The National Science Centre has announced the results of the second edition of the DAINA funding opportunity for research projects carried out by Polish-Lithuanian research teams. Researchers will be awarded almost 11.7 million PLN for their basic research projects.

133 proposals amounting to a total of over 113 million PLN were submitted in response to the DAINA 2 call. The largest number of these – 56 proposals – were submitted in the area of Physical Sciences and Engineering, with 41 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and 36 in Life Sciences. 11 research projects totalling 11,691,311 PLN were recommended for funding. The winning applicants in the area of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will study, inter alia, mobility, migration and the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of emergency management in Poland and Lithuania. Researchers in Life Sciences will examine, inter alia, the manipulation of drug resistance in cancer cells by asymmetrical nanosecond pulse sequences. Projects in Physical Sciences and Engineering that are on the ranking lists include, inter alia, studies on the importance of long-range transport biomass burning emissions for local smog in the urban environment.

Polish-Lithuanian research teams performing research in all academic disciplines covered by the NCN review panels were allowed to apply for funding under DAINA 2. Projects had to be planned for either 24 or 36 months and principal investigators were required to be at least PhD holders. The requested funding for the entire duration of the Polish part of the project had to be no less than 150,000 PLN and the budget funds could be spent on salaries for members of the research team, scholarships for students and PhD students, purchase or construction of research equipment and other costs crucial to the research project.

The DAINA call is launched by the National Science Centre in cooperation with the Research Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos mokslo taryba, “LMT” or “RCL”) pursuant to the agreement executed on 16 November 2016. The first call was held in 2017 and attracted a lot of attention among scientists. The funds that were awarded allowed 16 joint Polish-Lithuanian research projects to be completed. The DAINA call supports the development of Polish-Lithuanian research cooperation and allows the position of Polish and Lithuanian science to be strengthened internationally. 

The ranking lists under DAINA 2 are available here.

We also wish to announce that the letters with decisions on the proposals recommended for funding and rejected under DAINA 2 will be sent out today. Let us remind you that the decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to applicants in electronic form to the electronic address indicated in the proposal.

If the applicant is an entity mentioned in Article 27 (1)-(7) and (9) of the Act on the National Science Centre, the decision are delivered only to the Electronic Inbox (ESP ePUAP) address indicated in the proposal.

The funding decisions of the NCN Director are also provided to the principal investigator.

Should you not receive the decision, please verify that the address (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail) you provided is correct. If not, please contact the person in charge of the proposal specified in the ZSUN/OSF system.

The National Science Centre announces the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals for the implementation of single research activities to develop future research projects. The total budget earmarked for the call is PLN 15 million.

Under the MINIATURE 5 call for proposals, you can apply for funding to carry out preliminary or pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, research visits or consultations. The basic aim of the call is to financially support research activities aimed at developing a future research project planned for submission to NCN calls or other national or international calls.

The call for proposals is open to holders of a doctoral degree awarded not earlier than 1 January 2009, who have at least one published work or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art. A researcher applying for a grant cannot be an applicant or principal investigator in a proposal submitted to NCN, or a principal investigator in an ongoing or completed research project that is or was funded by NCN, or be a winner of calls for doctoral scholarships or fellowships organized by NCN. The call proposal must be submitted by the entity where the researcher is employed. Research activities may be planned for a period of up to 12 months and the amount of funding must range from PLN 5 thousand to PLN 50 thousand.

The MINIATURA 5 call for proposals is be carried out on an ongoing basis and proposals may be submitted via the ZSUN/OSF submission system between 5 May (9:00) and 30 September this year until 16:00. The call for proposals may be suspended if the total amount of requested funding has exceeded twice the amount of funding allocated by the NCN Council for research activities under this edition of the call.

Funding in the MINIATURA 5 call for proposals is divided proportionally to the number of months in which the call for proposals is carried out. One of the conditions for funding a proposal in the call is that the proposal must be within the pool of available funds for the month. Due to the large number of proposals submitted in the last month of the call in previous editions of the MINIATURA call for proposals, we draw your attention to the possibility of applying in the remaining months of the call.

The detailed information can be found in the MINIATURA 5 call announcement.

Please note that under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to GAČR as the lead agency by 22 April 2021, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the ZSUN/OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to GAČR, by 29 April 2021, 23:59 p.m. at the latest.

PLEASE NOTE: Once the work on the NCN proposal has started in the ZSUN/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 ZSUN/OSF submission system.

Three applicants decided not to have their projects funded under the POLS call and their decisions have been validated. As a consequence, the National Science Center started to finance projects on the waiting list. Another three projects on the waiting list received positive decisions.

Additional ranking list

The waiting list under the POLS call for research projects to be carried out by incoming researchers (funded under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021) was submitted to the National Science Center by the Basic Research Programme Committee. The list lays down the order of projects recommended for funding. Proposals on the waiting list have been refused by the National Science Center with the reservation that they may be funded if other projects are not granted or additional funding becomes available under the scheme.

The National Science Centre, in cooperation with the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) for Social Sciences and Humanities, announces the new call for international research projects on Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World (RRR Call 2021).

Call annoncement

The call covers 5 main challenges:

1. reducing inequalities and vulnerabilities;
2. building a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable society;
3. fostering democratic governance and political participation;
4. advancing responsible and inclusive digital innovation; and
5. ensuring effective and accurate communication and media.

The topics covered by the call are described in detail in the call announcement on the website of the TRANS-ATLANTIC PLATFORM.

Funding proposals may be submitted by international consortia composed of at least 3 research teams from at least 3 countries participating in the call from both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. Poland-Canada-Brazil or USA-Poland-Germany).

Countries participating in the call:

The application procedure:

PLEASE NOTE: This is a single-stage call which means that only full proposals are submitted at the international level. More on the application procedure at the international level can be found in the call announcement available on the website of the TRANS-ATLANTIC PLATFORM.

• International level:

• an obligatory Intention to Submit (ItS) form must be completed and submitted on the FAPESP website by the Lead Principal Investigator on behalf of the entire consortium by 14 June 2021. PLEASE NOTE! An ItS form must be submitted, otherwise the proposal will be rejected.
• a full proposal is prepared by the Polish research teams in cooperation with the international partners (in English) and submitted by the Lead Principal Investigator on behalf of the entire consortium to the electronic submission system of the FAPESP - São Paulo Research Foundation (SAGE system).

• National level:

• an NCN proposal concerning the Polish part of the project is drafted by the Polish research team and submitted to the NCN electronically via the ZSUN/OSF electronic submission system within 7 days of the joint full proposal submission date (international level). Please read the NCN proposal submission procedure.

Call Timeline:

• Submission deadline for obligatory Intentions to Submit: 14 June 2021
• Submission deadline for full proposals: 12 July 2021
• Submission deadline for NCN proposals in ZSUN/OSF: 19 July 2021
• Call results: final decision to be made
• Recommended project start date: March 2022

Under the T-AP: RRR Call 2021, funds can be awarded to the Polish research teams to cover salaries for members of the research team, salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students, purchase or construction of research equipment and other costs crucial to the research project. More information on the eligible costs of the Polish research teams can be found in the NCN Council Resolution.

The total funding allocated by the NCN for research tasks to be performed by the Polish research teams under the call is 600,000 EUR.

The EUR budget of the Polish part of the project in the joint proposal must be calculated according to the following exchange rate: 1 EUR = 4.5023 PLN.

For more information on the call, please contact us by e-mail or by phone:

• Dr Michał Futyra, michal.futyra@ncn.gov.pl, +48 532 086 982
• Przemysław Puchała, przemyslaw.puchala@ncn.gov.pl, +48 532 085 570

We are pleased to announce the results of the third round of the international CEUS-UNISONO call for bilateral or trilateral research projects to be carried out by research teams from Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland under the multilateral CEUS programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (“LAP”). Dr hab. Michał Wojciechowski from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences is the second person recommended for funding as a result of merit-based evaluation of the Austrian agency Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung. Entitled Non-reflexive Function Spaces: Fourier vs Martingale Approach, his project will receive more than 900 thousand PLN in funding.

Ranking list

Martingales are one of the central tools of probability theory, developed as a theoretical foundation to underpin strategy analysis in game theory. Dr hab. Michał Wojciechowski and his team are planning to employ modern martingale theory to examine the properties of the Banach spaces of differentiable functions, which play a central role in mathematics. The project will be carried out in cooperation with Dr Paul Franz Xaver from the Johannes Kepler University in Linz.

One of the objectives of the project is to expand our knowledge of the structure of non-reflexive Banach spaces of differentiable functions and describe the singularity of their elements. To do so, the Polish-Austrian team will study the singularity of functions and their generalizations with the aid of modern martingale theory. In addition, the scientists will also examine their relationships with Banach space embeddings and trace operators, and use the similarities and differences between the theory of smooth function spaces and the theory of analytic functions.

The CEUS-UNISONO grant may go towards funding research team salaries, scholarships for students and PhD students, purchase or construction of research equipment and other project-related expenses. The call is targeted at Polish research teams planning to join up with one (in the case of bilateral projects) or two (in the case of trilateral projects) selected partner teams in order to submit a funding proposal for a basic research project. Projects may be planned for a period of 24 or 36 months and in the case of research projects to be carried out jointly with research teams from Austria, 48 months also.

All the ranking lists of the CEUS-UNISONO call can be found here.

Please note that under the Weave-UNISONO call, if a joint proposal is submitted to SNSF as the lead agency by 1 April 2021, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the ZSUN/OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to the SNSF, by 8 April 2021 at the latest.

PLEASE NOTE: Once the work on the NCN proposal has started in the ZSUN/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 ZSUN/OSF submission system.

Three applicants decided not to have their projects funded under the POLS call and their decisions have been validated. As a consequence, the National Science Center started to finance projects on the waiting list. Four projects on the waiting list received positive decisions.

Additional ranking list

The waiting list under the POLS call for research projects to be carried out by incoming researchers (funded under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021) was submitted to the National Science Center by the Basic Research Programme Committee. The list lays down the order of projects recommended for funding. Proposals on the waiting list have been refused by the National Science Center with the reservation that they may be funded if other projects are not granted or additional funding becomes available under the scheme.

We are pleased to announce the 20^th edition of the PRELUDIUM call for researchers without a PhD degree and the 21^st edition of the OPUS call for researchers at any stage of their research career. The total budget for the two flagship NCN calls equals 430 million PLN.

OPUS 21 is addressed at researchers who wish to carry out a basic research project, at any stage of their research career. It is open to applicants without a scientific degree and seasoned researchers alike. A prerequisite, however, is that the principal investigator must have at least one paper published or accepted for publication, or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in art research in the research track record. Research projects may be carried out over a period of 12, 24, 36 or 48 months, and use large international research infrastructure or rely on collaboration with partners from foreign research institutions. Importantly, the terms of the OPUS call do not specify the total maximum budget of the project, and as much as 400 million PLN in funding is up for grabs in OPUS 21.

An important change in this edition is the newly-added possibility of hiring one person as a senior researcher, a full-time position co-funded by the host institution. To qualify for the job, applicants must have earned their PhD degree at least 7 years before the application date, have completed at least one foreign post-doctoral fellowship and must demonstrate specialist knowledge, unique skills and the experience necessary to carry out the research tasks entailed by the project.

Another call we have just announced is PRELUDIUM 20, targeted at researchers who have not yet earned a PhD degree. The proposals must be devoted to basic research and the research team may be made up of a maximum of three members, including the principal investigator and the mentor. Researchers are eligible to receive 70,000 PLN for 12-month projects, 140,000 PLN for 24-month projects, and 210,000 for 36-month projects. The cost of equipment, devices and software to be purchased or produced under the project may not exceed 30% of the grant. The total budget of PRELUDIUM 20 is 30 million PLN.

Proposals under the PRELUDIUM 20 and OPUS 21 calls may be submitted until 15 June 2021 in electronic form, via the OSF system.

The National Science Centre, in cooperation with the M-ERA.NET network, hereby announces the M-ERA.NET 3 Call 2021 for international research projects in the area of material science and material engineering. Funding proposals may be submitted by international consortia composed of at least 3 research teams from at least 2 countries participating in the call. The Principal Investigator of the Polish research team must hold at least a PhD degree.

M-ERA.NET 3 Call 2021