With a month to go until the POLONEZ BIS call 2 launches, you can read the updated “Guide for applicants” and register in the programme’s Partner Search Tool. 

How to prepare and submit a proposal for the POLONEZ BIS 2 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Poland? The updated “POLONEZ BIS 2 Guide for applicants” will help you through the application and evaluation processes and explain the terms and conditions of the programme. 

Thanks to the feedback provided by the applicants from the first POLONEZ BIS call the Guide was updated with new elements, such as: examples in eligibility and budget sections, proposal checklist and links to particular sections of the Resolution on the programme’s terms and regulations.

Scientists and institutions interested in the programme and searching for relevant research partners are welcome to use a dedicated POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool. Whether you are a POLONEZ BIS candidate, a prospective host institution or an organisation offering a short-term secondment, just create a profile and answer a few questions. Then, with one click, you can publish your expression of interest in the open part of the database.

The POLONEZ BIS call 2 opens on 15 March 2022 and closes on 15 June 2022.

To keep updated, visit the official website of the programme, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us in social media.

The National Science Centre has just published the findings of its survey on men and women in science. “The survey clearly shows that what matters for research quality is a friendly environment and a high culture of work, and that we need a campaign that would foster such a culture in the broader research community”, says Professor Teresa Zielińska, Chair of the Committee of Research Activity Analysis at the NCN Council, one of the masterminds of the survey.

The survey was conducted between 19 July and 30 September 2021. The questionnaire, drawn up in two different versions, one for men, one for women, was completed by nearly 6,000 respondents: more than 3,700 female and nearly 2,100 male researchers. The survey was open to researchers at any level from all research centres, regardless of whether they have ever applied for an NCN grant.

The questionnaire was divided into five sections. Respondents were asked about their experience applying for NCN grants, any difficulties they may have faced in accessing other domestic and international funds, their experiences in their workplace, and the challenges of work and family balance. The survey also featured questions on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their career and research performance.

The results of the survey were analysed by the NCN’s Analysis and Evaluation Team and the Committee of Research Activity Analysis of the NCN Council.

(Dis)belief in success

The survey indicates that men and women apply for research funding for very similar reasons. The dominant factors include a desire to develop their research, continue projects and advance in their careers.

However, women are much more likely to doubt their chances of success in securing research funds. Critical of their own research record and doubtful of their odds of success, they frequently decide not to respond to domestic and international calls at all. Women are also more likely to say that they feel their research institution has failed to support them in the application process, as well as report not having adequate information about the calls.

Both men and women express equal interest in taking on the role of a principal investigator under a research project. However, men are more likely than women to opt for the role of contractor in order to avoid the administrative burdens associated with the former status.

“Faced with the challenges of applying for grants, researchers expect support from their colleagues and superiors. However, the professional environment sometimes fails to establish a positive relationship with them, and perhaps even ignores this aspect”, Professor Zielińska comments.

Unequal responsibilities

According to the survey, women’s careers are also hindered by an unequal division of responsibilities within the family. Female respondents are more likely to list family obligations as a factor limiting their research funding applications. More frequently than men, they say they struggle to strike a work/family balance and report feelings of remorse for neglecting their families.

Women are also more likely to feel the need to get support in relation to their family situation or childcare from their closest academic environment and research facility. Likewise, a greater proportion of women than men believe that their parental leave had an adverse impact on their career, limiting their research activity and mobility.

“The NCN has long prioritized the need to ensure equal access to research funds for men and women”, says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, the NCN Director. Błocki points out that several years ago, the NCN already introduced targeted solutions to help female researchers reconcile their work and family life. “We extended the period during which young mothers can apply for post-docs and young researchers’ grants after their PhD defence by 1.5 years per child; we also modified the time limits in our research record assessment process. However, clearly, there is much more to be done in this respect, both at the NCN and at other institutions”, he clarifies.

Required reading

According to the survey, more women than men have experienced gender discrimination and gender inequality in their research facility and academic environment. Women are more likely to experience unequal division of professional responsibilities and tend to be paid less than men at a similar career level and in a similar job. They also feel more pressure to take on new responsibilities to prove their worth. Female respondents often report having faced hurdles to promotion, mobbing, condescension or discrimination against those who were planning or already had children.

It must be noted, however, that both men and women were identified as the people responsible for these discriminatory and exclusionary practices.

In contrast, men who reported gender inequality in the academic environment, said it involved, e.g., the implementation of special programmes targeted exclusively at women, gender parity measures adopted at some centres and what they considered as women’s unjustified overrepresentation in executive positions.

“I am afraid that even though the solutions and regulations we introduce to level the playing field for both genders in science seem to enjoy widespread acceptance, outward declarations are not always matched by  an inner conviction”, says Professor Zielińska. The survey, she adds, suggests that research centres need to introduce targeted policies to tackle this problem and promote their measures among researchers.

The NCN Director confessed that the part of the survey that made a particular impression on him personally was the one dealing with the experiences of discrimination against women. “I think this should be required reading for anyone working in research. Polish research centres should have a zero tolerance policy for situations of the kind described in the survey”, he comments.

Working in a pandemic

Both men and women report that the pandemic has had both pros and cons for their research career. The disadvantages include the need to reorganise their work, travel restrictions and limited access to labs. Men are also more likely than women to mention reduced contact with their peers. Women, on the other hand, tend to report the negative impact on their careers of the increased burden of family responsibilities, including childcare in the period when nurseries and preschools closed down. Interestingly, however, it turns out that women have devoted more time to research work during the pandemic than before. Online classes, teleconferences and flexible working hours have helped them boost their research efficiency as long as they had access to adequate childcare.

Methodology and respondents

The survey involved a non-random (purposive) sample and used the CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) methodology; the questionnaire was available online. The women’s form was most commonly completed by researchers from the field of art, humanities, and social sciences, while physical sciences and engineering were the most common fields in the male group. For both genders, PhD holders accounted for the largest proportion of respondents. The majority work in cities with a population of more than 500,000.

For the NCN, the report will serve as a point of departure for designing further measures to level the playing field for men and women in science. “We will be monitoring the situation and continuing our commitment to international gender equality initiatives. We need to optimise our use of social capital in the development of our country, in order to make sure that, irrespective of social and cultural determinants, everyone will have the same opportunities to deploy their talents and passions in scientific research”, the director adds.

“You can be a grant winner no matter if you live in the countryside or in the mountains or work in a small organisation,” says Prof. Robert Mysłajek, Vice-President of the Association for Nature WOLF with its office in Godziszki, Silesian (śląskie) Voivodeship. Between 2014 and 2017, Prof. Robert Mysłajek performed a post-doctoral fellowship funded by the NCN under the FUGA call at the University of Warsaw where he was later employed. “I have never worked at a research institution before although my work there was the same as at the Association,” he says adding that the Head of the Association who has worked at non-governmental institutions for over two decades is yet another NCN grant winner which helped her to get employment at a university.

“Everyone has the same funding opportunity. Grants are awarded for the best projects,” says Prof. Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director. The success of a proposal depends on its quality and researcher’s academic and research track record.

Between 2011 and 2021, the largest number of grants went to researchers from the largest academic centres that employ the largest number of researchers and produce the largest number of proposals. According to the study drafted by the NCN’s Evaluation Team, the largest number of grants went to researchers from the following Voivodeships: Mazowieckie (32.3%), Małopolskie (18.5%.), Wielkopolskie (11.2%), Dolnośląskie (8.8%) and Łódzkie (5.6%). In seven Voivodeships, the total funding awarded per number of PhD holders was over 100 thousand (Mazowieckie, Małopolskie, Wielkopolskie, Dolnośląskie, Pomorskie, Łódzkie and Warmińsko-Mazurskie). The lowest number of grants went to Lubuskie, Świętokrzyskie and Opolskie Voivodships.

In Mazowsze, public, non-public and church-owned universities alone employ over 14,500 researchers who are PhD holders, in Małopolska almost 11,000. These figures do not even include employees of the Polish Academy of Sciences and other research institutions. Higher education institutions in the Świętokrzyskie and Opolskie Voivideships employ approx. 200 people, whilst the smallest academic centre (Lubuskie Voivodeship), merely 1,000 people.

Over the last decade, more than 33,000 proposals have been submitted to the NCN by researchers from Mazowsze, almost 20,000 from Małopolska, over 13,000 from Wielkopolska and over 10,000 from Dolny Śląsk. At the same time, around 1,000 proposals came from the Świętokrzyskie and Opolskie Voivodeships and only 600 from the Lubuskie Voivodeship.

“In order to receive a grant, a researcher must prepare a good and well-grounded research project,” says Dr Magdalena Kolańska-Stronka from the University of Zielona Góra who received funding a few years ago under the PRELUDIUM call. She consulted her project with other researchers, including foreign researchers. “It takes time to prepare a proposal but allows you to plan your work for the nearest future well. Funding allows you to carry out your research more efficiently, as well as to publish and present your research results at international conferences. In my case, it also helped me to get a PhD,” she adds.

Support for smaller research institutions

According to Prof. Błocki, science in Poland is too decentralised and although the NCN cannot affect the reason for that state of affairs pertains, it strives to equalise the research potential of various research institutions. The NCN promotes research mobility, introduces quotas on the number of grants, organises training courses for applicants and NCN Days at smaller research institutions. 

“Our regulations may foster decentralisation of science. Our proposal evaluation criteria do not include evaluation of a research institution,” says Prof. Błocki who believes that academic and research centres should actively attract researchers and the NCN “gives them measures to do so”. “Universities should attract researchers who are our grant winners, especially that at the beginning it is entirely cost-free ,” he says.

Maciej Juzaszek was conferred a PhD degree at the Jagiellonian University and later worked at one of the Warsaw universities. “I conducted preliminary research on how to educate doctoral law students. I co-prepared two proposals to the NCN but was both times unsuccessful, so I followed experts’ advice and modified my research idea,” he says. His next proposal was recommended for funding last autumn under the OPUS call within the framework of the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory (CLEST) of the University of Wrocław. “If I had not been awarded that grant, I would not have had the opportunity to work at the CLEST, and I might have had to look for employment elsewhere, outside academia," he adds.

Grants can be used to fund the employment of principal investigators and salaries for the team members (post-docs), research funded by the grants strengthens scientific communities and counts towards evaluation. “A sports analogy can be used here. Can a football club achieve success relying only on its own football academy? It almost never happens,” says Prof. Błocki

JPI Urban Europe network invites all interested applicants to participate in information webinars dedicated to the ERA-NET Cofund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity Sino-European Joint Call.

Webinars’ agenda and all related details, including the registration form, are available on the website of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

The call will be launched in mid-February 2022 in cooperation of JPI Urban Europe network and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and will address two research topics: Sustainable Urban Logistics in the Age of Digitisation and Strengthening Climate-neutral Mobility.

Eligibility criteria and guidelines for applicants will be published in the official call announcement. Guidelines for Polish researchers applying for NCN funding in this call will be published on the National Science Centre website along with the call announcement.

Decisions for the POLONEZ BIS 1 proposals that did not meet the eligibility criteria were sent out on 3 February 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. 

Information was sent from the address: ncn.wnioski@ncn.gov.pl. and contained 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 application can be checked in the ZSUN/OSF system.

The European Commission has published the results of the first 23 calls in the Framework Programme Horizon Europe.

Horizon Europe is a new innovative programme launched last year to support research and innovation that aims to support fight climate change, help reach the UN sustainable development goals and simulate EU competition. The budget for 2021-2027 is over EUR 95 billion.

11 out of 86 proposals recommended for funding in the first Horizon Europe calls were carried out by the Polish research institutions which constitutes 12.79% of the total number of funded projects. The total value of projects is EUR 5.11 million which places Poland in thirteenth position among the beneficiaries from the EU (first among the “new EU states” and thirteenth in the EU).

Having received EUR 688 thousand, the National Science Centre is the second Polish research institution in terms of funding. The leader (the National Center for Research and Development) has been allocated almost EUR 2.3 million so far.

The results are now available in the form of interactive statistics.