The National Science Centre has concluded the GRIEG call co-funded from Norway grants. Over PLN 156 million will be awarded to Polish-Norwegian research teams to fund basic research. 

Over 305 proposals were submitted under the call for a total of over PLN 1.6 billion. Experts recommended 28 of them for funding: 12 in Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST), 8 in Life Sciences (NZ) and 8 in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS). Research teams will be awarded a total of PLN 156,015,144, of which 85% will be funded under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 and 15% from domestic funds. GRIEG covers all academic disciplines defined in the NCN panels, with particular focus on polar research and social sciences. The ranking lists of projects recommended for funding include 6 projects in polar sciences and eight in social sciences. 

“Pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding on the Implementation of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism we must fund projects in polar research and social sciences. However, the Programme Committee decided not to award additional points to projects submitted in those disciplines, which is why good performance of research teams from these areas in fair competition with teams from other areas should be particularly appreciated” says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director.

The proposals were evaluated by international expert panels. Three expert panels were appointed for each research domain (HS, NZ, ST), with researchers from Poland and Norway not permitted to evaluate the proposals. Each research project was evaluated by three experts. The final list of the winning projects was approved by the “Basic Research” Programme Committee and the funding decision was issued by the NCN Director.

GRIEG is a call for research projects carried out jointly by research teams from Poland and Norway. Research teams must include at least one Polish partner acting as the partnership leader and at least one Norwegian partner. The principal investigator for a project carried out under the GRIEG call must be at least a PhD holder employed by a Polish research institution, whereas the leader of the Norwegian part of the research team must be a research organisation. Partnerships may include research organisations, enterprises and non-governmental organisations. Under the GRIEG call for proposals, projects must be carried out over either 24 or 36 months.

GRIEG is one of the three calls for proposals funded under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 under the “Research” Programme, with NCN acting as the Programme Operator in charge of basic research. The aim of the “Research” Programme with an allocated budget of more than EUR 129 million is to support Polish research and enhance cooperation between science, business and society. 40% of the funds is designated to support basic research.

List of projects qualified for funding

The National Science Centre (NCN) has published the results of the call for interdisciplinary ground-breaking research projects to be carried out by Polish researchers in collaboration with researchers from countries of the European Economic Area. Research teams will be provided with almost PLN 17.5 M for their research.

Under the financed projects, Polish researchers in collaboration with their partners from Norway will carry out research on threats facing European societies. The team of researchers from the Jagiellonian University, the Jerzy Maj Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), the University of Oslo and the Poznań University of Technology will conduct research on mechanisms and resilience to fake news in cyber space. Researchers from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in collaboration with researchers from the University of Warsaw, the Center for International Climate Research, Oslo and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, will work on developing a transdisciplinary methodology in research on climate change. A research team from the PAN Institute of Psychology, jointly with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology and the University of Warsaw, will carry out research on how multisensory virtual experience affects actual pro-environmental behaviour.

The IdeaLab call was carried out in compliance with the “sandpit” formula developed by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and used by the Research Council of Norway under the name of Idélab. The subject of the IdeaLab call organised by NCN is “Managing Threats”, which covers challenges arising from the complex processes of our times, such as globalisation, technological change, issues of environment and climate change, demographic change, major waves of migration, geopolitical instability and many others, which bring with them uncertainties (implying threats and, in some cases, opportunities) that European societies have to face.

“IdeaLab is the first call carried out by NCN using the “sandpit” formula, which as an important element includes workshops during which researchers from various countries will develop ideas that will then be subject to merit-based evaluation. The methodology proposed during the workshops indeed supports the development of interesting concepts of research projects concerning the challenges facing the world today”, says Prof. Małgorzata Kossowska, President of the NCN Council

The IdeaLab call consisted of three stages: At the first stage, researchers from Poland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway applied to NCN to be involved in IdeaLab workshops. Overall, NCN received 205 proposals, of which 201 were forwarded for scientific review. The proposals were reviewed by an international team composed of experts representing various research domains and having experience in the evaluation and implementation of projects under the “sandpit” type calls. Thirty-four candidates were invited to participate in workshops. At the second stage, a workshop was held during which the participants set up research teams that worked on project ideas corresponding to the subject of the call. At the closing of the workshop, eight teams submitted their research ideas. On the last day, the teams presented their research project ideas to the expert team. The developed ideas were subject to individual and team reviews by experts. The review resulted in a ranking list of the submitted projects. At the third stage, four research teams submitted their full proposals in the ZSUN/OSF system, which basically covered descriptions of their research ideas developed during the workshop. The expert team reviewed the consistency of those proposals with the ideas submitted during the workshop and the recommendations of the expert team made at the second stage. Afterwards, a list of projects recommended for funding was approved by the “Basic Research” Programme Committee.

The research teams will be awarded a total of PLN 17,498,734 for their research work. The principal investigators may be researchers affiliated with Polish research institutions, who are at least PhD holders.

NCN is the operator of the IdeaLab programme, carried out jointly with the Research Council of Norway (RCN). The objective of the programme is strengthening research cooperation between Poland and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein and enhanced research based knowledge development. More information on the programmes launched by NCN, financed with EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 is available here.

The ranking list in the IdeaLab call can be found here.

Contact Person:

• Dr. Aneta Pazik, Coordinator, e-mail: aneta.pazik@ncn.gov.pl

We wish to inform you that the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has now launched a fast-track merit-based evaluation of research proposals on crises like epidemics or pandemics (FWF Urgent Funding for Research Into Humanitarian Crises like Epidemics and Pandemics), submitted to the FWF between 6 April and 15 December 2020 in all academic disciplines. The merit-based evaluation of funding proposals at the FWF will now be shortened to just a few weeks.

For Polish researchers who submit NCN proposals under the CEUS-UNISONO call, along with a joint proposal for the funding of research projects devoted to the subject submitted to the FWF as the lead agency under the Stand-Alone Projects programme, this means that:

1. joint proposals will undergo a merit-based evaluation at the FWF (the lead agency) within just a few weeks from submission, which will accordingly speed up the decision of the NCN to award funding to the Polish part of the project;
2. where the joint proposal is submitted to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as the lead agency in the Stand-Alone Projects programme under the "FWF Urgent Funding for Research Into Humanitarian Crises like Epidemics and Pandemics" track, NCN proposals submitted under the CEUS-UNISONO call are exempt from the restrictions outlined in Chapter III § 10 of the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure, adopted pursuant to the NCN Council Resolution No 34/2020 of 2 April 2020;
3. in the case of projects submitted under other NCN calls, the restrictions specified in Chapter III § 8 of the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre under international calls carried out as multilateral collaboration pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure do not apply to proposals submitted under the CEUS-UNISONO call or projects to be funded under the CEUS-UNISONO call as long as the joint proposal submitted to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as the lead agency of the Stand-Alone Projects programme is devoted to crises like epidemics or pandemics covered by the fast-track merit-based evaluation ("FWF Urgent Funding for Research Into Humanitarian Crises like Epidemics and Pandemics");
4. funding is available for research projects on crises like epidemics or pandemics, to be carried out in cooperation between research teams from Austria and Poland (bilateral projects), as well as between Austria and Poland and the Czech Republic or Slovenia (trilateral projects);
5. in addition, funding can be awarded to projects devoted to crises like epidemics or pandemics, to be carried out in cooperation between research teams from Poland and Austria, with the participation of research teams from Germany or Switzerland or Luxembourg, which apply for funding of such research to their competent foreign research funding institutions, i.e. the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), or the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), within the framework of bilateral or multilateral programmes launched by the FWF in cooperation with these bodies pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure;
6. for projects that also involve research teams from Germany, Switzerland or Luxembourg:

• the role of these teams needs to be described in the NCN proposal submitted through the ZSUN/OSF system in the “Współpraca międzynarodowa” [“International cooperation"] section; it is necessary to specify the country (i.e. Germany or Switzerland or Luxembourg), as well as the name of the foreign research institution with which a given team is affiliated;
• the share of budgets planned by individual research teams in the total budget specified in the joint proposal must be proportional. Since only the FWF can act as the lead agency for such proposals, they are not subject to the principles governing the choice of lead agency, as laid down in section 1(7) of the NCN Resolution No 38/2020 of 8 April 2020 on the terms of the international CEUS-UNISONO call for research projects carried out as multilateral collaboration under the CEUS programme pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure. The comparative CEUS cost sheet does not need to be filled out for these projects.

In the CHIST-ERA Call 2020, to be published in the 2^nd semester of 2020, two new and emerging research topics are addressed, namely:

• Advanced Brain-Computer Interfaces for Novel Interactions ,
• Towards Sustainable ICT.

In preparation for the Call 2020, the national and regional research funding organisations of CHIST-ERA invite the researchers to participate in the definition of the call at the CHIST-ERA Conference 2020, which will take place in Bratislava (Slovakia) in the 2^nd half of 2020 (dates TBA).

This event creates an excellent opportunity for the scientific community to directly participate in scoping the call topics content and exchanging their views on the future of the domains with their peers.

Detailed information can be found in CHIS-ERA flyer, as well as on the CHIST-ERA website.

Contact :

National Science Centre, Poland

• Dr Anna Wieczorek, Coordinator for the Physical Sciences and Engineering
• Alicja Dyląg, International Cooperation Department

Due to the state of epidemic in Poland and the related restrictions, the National Science Centre requests that all correspondence be sent only by electronic means. Please note that the National Science Centre will not accept hard copies of correspondence concerning research projects, fellowships, scholarships and research activities sent as of 3 April until further notice. Additionally, as of 2 April 2020, the NCN building can only be accessed by its employees, couriers and post office workers.

As of 2 April 2020, any documents concerning funding agreements for research projects, post-doctoral fellowships, doctoral scholarships and research activities (“grant agreements”) should bear a qualified electronic signature of the competent persons and be delivered to the Electronic Delivery Box address of the National Science Centre: (/ncn/SkrytkaESP). This refers to the documents the NCN Beneficiaries must submit pursuant to the grant agreements as well as those they are authorised to submit. 

If the principal investigator is unable to sign the documents referred to above with a qualified electronic signature, the following solutions are allowed: 

1. if a document must be signed by the principal investigator only, a scan/photograph of the document signed by hand by the principal investigator can be sent to the NCN either to its Electronic Delivery Box address or to the mentor by e-mail; 

2. if a document must be signed by the principal investigator as well as the authorised representatives of the host institution for the grant agreement:

1. a scan of the document signed by hand by the principal investigator bearing a qualified electronic signature of the authorised representative of the host institution can be sent to the Electronic Delivery Box address of the National Science Centre only; or 
2. two files: scan/photograph of the document signed by hand by the principal investigator and the same document bearing a qualified electronic signature of the authorised representatives of the host institution, can be sent to the Electronic Delivery Box address of the National Science Centre only.

Once this communication is cancelled, the original documents signed by the principal investigators will have to be delivered to the National Science Centre pursuant to the provisions to date of which you will be informed in a separate message. 

The above rules apply to the grant agreements pursuant to which written documents (hard copies) must be delivered. The documents concerning grant agreements whose provisions require the documents to be sent in an electronic format must bear a qualified electronic signature of the competent persons and delivered to the Electronic Delivery Box address of the National Science Centre.

We apologise for the above changes and any inconveniences they may cause but they are necessary to reduce the risk of all those who draft and send the correspondence on your side as well as the couriers, postmen and NCN officers on the other. Therefore, please adhere strictly to this communication.

Please remember that the NCN encouraged you to fulfil your obligations under the grant agreements using electronic means as soon as 20 March 2020.

We are pleased to announce the EXPRESS CALL TO FUND RESEARCH ON COVID-19. The call is addressed at researchers who can expand knowledge on COVID-19 diagnostic procedures, treatment and prevention, and the psychological and social effects of the pandemic. The call budget is PLN 10,000,000.

See the Announcement

In order to ensure prompt joint action by researchers needed to understand the mechanisms of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, as well as to improve diagnostic tests, find drugs and mitigate the effects of the pandemic, we are launching an express call for proposals to fund research on COVID-19. Funding provided under the call will be designated primarily for basic research related to pathophysiology of the disease, including research that can contribute to the development of future therapeutic strategies or diagnostic methods for COVID-19, research on infection mechanisms, including ways of protecting healthcare workers, and research on the psychological and social effects of the pandemic and ways of reducing them (including health policy and organisation of medical care, ethics in research and patient care, social behaviour in the face of pandemics).

“Dealing with COVID-19 is the key challenge facing us today. This is why researchers around the world have taken efforts to understand the mechanisms of the virus, develop diagnostic tests and identify therapeutic measures to eradicate the disease. It is equally important to explore ways to mitigate the psychological and social effects of the pandemics, ones we are experiencing now and will face in the future. Knowing that work on COVID-19 is also carried out in Poland we have decided to launch an express call to fund such research”, says Professor Małgorzata Kossowska, the President of the NCN. “We are aware of the seriousness of the situation and time pressure which is why we are launching a call for proposals which is in many ways different from our other calls. It has very short submission and evaluation deadlines, specific group of researchers at which it is addressed and very flexible rules for spending the grant money. We believe that additional funding and relaxation of the rules will allow the teams of researchers working on the problem to intensify their work. We believe that Polish researchers can successfully engage in the fight against COVID-19, provide good medical solutions as well as psychological and social ones. We need them more than ever”, says Professor Kossowska.

The call is addressed at researchers with a documented research track record in the areas in question who are at least PhD holders and have acted or act as principal investigators in at least one research project funded under NCN calls for proposals (OPUS, SONATINA, SONATA, SONATA BIS, HARMONIA, MAESTRO, SYMFONIA, POLONEZ) and international bilateral or multilateral calls for proposals, or who have been winners of other prestigious national or international calls for proposals. Research projects can be planned for the period of up to 18 months. The results must be made available to the public as soon as they are available. 

Proposals completed pursuant to the data required in the form must be submitted electronically via the Electronic Platform of Public Administration Service (ePUAP). The submission deadline is 14 April 2020. The results will be announced in the first half of May.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increased joint effort by researchers is now needed to understand the mechanisms of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, improve diagnostic tests, find drugs and prevent the effects of the pandemic. In order to pursue the objectives laid down in the NCN Act, we have decided to launch an express call for proposals to fund research on COVID-19. The call is addressed at researchers who can expand knowledge on COVID-19, diagnostic procedures, treatment, prevention and the psychological and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The funds will be designated primarily for basic research related to:

1. pathophysiology of the disease, including research that can contribute to the development of future therapeutic strategies or diagnostic methods for COVID-19,
2. infection mechanisms, including ways of protecting healthcare workers, and 
3. psychological and social effects of the pandemic and ways of reducing them (including health policy and organisation of medical care, ethics in research and patient care, social behaviour in the face of pandemics).

The call will addressed at researchers with a documented research track record in the areas in question. Other researchers with the required experience and research infrastructure may also participate in research projects requiring an interdisciplinary approach, within the scope of cooperation or contracted work.

The results must be made available to the public as soon as they are available.

Terms of the call

1. Proposals may cover basic research related to the subject of the call specified in the call announcement.
2. The following entities may submit research funding proposals: universities, federations of science and HE entities; research institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, research institutes; international research institutes; institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network; centres of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and other entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis.
3. Research projects can be planned for the period of up to 18 months.
4. The person acting as the principal investigator in the proposal must meet all of the following criteria:

1. be at least a PhD holder,
2. be employed pursuant to an employment contract by the host institution acting as the applicant,
3. must have acted or act as principal investigator in at least one research project funded under the following NCN calls for proposals: OPUS, SONATINA, SONATA, SONATA BIS, HARMONIA, MAESTRO, SYMFONIA, POLONEZ and international bilateral or multilateral calls for proposals or be a winner of other prestigious national or international calls for proposals.

PLEASE NOTE: Acting as the principal investigator will not count towards the limit of research projects in connection with restrictions to apply in other NCN calls.

Submission of proposals

PLEASE NOTE: Proposals completed pursuant to the data required in the form must be submitted electronically via the Electronic Platform of Public Administration Service (ePUAP).

Detailed and final information on the call for proposals along with the documents will be made available on 30 March 2020.

Contact details:

Dr inż. Tomasz Szumełda, e-mail*: tomasz.szumelda@ncn.gov.pl

*Since we work from home at the moment, you can only contact us by email. 

We are pleased to announce the results of the call for Polish-Swiss research projects in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Life Sciences. Polish research teams cooperating with the Swiss researchers will receive over PLN 5,000,000 for research.

See the ranking list

The National Science Centre launched the ALPHORN call jointly with the Swiss National Science Foundation (“SNSF”). Five out of thirty proposals submitted in the call were recommended for funding. As much as PLN 5,011,062 was awarded for research to be carried out by the Polish research teams.

The ALPHORN call is addressed at Polish research teams that intend to carry out high-quality cutting-edge research jointly with their Swiss partners. The call was carried out pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure, with the SNSF acting as the Lead Agency (proposals were subject to merit-based evaluation conducted by the Swiss agency only). Proposals were submitted to the SNSF under the SNSF Project Funding Programme where projects from the Polish and Swiss research teams competed with other international projects submitted pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure. Under the ALPHORN call, the National Science Centre will fund research tasks carried out by the Polish research teams under the joint Polish-Swiss research project.

The highest amount of funding (over PLN 1,500,000) was awarded to a project to be carried out at the Warsaw University of Technology. Under the ALPHORN call, researchers could have planned their research to last 24 or 36 months and the principal investigator of the Polish project was required to be at least a PhD holder.

The ranking list is available here.

Contact details:

• Dr Aneta Pazik, Coordinator for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: aneta.pazik@ncn.gov.pl
• Dr Jadwiga Spyrka, Coordinator for Physical Sciences and Engineering: jadwiga.spyrka@ncn.gov.pl
• Dr Anna Wieczorek, Coordinator for Life Sciences: anna.wieczorek@ncn.gov.pl

In order to facilitate our Beneficiaries to perform their duties arising under grant agreements (agreements for funding of research projects, post-doctoral fellowships, doctoral scholarships and research activities), including agreements pursuant to which written documents (hard copies) must be delivered, final reports, annual reports, annexes and other correspondence arising under the powers of the grantees will be considered as duly submitted, provided that they bear a qualified electronic signature of the competent persons and are delivered to the Electronic Correspondence Register (/ncn/SktytkaESP) available in the ePUAP system.

The foregoing should be regarded as a right rather than obligation, hence the obligations performed as provided for in the grant agreements (i.e. annual or final reports submitted in writing) will be fully accepted by the National Science Centre.

Nevertheless, the electronic delivery of correspondence is widely encouraged. 

NCN director’s letter on the delivery of documents to the National Science Centre.

Please remember!

Submission dates for annual and final reports have been postponed

Consider rescheduling trips to foreign research centres funded under the calls launched by the National Science Centre

You can contact NCN officers by e-mail

The opening hours of the Correspondence Registration Office (Dziennik Podawczy) have been changed