SONATINA is a programme targeted at researchers who have just recently earned their PhD degree. In the last round, 52 young researchers won a total of nearly 34 million PLN in funding. Thanks to their grants, they will be able to look more closely into various subjects in many scientific disciplines. One such subject has to do with the area of the Baltic Sea and the processes that occur within it.

An example of an NTM (bathymetry) created with the use of a bathymetric LiDAR

Dr Łukasz Janowski submitted a project entitled “Pioneering exploration of Puck Bay based on high-resolution aerial and acoustic remote sensing”, which was awarded more than 756,000 PLN in funding. The goal is to create the first high-resolution Numerical Terrain Model (NTM), i.e. a digital image of the land surface that allows the formation of a given terrain to be presented via 3D graphics. The marine equivalent of the NTM is known as bathymetry, a model focusing on the depth of a given body of water. The model will make it easier for us to determine the underwater formation of the sea floor, the area of benthic habitats, and the threats that may lurk on the bottom of the sea. A precise bathymetry is indispensable for the preliminary exploration of an unknown sea basin when we take decisions to protect and manage the coastal zone, explains Dr Janowski.

The purpose of the project is not only to develop a numerical representation of the sea floor in Puck Bay, but also to discover its underwater cultural heritage. Ancient settlements that go back as far as 7000 years are likely to be found in the area. The oldest traces of human activity in the region date back to the Mesolithic and the Neolithic periods; the latter is represented by two extensive settlements, Osłonino and Rzucewo. In the Middle Ages and later historical periods, the port and shipyard in the mouth of the Płutnica river experienced dynamic growth, explains Dr Janowski. What is more, four shipwrecks and an aeroplane were discovered in the Bay; an unidentified object uncovered near the village of Rewa and the Beka nature reserve could also be linked to human presence in the region. Its shape and nature suggest that it might have been the result of human economic activity. In sum, Puck Bay has great archaeological potential, which still needs to be studied, he adds.

Dr Jankowski will carry out his research using an aeroplane and a small boat. The former will be equipped with an air camera and a device (a bathymetric LiDAR device) that emits laser beams in two colours, green and red to probe the sea floor quickly and with precision. The boat will carry a multibeam echosounder, which works not unlike the LiDAR, but relies on acoustic signals instead of laser beams. The measurement results obtained with the three methods will be integrated to create the first exact bathymetric map of the Inner Puck Bay.

But there is more in the Baltic Sea to interest researchers than just the earliest traces of human presence. The history that unfolded in the previous century, for instance, can still have an important impact on us today. This aspect will be studied by Dr Michał Czub in a project entitled “Ecological consequences of the dumping of chemical weapons into the Baltic Sea”. The researcher will look into the current impact of the chemical warfare substances deposited on the seabed. As he points out, Chemical arsenals were already being dumped into seas and oceans after WWI and, because of its efficiency, the method was resumed after WWII. Today, there are an estimated 300 chemical weapon dumping sites around the world. It is estimated that as many as 50,000 tons of chemical weapons have been dropped into the Baltic Sea alone, including 15,000 tons of toxic chemical warfare agents.

Research on the Baltic Sea, photo by M. Czub

Toxic chemical warfare agents are substances that have often been employed for military purposes on account of their frequently toxic properties. They are dangerous not only during manufacture or use, but also during neutralization. By their very definition, these substances are poisonous to people; they are also likely to harm the environment and other living organisms. In the 20^th century, as they struggled to adhere to the fragile provisions of post-war peace treaties, many states decided to “destroy by sinking” not only their own arsenals but also the weapons they had captured during military action. The process was thought to neutralize their toxic properties. The latest research suggests that their dissolved fractions continue to pose real danger; in line with the commonly accepted classification standards, they are categorized as toxic or very toxic for a crustacean known as Daphnia magna. In addition, both the arsenic-based warfare agents and their degradation products are now being found in deposits sampled from many Baltic Sea sites. Worse yet, one of the most recent studies detected their presence in the muscles of Baltic fish, including the Atlantic cod, says Dr Czub.

The project, which was awarded a grant of more than 760,000 PLN, aims to describe the specific biomarkers and bioindicators of contamination, which will help describe the observable and measurable effects of exposure to these toxic warfare agents on the marine fauna and environment.

We have just published the first ranking list of the MINIATURA 5 call, under which researchers can request funding for preliminary and pilot studies, library and archive search, fellowships and research visits or consultations. 58 individual research activities, with a total budget of more than 2.3 million PLN, were recommended for funding based on the decision of NCN experts.

Funding under individual panels:

• arts, humanities, social sciences: 18 activities with a total budget of 541,761 PLN
• physical sciences and engineering: 18 activities with a total budget of 740,827 PLN
• life sciences: 22 activities with a total budget of 1,051,860 PLN

Ranking list

The main objective of the MINIATURA call is to finance research activities conducted for the purposes of a future research project that will be submitted under an NCN call or other domestic and international calls for proposals. The fifth edition offers grants from 5,000 PLN to 50,000 to fund preliminary or pilot studies, library and archive search, fellowships, research visits or consultations to be carried out over a period of up to 12 months. The call is open to researchers who earned their PhD no earlier than on 1 January 2009, have never conducted an NCN-funded research project, and whose scientific achievements include at least one published paper or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art.

One of the winners of MINIATURA 5 is Dr Emilia Bogacka from the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, who will use her grant to conduct a preliminary study entitled “Determinants of the sense of personal safety of women as users of public transportation”. The researcher will look into the fears experienced by women at bus stops and inside the means of public transportation in Poznań, which are a frequent crime site. The analysis will lay the groundwork for a future project that will also include other cities and contribute to the development of research into Polish social geography and, in particular, the geography of crime.

A subject related to the female gender will also be tackled under MINIATURA 5 by Dr Maciej Kałaska from the University of Warsaw during his research fellowship at ICTA-AUB in Barcelona. The goal of this practicum at a Spanish university will be to develop an indicator to measure the empowerment of women in studies on environmental justice. This will allow the obstacles that prevent women from acquiring the power needed to engage in environmental activism to be identified and work out the strategies to neutralize these setbacks. The knowledge and experience gained during the fellowship will contribute to developing the theoretical and analytical framework of a project that is scheduled for submission to the NCN at the end of 2022.

PDF ranking list

The proposals are accepted on a rolling basis until 30 September 2021.

The total budget of MINIATURA 5 equals 22 million PLN. The resources are being successively and proportionally distributed throughout the entire call and the proposal may be recommended for funding only as long as there are enough funds in the pool of resources slated for a given month. Since a lot of proposals are often submitted in the last month of the call, we urge you not to postpone your decision to participate in MINIATURA until the last moment.

Service of decisions

On 16 August 2021, the NCN will dispatch the positive and the negative decisions for calls submitted under MINIATURA 5 in May.

The justifications are available in the ZSUN/OSF system. Please check the status of your proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system and your Electronic Correspondence Register (ESP ePUAP).

We remind you that the decisions are served on the applicant in electronic form to the ESP ePUAP address indicated in the proposal. If you have not received a decision, please make sure that the address listed in the proposal is correct. If it is not, contact the NCN officer in charge of the proposal indicated in the ZSUN/OSF system.

We have just announced the results of the fifth edition of the SONATINA call. Researchers who have recently earned their PhDs will receive almost 34 million PLN to fund their research and fellowships at prestigious foreign institutions.

SONATINA is targeted at researchers who earned their PhD up to 3 years before submitting the proposal or were awarded the degree before 30 June 2021. The fifth edition attracted 160 proposals to the total amount of 100 million PLN, 52 of which (with a total budget of 34 million PLN) were recommended for funding by NCN experts, for a final success rate of 32.5%. The grants will go toward the costs of the winners’ full-time employment at Polish research centres, basic and applied research activities, as well as three- or six-month foreign fellowships.

The greatest number of proposals, as many as 63, were submitted under the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences panel. 20 of these were awarded more than 10.6 million PLN in funding. Physical Sciences and Engineering attracted 61 proposals, 20 of which will receive a total of more than 12.5 million PLN. The NCN also received 36 proposals in the field of Life Sciences; 12 of these were awarded more than 10.7 million PLN in total.

The successful projects will be carried out at research institutions all over Poland. The ranking lists include researchers from, e.g. universities, universities of science and technology, institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Łukasiewicz Research Network.

The ranking lists of SONATINA 5

SONATINA 5 winners

The winners of SONATINA 5 will look into various subjects, such as, for instance, the social and cultural determinants of the relationship between blind people and their guide dogs. Headed by Dr Kamil Pietrowiak from the Faculty of History of the University of Gdańsk, this particular project will analyse the ways in which blind individuals cooperate and communicate with their assistant quadrupeds. The results will fill in gaps in our general knowledge on the functioning of blind people and the close interactions between people and animals.

Another grant will go toward funding research into the response of marine birds to the environmental warming in the Arctic. The goal of the project carried out by Dr Martyna Syposz from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk is to establish how climate change has affected the activity of the little auk during breeding season. The research will deliver information on the social and parenting behaviour of marine birds and the corresponding impact of climate evolution. Dr Michał Czub from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw will use his SONATINA 5 grant to study the ecological consequences of the dumping of chemical weapons into the Baltic Sea. These chemical substances are not neutralized; they present a real threat and are toxic to marine organisms. The compounds have already been detected in the muscles of Baltic fish, including the Atlantic cod. Dr Czuba’s research will allow to describe the various effects of exposure to poisonous chemical warfare substance on the Baltic fauna and environment.

Upon the completion of the projects, the researchers will be able to apply for more funds under the SONATA call, designed for more experienced PhD holders, or SONATA BIS, which makes it possible to set up a new research team.

A full list of successful proposals (PDF)

Open Access Policy

In accordance with the Open Access Policy adopted by the National Science Centre, the results of research conducted under NCN-funded projects will be disseminated via various publication paths in open access journals and platforms that meet specific requirements. This will allow the general public to use their findings immediately and free of charge.

Decisions and their delivery

Decisions for successful and rejected proposals, submitted under SONATINA 5 call will be dispatched on 5 August 2021. The decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to the applicant in the form of an electronic document sent to the e-mail address indicated in the proposal.

If the applicant is an entity referred to in Article 27 (1)-(7) and (9) of the Act on the NCN, the decision will only be delivered to the Electronic Inbox (ESP ePUAP) address provided in the proposal. If an applicant who is a natural person lists an ePUAP inbox in the proposal, the decision will be delivered to that address; otherwise, an e-mail will be sent to the address indicated in the proposal with an address from which the decision can be downloaded.

The decision of the NCN Director is also communicated to the principal investigator, and, where the applicant is a natural person, to the host institution in the proposal.

If you have not received a decision, please verify that the electronic address (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail) you provided in the proposal is correct. If not, please get in touch with the NCN Programme Officer assigned to the proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system.

In cooperation with the Solar-Driven Chemistry network, the National Science Centre is launching a call for international research projects under the latest round of the Solar-Driven Chemistry Call 2021.

Solar-Driven Chemistry is a network of European research-funding agencies, established in 2018 on the initiative of the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), which announces regular international calls for research projects in the area of photochemical processes. The subject matter of the new call in particular concerns the photochemical transformation of small molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen) into more valuable, storable chemicals by means of solar radiation.

The call is open to projects prepared by international consortia, made up of at least two teams from at least two countries involved in the call: Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland or Turkey.

The budget slated by the NCN for Polish teams under the call equals 500 thousand EUR. These can go toward research team salaries, salaries and scholarships for students and PhD candidates, purchasing or creating new research equipment, as well as other expenses necessary for project implementation.

The Solar-Driven Chemistry Call 2021 consists of two stages. As a first step, the teams must submit a joint pre-proposal, with a deadline of 29 October. The best teams will then be invited to join stage 2 and submit a full proposal before 2 May 2022.

In addition, the principal investigator (on the Polish side) is obliged to draft an domestic proposal for the Polish part of the project in the ZSUN/OSF system. The deadline for submitting domestic proposals in the ZSUN/OSF system: 9 May 2022.

Call results:

• November 2022 – publication of the list of projects recommended for funding;
• January 2023 – project start date.

Read the full call announcement. 

The National Science Centre (NCN), in cooperation with the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), is proud to announce the ARTIQ call for proposals aimed at creating three Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CE AI). 

With a wide range of possible applications, artificial intelligence (AI) is hailed as one of the most important technologies of the future. Its elements have already been around for many years, employed in tools such as internet search engines, navigation, predictive text or automatic translation apps. AI is expected to fundamentally change almost all aspects of our lives and economies, and activities designed to promote it have been defined by the European Parliament as a EU priority. At the end of 2020, Poland also adopted what is known as a “Policy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence from 2020”.

The objective of the call ARTIQ – Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CE AI), organized jointly by the NCN and the NCBR, is to boost Poland’s potential in terms of artificial intelligence. The newly created CE AIs, headed by world-renowned leaders, will conduct basic and industrial research, R & D and pre-implementation work in the field.

Announcement

The CE AIs will be established at so-called host institutions, put in charge of providing research teams with all the conditions necessary to carry out their project. A list of available host institutions was published on the website of the NCBR in April, designed to make it easier for leaders to find an entity where a CE AI will be launched. Proposals may also be submitted in cooperation with other institutions, as long as they meet all the requirements listed in the call’s Terms and Conditions.

The host institution must declare its own contribution to the project. Its duties will also include financial and administrative coordination; to this end, a dedicated administrative coordinator should be hired.

To qualify as a CE AI Leader, applicants are expected to have earned their PhD degree up to 8 years before the start date of the call, demonstrate international experience and achievements in the field of artificial intelligence, including successful commercialization and business cooperation ventures, and should not have lived, worked, studied or carried out a grant in Poland in the two years prior to the submission deadline.

In the ARTIQ call, basic research will be funded by the NCN, while the NCBR will award resources for industrial research, R & D, pre-implementation, and the establishment of SPEs. The maximum amount of eligible costs funded by the NCN and the NCBR for a single project is 20 million PLN.

Only projects that have never been funded by the NCBR, the NCN or from any other sources can be submitted under the call. They should take 60 months to complete.

Information on how to apply and how funding will be awarded can be found in the call’s Terms and Conditions.

Proposals will be accepted between 20 September 2021 and 4 pm on 20 December 2021 and must be submitted electronically, via the LSI system available at https://lsi.ncbr.gov.pl.

We have just published the most recent results of the OPUS 20 + LAP call, under which researchers at all levels of seniority vied for funding for research projects carried out within the framework of international cooperation in accordance with the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), with the National Science Centre in the role of the lead agency. Based on expert reviews, as well as the endorsement of the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) and, for trilateral projects, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the NCN awarded grants to 10 projects, including three trilateral proposals. Researchers will receive a total of nearly 13 million PLN in funding.

In the OPUS 20 + LAP call concluded in May, NCN experts selected 342 projects with a total budget of more than 449 million PLN, including 79 OPUS LAP proposals approved by partner institutions. Approval has already been granted by agencies representing Austria (Austrian Science Fund – FWF), the Czech Republic (Czech Science Foundation – GACR), and Switzerland (Swiss National Science Foundation – SNSF). This group is now joined by the Slovenian ARRS, which has endorsed all the proposals recommended by the NCN.

Ranking lists

Out of the ten grants, six were awarded to proposals in Physical Sciences and Engineering, three in Art, Humanities and Social Sciences, and one in Life Sciences.

One of the projects that will be carried out in bilateral cooperation with a Slovenian team under the OPUS 20 + LAP call is devoted to the “Political potential of conspiracy theories. A study of Poland and Slovenia”. Headed by Dr hab. Agnieszka Turska-Kawa from the University of Silesia, the project will examine three conspiracy theory movements, the activity of which has intensified during the pandemic: (1) the anti-Covid movement, (2) the anti-5G movement, and (3) the anti-vaccine movement. The purpose is to investigate how these initiatives are exploited in Polish and Slovenian politics and identify the factors that determine whether or not they are politically attractive. The call will also fund another project, entitled “Olfactometry in cultural heritage studies: capturing, reconstructing and conserving historic smells”, in which the Polish team will be coordinated by Dr hab. Tomasz Sawoszczuk from the Kraków University of Economics. The grant will allow Polish and Slovenian researchers to analyse the odours of sites of special importance for national cultural heritage, and use the findings to reconstruct them and create an International Archive of Historical Smells.

Decisions and their delivery

Decisions for successful and rejected proposals, submitted under the OPUS call in bilateral cooperation with Slovenian teams and trilateral cooperation with Slovenian and Austrian teams, will be dispatched on 23 July 2021. The decisions of the NCN Director are delivered to the applicant in the form of an electronic document sent to the e-mail address indicated in the proposal.

If the applicant is an entity referred to in Article 27 (1)-(7) and (9) of the Act on the NCN, the decision will only be delivered to the Electronic Inbox (ESP ePUAP) address provided in the proposal. If an applicant who is a natural person lists an ePUAP inbox in the proposal, the decision will be delivered to that address; otherwise, an e-mail will be sent to the address indicated in the proposal with an address from which the decision can be downloaded.

The decision of the NCN Director is also communicated to the principal investigator, and, where the applicant is a natural person, to the host institution in the proposal.

If you have not received a decision, please verify that the electronic address (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail) you provided in the proposal is correct. If not, please get in touch with the NCN Programme Officer assigned to the proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system.

We have just published yet another ranking list in the international CEUS-UNISONO call for bilateral or trilateral research projects for research teams from the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Poland. This time, Dr Tomasz Skirecki is the winning candidate recommended for funding as a result of merit-based evaluation of the Austrian agency FWF (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung). Dr Skirecki has been awarded 1,126,650 PLN for his project “Treatment of long-term effects of sepsis with mesenchymal stromal cells from adipose tissue in mouse models”.

“The mortality rate for septic shock is up to 50% but even if survived, as many as 60% of patients do not recover, in particular elderly patients who often suffer from muscle weakness as well as cognitive, anxiety and emotional disorders. As a consequence, their quality of life is reduced and sometimes they even need to resort to a nursing home” says Dr Skirecki. Therefore, his research may help to develop effective therapies to reduce mortality from sepsis and improve quality of life after sepsis. The research results will further our understanding of the pathophysiology of late effects of sepsis and help to develop clinical trials using cell therapies.

Under the CEUS-UNISONO call for proposals, the Polish research team may be awarded funding for remuneration of the research team, scholarships for students and PhD students, purchase or construction of research equipment and other project-related expenses.

The call is carried out as under the multilateral CEUS programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) in collaboration between the NCN and the research funding agencies from Austria (FWF - Austrian Science Fund), the Czesch Republic (GAČR - Czech Science Foundation) and Slovenia (ARRS- Slovenian Research Agency).

We already know the first results of the OPUS 20 + LAP call under which researchers at all stages of their academic careers applied for funding of their research projects carried out as international cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) with the NCN acting as the Lead Agency. Following the decision of the NCN experts and approval of the foreign partner institutions, 20 research projects with the participation of research teams from the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland were recommended for funding. The projects totalled over 26 mln PLN.

Under the twentieth edition of the OPUS 20 + LAP call concluded on 20 May 2021, the NCN received 2122 proposal for a total amount of over 2.3 billion PLN. Researchers were invited to apply for funding of their research projects carried out without the participation of foreign partners, in bilateral and/or multilateral cooperation (including within the framework of LAP cooperation) as well as with the use of large international research equipment. Following the review, the NCN experts decided to recommend 342 projects for funding with a value of over 449 mln PLN, including 79 OPUS LAP proposals that required approval from the partners institutions.

OPUS 20 + LAP ranking lists

Lead Agency Procedure (LAP)

The Lead Agency Procedure is a new proposal review standard adopted by European research-funding agencies, designed to make it easier for international research teams to seek funding for joint research projects, as well as to streamline the process of proposal review by research-funding institutions. Research projects performed by research groups from various countries are reviewed by one institution only, known as the lead agency relevant to one of the participating research teams under a project from its regular call portfolio. The other partner institutions cooperating pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure approve the results of merit-based evaluation performed by the lead agency and award funding to research projects approved by the latter.

The LAP procedure introduced under the OPUS 20 call has enabled researchers to apply for funding of their projects carried out as bilateral or trilateral cooperation with research teams from the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia and bilateral cooperation with research teams from Germany and Switzerland. Foreign research teams applied for parallel funding of their projects to their respective research funding institutions under programmes launched in cooperation with the NCN pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure.

Research projects with the participation of research teams from Slovenia and Germany

The funding decision for OPUS LAP proposals involving bilateral cooperation with research teams from Slovenia and trilateral cooperation with research teams from Slovenia and Austria will be taken at a later date (forecasted at the end of August 2021). The funding decision for OPUS LAP proposals involving cooperation with research teams from Germany will be taken by the end of October 2021.

OPUS 20 + LAP ranking lists will be provided step by step.  

Service of the decisions

The funding decisions for proposals recommended or not recommended for funding in the OPUS 20 call involving bilateral cooperation with research teams from the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria will be sent on 12 July 2021. Decisions of the NCN Director will be served to the applicant electronically to the electronic address specified in the proposal.

If the applicant is an entity described in Article 27 (1) – (7) and (9) of the NCN Act, the funding decision of the NCN Director will only be served to their Electronic Correspondence Register address (ESP ePUAP) address specified in the proposal. If a natural-person applicant indicates an ePUAP address in the proposal, the decision will be sent to that address. If a natural-person applicant fails to indicate the ePUAP address, the service of decisions will be carried out by means of sending – to their email address – information containing an electronic address from which the NCN Director’s decision may be downloaded.

The funding decisions of the NCN Director are additionally communicated to the principal investigator and, if the applicant is a natural person, also to the entity named in the proposal as the host institution.

If no decision is served, you should check their electronic address specified in the proposal (ESP, ePUAP, e-mail address). If an incorrect address is provided, you should contact the proposal administrator named in the ZSUN/OSF submission system.

The European Biodiversity Partnership under Horizon Europe, (officially starting in October 2021 as the successor of Biodiversa) is pleased to announce that it will soon launch its first transnational joint research call on the following topic: Supporting the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems across land and sea.

This call will cover the following three non-exclusive themes:

• 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.

The call is planned to be officially launched early October 2021. A two-step application procedure will be used with a closing date for pre-proposals at the end of November 2021.

For details please see the programme website, where a Partner Search Tool is available.

SAVE THE DATE: an information webinar for potential applicants will be organized on 12 October from 11:00 to 12:30 CEST. Registration will open in September.

We have just published the guidelines for applicants to the POLONEZ BIS programme. Researchers and institutions interested in the call can also use a special search engine, the POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool, to establish direct contacts. Fellows funded in the previous POLONEZ programme encourage everyone to apply.

POLONEZ BIS is much more than just a grant; it is an all-around programme that combines research, secondments at non-academic institutions and soft-skills training courses. In three successive rounds, the NCN will recruit 120 experienced researchers, who will then move to Poland for 24 months to carry out their basic research projects at various public and private institutions. The programme will be supplemented by a series of attractive training courses and cooperation with start-ups and NGOs. Successful applicants can expect to receive attractive financial terms, including an annual salary of 53,500 Euro and a research grant of up to 100,000 Euro.

“If you have an excellent research idea, we encourage you to take part in the call and carry out your research in Poland. It is an opportunity for professional advancement and financial independence, as well as a great chance to create your own team”, says Jolanta Palowska from the NCN’s International Department Cooperation.

POLONEZ BIS is open to applicants who hold a PhD degree or have at least 4 years of full-time 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. The choice of subject matter and discipline is up to the applicants, who must submit their proposals jointly with their host institutions in Poland, i.e. their future employers.

POLONEZ BIS - Postdoctoral Fellowships in Poland (movie)

POLONEZ BIS is co-funded by the European Commission and the National Science Centre under the COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND grant. The first call for proposals is scheduled to start on 15 September and last until 15 December. Two more will follow in March and September 2022.

The guidelines for applicants, with a detailed programme description, as well as important information on the proposal submission procedure and the required documents are available online. 

POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool

Researchers and institutions in search of relevant partners can also fall back on NCN’s POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool. Whether you are a researcher planning to come to Poland, a potential host institution, or an institution that offers short secondments, you can create your own user profile. Registered users are asked to fill out a short questionnaire, which is then published in the open-access part of the database.

“Registration in the POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool is not a requirement, but we highly recommend it”, emphasises Jolanta Palowska from the NCN, “The more offers in the database, the easier it will be for applicants and institutions to get in touch and start to work together”.

POLONEZ BIS Partner Search Tool

More information about the POLONEZ BIS program

They stayed in Poland

Polonez BIS picks up the recently concluded POLONEZ programme. Three calls, announced in 2015 and 2016, allowed 109 eminent researchers from 28 countries around the globe to be recruited, who were then hired by Polish research institutions for a year or two, created new research teams and won new grants; some stayed in Poland and encourage other researchers to take part in the call.

Before he arrived in Poland, Panagiotis Theodorakis, PhD, had worked at Imperial College in London, the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Technology, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute and the University of Mainz. At one point, together with his wife, also a researcher, he decided to do his research in Poland. The POLONEZ grant, he says, was a very important factor; even though he would have stayed in Poland anyway, he wouldn’t be able to continue his research without it. Today, he recommends similar programmes to his colleagues from other centres. “Programmes like POLONEZ help to create a really open research community”, he explains. Theodorakis carried out his grant at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he works to this day. “The institute is a place that attracts many PhD students from other countries; we have a very creative community here”. At present, Theodorakis is also involved in projects under NCN’s SONATA BIS and OPUS calls, researching how to control fluids with surfactants and steer fluid motion with gradient substrates.

Monika Kornacka, PhD, is the Deputy Head of the Department of Psychology at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, where she runs an “Emotion Cognition Lab”, which uses mobile applications, VR and AR tools and video-oculography to measure psychological processes and tests them to see how these technologies can be employed in psychological interventions. Previously, she spent more than ten years in France, where she studied at the University of Poitiers and earned her PhD at the University of Lille. During her PhD programme, she also completed a six-month fellowship at the SWPS University. Even though she thought about going back to Poland after her PhD, she wasn’t absolutely sure she would. “In France, I mostly did lab research and clinical psychopathology there placed a growing emphasis on methods that we could call multiple daily sampling, that is, measuring patients’ symptoms on a daily basis with a dedicated app. The lab I joined in Poland was already doing such measurements”, the researcher says. The POLONEZ grant allowed her to assess the equipment available at Polish research centres, find out how to obtain approvals from ethics committees and recruit subjects for her research. After the grant ended, she was given an opportunity to set up her own lab and take on the role of Deputy Head at the SWPS’ Faculty of Psychology. “It’s a university that offers fantastic research opportunities, the right infrastructure and many good researchers to collaborate with”. A good research project and a carefully chosen host lab, according to Kornacka, are the most important elements of any POLONEZ proposal. “Those who picked the right host institution went on to reap real benefits”, she adds. Today, Monika Kornacka is a principal investigator under NCN’s SONATA grant; her project looks into the way in which our thoughts drift away from the task at hand (having our “head in the clouds” and ruminations, i.e. recurrent negative thoughts).