ukrainian, have already worked together for a long time. In July, invited by Professor Bulska, Dushna attended a summer school in analytical chemistry, metrology and accreditation in Chęciny. She will now take part in a pilot study entitled The diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 using the chemical analysis of dried blood spots by means of the LA-ICM-MS technique. “As a chemical scientist, I want to learn new sampling methods, such as dried spot sampling and LA-ICP-MS analysis. As a researcher, I wish to contribute to science, especially medicine, and in particular to the advancement of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics”, says Dushna.

Scientists suspect that the body’s immune response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection may alter the metabolism of certain biologically essential elements, such as iron, selenium, zinc, and copper. “We have collected a large set of dried blood spots from antibody screening tests and we want to see how strongly the concentration of these elements in the blood correlates with SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels. To do so, we will use the laser ablation micro-sampling technique”, explains Professor Bulska. Researchers will then turn to advanced statistical tools to determine any correlations between the blood levels of selected elements and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, i.e. the body’s immune response to the coronavirus. “If we find any such correlations, we might be able to determine a patient’s immune response based on the chemical elements in their blood”, she adds.

The scholarships for Ukrainian students and entry-level researchers are funded from the EEA and Norway Grants under the Bilateral Cooperation Fund. Their total budget is 1.2 million zlotys. The terms and conditions of the programme have been approved by the donors: the programme’s partner, the Research Council of Norway and the Joint Committee for Bilateral Fund (JCBF).

New scholarship winners hail from 14 different universities and research centres. They will be hosted by 16 Polish institutions.

Full list of institutions

Winners will receive their scholarships for 6 to 12 months. The maximum level of monthly funding candidates could apply for was 5,000 PLN per one student or researcher.

This is not the first NCN initiative targeted at the Ukrainian academic and research community. As many as 111 experienced researchers have already benefited from our previous programmes.