8. edition of NCN Days will be held on 11 and 12 May in Białystok.

The NCN Days is a cyclical event, taking place each time in a different part of Poland. Its aim is to present the NCN’s offer to researchers working in academic and research institutions all over the country and to encourage them to participate in calls organised by the National Science Centre. This year’s event will be co-organised by research institutions from the Podlasie region – the University of Białystok, the Białystok University of Technology, the Medical University of Białystok and the Mammal Biology Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża. The event programme includes a meeting of the NCN Directorate and Council with the region’s research community and a discussion on the NCN grant offer.

Rynek Kościuszki w Białymstoku, fot. Uniwersytet w Białymstoku “I would like our activities and effectiveness in obtaining grants from the NCN to increase, therefore, I am glad that the NCN Days will be held in Białystok”, says Prof. Izabela Święcicka, Vice-Chancellor for Science and International Cooperation at the University of Białystok. The vice-chancellor points out that NCN grants “are a very important source of funding for Polish science”. “For many young researchers, this is an opportunity for the first serious research of their careers. The more experienced ones can, thanks to these grants, take on new challenges and build teams, including international ones”, she adds.

During the NCN Days there will be presentations of grant winners, information meetings about national and international NCN calls, open science and NCN policy in this area, and research data management. Some of the activities will be very practical. There will be five workshops for applicants and administrative staff of universities and research institutes. “During the training, we will explain how the NCN proposal evaluation process works, how to submit projects to achieve success and what to do to settle the grant”, says Dr Marcin Liana, Deputy Director of the National Science Centre.

A detailed programme of the NCN Days will be published in early April. Meetings will be held at the universities co-organising the event. Some of the meetings will be open to the public and for some pre-registration will be opened.

The NCN Days has been held since 2013. Previous editions were held in Katowice, Lublin, Olsztyn and Gdansk, among others, and the last one was held in 2019 in Łódź. The meeting in Białystok was originally scheduled to take place in 2020, but was cancelled due to the pandemic.

The National Science Centre is launching a special scheme to allow researchers from Ukraine to continue their research at the Polish research centres.

A special scheme has been launched by the NCN addressed at the Ukrainian researchers as well as other researchers, regardless of their nationality, who took or will take refuge in Poland after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The initiative is aimed at approximately fifty people. The National Science Centre will provide funds to cover their research work and remuneration at the Polish academic and research institutions for a period of one year.

The scheme is open to researchers who are at least PhD holders (in Ukraine: Candidate of Science) and worked at the Ukrainian universities and/or other research institutions before the war broke out. The scheme will cover both basic and applied research. 

The proposal submission and evaluation procedure is simplified and very fast. Proposals may be submitted by universities and other research institutions. Proposals must contain an application drafted by the institution and CV of the candidate. They will be evaluated by the scientific coordinators of the NCN and the final decision will be taken by the NCN Director. The formalities related to the settlement of the funds will also be simplified. 

The participating research institutions are required to provide mentors-experts in the same or related discipline to the visiting researchers.

The call for proposals starts on 28 March. Proposals must be provided via ePUAP.

Call closed on 26 April 2022

The total budget of the scheme is 6 mln PLN. The initiative is carried out at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Національний науковий центр розпочинає прийом заявок за спеціальною програмою для дослідників з України. Науковці, що тікають від війни, зможуть продовжити роботу в польських центрах.

Спеціальна програма Національного наукового центру орієнтована на українців та всіх інших науковців незалежно від громадянства, які знайшли або знайдуть притулок у Польщі після збройного нападу Росії на Україну. Скористатися ініціативою зможуть близько півсотні науковців. Національний науковий центр профінансує їхнє річне перебування у польських академічних та наукових закладах – надасть кошти на оплату праці та проведення досліджень.

Програма відкрита для людей, які мають принаймні ступінь кандидата наук і які до початку війни працювали в українських вишах та інших наукових центрах. Програма охоплює фундаментальні та прикладні дослідження.

Процедура подання та оцінки заявок на конкурс максимально проста та швидка. Право подавати заявки мають вищі навчальні та інші наукові заклади. Заявки мають містити звернення, підготовлене закладом, та резюме кандидата. Їх оцінюватимуть координатори дисциплін ННЦ, а остаточне рішення прийматиме директор Центру. Крім того, формальності, пов’язані зі звітуванням щодо перерахованих коштів, будуть зведені до мінімуму.

Наукові заклади, що беруть участь у програмі, зобов'язані забезпечити прийнятим дослідникам опікунів, які є спеціалістами у тій самій або суміжній науковій дисципліні.

Бюджет спеціальної програми складає 6 млн злотих.

Кінцевий термін подання заявки: 28 березня – 26 квітня 2022 року (до кінця дня)

Спеціальна програма ННЦ реалізується на замовлення Міністерства освіти і науки Польщі.

Decisions for the POLONEZ BIS 1 proposals that have not been qualified for the second stage of evaluation were sent out on 28 March 2022.

Please note that decisions of the Director of the National Science Centre are served in the form of an electronic document sent to the e-mail address provided by the applicant in the proposal or their Electronic Correspondence Register (ESP ePUAP) address if it was specified.

Information was sent from the address: ncn.wnioski@ncn.gov.pl. and contains a link to download the decision of the Director of the National Science Centre.

The correspondence was generated automatically – please do not reply to the message you received. If you have any problems with access to the document, please contact the POLONEZ BIS Team polonez@ncn.gov.pl.

The status of your proposal is also displayed in the OSF system.

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, collaboration with the Russian research institutes under NCN-funded research projects must be suspended until further notice.

At present, proposals involving collaboration with a Russian research institute must not be submitted to the NCN.

Evaluated proposals involving collaboration with a Russian research institute will be reviewed. If a positive funding decision is issued and the purpose of the project requires international collaboration, the principal investigator must replace the Russian research institute with an institute from another country.

Any collaboration with the Russian research institutes under ongoing projects must be suspended. Conferences, workshops, research visits in the Russian research institutes as well as any visits by researches from Russia based on cooperation between Polish and Russian research institutions must be cancelled.

Should you have any questions or queries, please contact your mentor or us at informacja@ncn.gov.pl

Please note that under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to FWO and SNSF as the lead agency by 1 April 2022, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to the FWO or the SNSF, by 8 April 2022 at the latest.

PLEASE NOTE: Once the work on the NCN proposal has started in the OSF submission system, the Polish research team has 45 calendar days to complete the proposal and submit it to the NCN. After that, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case a Polish research team that has not sent its proposal to the NCN must prepare a new proposal and complete it in the OSF submission system.

Two webinars will be held under POLONEZ BIS 2 launched on 15 March 2022 during which the terms of the call and participation procedures will be explained. 

There will be a chance to find out what institutions are eligible to host researchers under the scheme, who the eligible applicants are and whether the NCN may assist in finding institutions to perform the projects. 

POLONEZ BIS 2 is co-funded by the European Commission and the NCN under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND for foreign researchers intending to develop their research career at the Polish research institutions. 

Funding may be requested by any researcher, regardless of their nationality or research subject or discipline.

The webinar for institutions intending to host researchers under POLONEZ BIS will be held on 29 March 2022, at 10 p.m. (CEST) in Polish on the Clickmeeting platform.

Institutions may register here.

The webinar for applicants intending to participate in POLONEZ BIS 2 will be held on 5 April 2022, at 2 p.m. (CEST) in English on the Clickmeeting platform.

Applicants may register here.

In order to improve the Q&A session, please submit your questions on the form in advance.

Two NCN call winners get prestigious grants from the European Research Council.

The European Research Council awards the Consolidator Grants to researchers with 7-12 years of experience since their PhD defence. In 2021, two ERC grants went to researchers working at Polish research centres.

Thanks to ERC funding, Prof. UW Dr hab. Marta Bucholc from the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Warsaw, winner of several NCN grants under SONATA, OPUS and SONATA BIS, will be able to study the impact of international law on abortion law debates in selected countries. Her project is entitled  “Using Human Rights to Change Abortion Law: Involvement Patterns and Argumentative Architectures in the Global Figuration of Human Rights”.

Dr hab. Jarosław Wilczyński from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Science will examine sites with large accumulations of mammoth fossils in Central Europe. The ERC will fund his project entitled “Exploring Mammoth Bone Accumulations in Central Europe”. The scientist has previously won three NCN grants: SONATA, SONATA BIS and OPUS.

Overall, in this round, the ERC awarded a total of 630 million euro to 313 projects, which will be carried out in 24 different countries. Additional information can be found on the official website of the agency.

NCN grant winners may hire Ukrainian researchers for their projects.

Several days after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, on the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science, the National Science Centre drew up the outlines of a special programme targeted at Ukrainian researchers and other scientists, no matter their citizenship, who have sought or will seek refuge in Poland. We will be able to launch the programme and enable them to continue their research at Polish institutions as soon as we get an official commission from the Ministry of Education and Science. While we wait for the funding, however, we decided to open up an additional channel of support for researchers who are fleeing the war. The principal investigators of NCN-funded projects may use their budgets to employ Ukrainian researchers in their teams. Funds for that purpose may come from any item included in the cost estimate attached to the grant agreement signed with the NCN.

“Ever since the first days of these dramatic developments, it was clear to us that the Polish research community would not leave their Ukrainian colleagues alone”, says professor Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director.

Teams may employ researchers who hold at least a PhD degree (known as the Candidate of Sciences under the Ukrainian system) and who worked at Ukrainian universities and other research centres before the war. Their activities and research interests must match the subject of the project.

Research centres will be obliged to assign each researcher a supervisor from the same or another related discipline and make an effort to help them integrate with the research community.

“I have no doubt that this initiative will stand as a testament to the solidarity of the Polish research community with the Ukrainian nation in this dramatic time, also allowing all NCN-funded research teams to draw on the expertise, energy and potential of our friends, who have arrived in Poland in recent weeks”, the director added.

The option of hiring Ukrainian researchers is available to winners of the MAESTRO, OPUS, SONATA BIS, SONATA, HARMONIA and SYMFONIA calls, as well as international programmes, such as OPUS LAP, SHENG, BEETHOVEN, DAINA, MOZART, ALPHORN DIOSCURI and UNISONO. The decision to hire such researchers should not interfere with the completion of scheduled project tasks.

The maximum budget for Ukrainian team members under a single grant must not exceed PLN 100,000. Within this limit, grantees may hire one person for a year or more people over a shorter term or with a lower salary.

Detailed information on how to hire Ukrainian researchers will be sent directly to specific research centres. The NCN will not require any annexes to grant agreements.

POLONEZ BIS, OPUS and PRELUDIUM are three calls that start on 15 March. They will give foreign researchers a chance to carry out their projects in Poland, but will also be open to researchers of all levels from Polish research centres.

POLONEZ BIS – for foreign researchers

POLONEZ BIS, coordinated by the Polish National Science Centre under Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND, is a postdoctoral Fellowship Programme intended for excellent, experienced researchers interested in developing their professional skills within the best research institutions in Poland.

The POLONEZ BIS programme is open to candidates of any research background, discipline or nationality. The programme plans to recruit 120 scientists with a PhD degree or equivalent research experience, and who have lived or worked outside Poland for at least 2 years within the last three years prior to the call announcement. Selected fellows will be offered 2-year full-time employment contracts to work on projects combining basic research with a cross-sectoral secondment phase.

Applicants are independent in choosing the research topic and discipline as well as the host institution in an academic or non-academic sector. The programme guarantees successful fellows attractive employment conditions – a monthly allowance of € 4,465 gross and an additional research grant up to € 100,000 for the implementation of a 2-year project.

Researchers who have had to escape their home country to save their lives or continue their research career are especially encouraged to apply.

The total budget of POLONEZ BIS 2 is PLN 55,000,000.

Full text of the call announcement

OPUS – for young and experienced researchers

OPUS 23 is targeted at researchers at any level and applicants are not required to hold a PhD degree.

To qualify as a principal investigator under an OPUS project, however, applicants need to demonstrate at least one published research paper (or one that has already been accepted for publication) or one achievement in art or art and research if they are working in an artistic or creative field. The project may employ senior researchers, PhD candidates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

OPUS projects may be carried out with or without the cooperation of foreign partners.

The grant may go toward purchasing or generating research equipment, devices and software or carrying out research with the use of large international equipment. Projects may take 12, 24, 36, or 48 months. There is no upper budget limit for any single project and the total budget of OPUS 23 is set at PLN 400,000,000.

Detailed terms and conditions (to be published in English soon)

PRELUDIUM – for beginning researchers

PRELUDIUM 21 is targeted at researchers who do not hold a PhD degree. Its objective is to support individuals at the outset of an academic career, enabling them to purchase or create specialised equipment, devices and software worth up to 30% of the total budget of the project.

The research team under a PRELUDIUM project may be made up of max. three researchers, including the principal investigator and the research advisor.

Projects may take 12, 24, or 36 months and are eligible to receive grants of, respectively, PLN 70,000, PLN 140,000 or PLN 210,000; the total budget of PRELUDIUM 21 is set at PLN 30,000,000.

Detailed terms and conditions (to be published in English soon)

Application forms will be published in the OSF system at a later date. Proposals may be submitted until 4 pm on 15 June (CEST).

The European Research Council published its list of winners on 10 January. Eight of the Starting Grants went to researchers employed at Polish centres. We have already written about these scientists in Good StG ERC round.

In February, another grant was awarded to a researcher from the waiting list, Professor Piotr Grabacz from the University of Warsaw. The winner is a chemist and studies how the atomic nuclei of chiral molecules interact with magnetic and electric fields. In the past, he has also won two NCN grants   – SONATA and OPUS. The ERC decided to fund his project entitled “Chirality-sensitive Nuclear Magnetoelectric Resonance” (NMER).

In March, yet another prestigious grant went to Dr hab. Michał Bogdziewicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, who studies forest ecology and the biology of mast years. Bogdziewicz has authored several dozen publications devoted to the complex phenomena associated with mast years. Several days ago, he received one of the most important awards in plant science, the Tansley Medal 2021, which is awarded to outstanding young researchers who are still at the outset of their research career. The European Research Council will fund his project entitled “Climate change impacts on trees reproduction”.

Bogdziewicz has carried out (or is currently carrying out) six NCN-funded projects, including a grant awarded under an UWERTURA call, within the framework of which the ERC proposal was prepared. As he says, the NCN has played a “key role” in his research development. “NCN grants have enabled me to build up a research record you need to have to apply for an ERC grant. NCN-funded projects have also allowed me to try out and improve many experiments and other research tools. The NAWA also played an important role. The analytical part of my ERC grant crucially enlists the skills I have gained and developed under the Bekker programme”, he adds.