Pursuant to NCN Council Resolution no 104/2020 of 30 September 2020, the submission of NCN proposals under the CEUS-UNISONO call will be closed on 31 December 2020, 4 p.m.

PLEASE NOTE: NCN proposals processed in the ZSUN/OSF system from 30 September 2020 inclusive, may include research projects to be carried out by the Polish research teams from 2020 onwards.  If the funding decision by the NCN Director is taken in 2021, the applicants may incur pre-financing costs from their own resources before the funding agreement is executed by the NCN, the applicant and the principal investigator. Such pre-financing costs shall be deemed eligible from the date the funding decision by the NCN Director becomes final until the date the research project is completed. 

Furthermore, from the commencement of the work on the NCN proposal in ZSUN/OSF, the Polish research team shall have 45 calendar days to complete the proposal and send it to the NCN, after which date the proposal shall be disabled for editing. In this case, if the Polish research team has not sent its proposal to the NCN, a new proposal must be drafted and completed in ZSUN/OSF (whereas, for such NCN proposals, the Polish research teams may plan their research projects in the ZSUN/OSF submission system starting from 2022).

Cooperation between NCN, FWF, GAČR and ARRS aimed at funding  bilateral and trilateral research projects in all research areas carried out jointly by research teams from Poland, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic will be continued in the framework of the lead agency procedure from the beginning of 2021 within the Weave initiative. More information on Weave:  Weave website and Weave pre-announcement.  

Today, 12 national research funding organisations, with the support of Science Europe, launch Weave, a cross-European initiative to fund and support excellent international research projects. It is the first time a large network of this scale has developed an initiative of this kind to enable bilateral and trilateral scientific cooperation in Europe.

Weave aims to simplify the submission and selection procedures of collaborative research proposals involving researchers from up to three European countries or regions with a single evaluation. It makes use of existing national or regional funding programmes, through which research projects will be financed. It seeks to make it easier for researchers to collaborate across borders. It also has ambitions to increase the capacity of researchers to freely determine the composition, focus and content of their projects.

Weave builds on the Lead Agency Procedure, through which a single funding organisation evaluates proposals put forward by an international team of researchers and communicates the funding recommendation to the other funders involved. In practice, the researchers choose a coordinating applicant, who submits the joint proposal to the respective Weave funding organisation in their country or region.

“We fully support the Weave initiative, and its effort to promote bilateral and trilateral scientific cooperation within Europe,” said Lidia Borrell-Damián, Science Europe Secretary General. “Innovative projects like Weave strongly contribute to strengthening international research collaboration and the realisation of the European Research Area.”

The Weave signatories have developed, with the support of Science Europe, an interactive online tool that researchers can use to determine the relevant funding opportunities for their projects.

As of 2021, the National Science Centre will continue to cooperate with the following partner institutions within the framework of WEAVE:

• Austrian Science Fund – Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) from Austria,
• Czech Science Foundation – Grantová agentura České Republiky (GAČR) from the Czech Republic,
• Slovenian Research Agency – Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije (ARRS) from Slovenia,
• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) from Switzerland, and
• German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) from Germany.

The NCN is intending to extend the cooperation in the nearest future to include other research funding institutions to participate in the WEAVE scheme.

At the NCN, the WEAVE call for NCN proposals covering all academic disciplines will be carried out in two separate calls, depending on the lead institution (a foreign partner institution or the NCN), i.e.:

• under the WEAVE-UNISONO call for NCN proposals, in the case of which joint proposals will be submitted to and evaluated by the foreign partner institutions acting as the lead agencies (in 2021: FWF, GAČR, ARRS, SNSF or DFG); more information on the terms of the call will be available on the NCN’s website on 4 January 2021;
• under the September edition of the OPUS call for NCN funding proposals for research projects carried out pursuant to the LAP cooperation and evaluated by the NCN as the lead agency.   

Contact:

• weave@ncn.gov.pl

The results of the POLS call, co-funded from the Norway Grants, are now in. Foreign researchers will receive more than 30.5 million PLN in funding for research projects to be carried out in Polish research centres.

POLS is a scheme designed to support researcher mobility, implemented in the form of small grants awarded to international researchers who wish to conduct their research in Poland. The arrival of both well-established and promising researchers with at least a PhD degree is expected to contribute to strengthening the research potential of Polish institutions. The grants (ranging from 100 to 200 thousand euro) can go towards the costs of research team salaries, equipment depreciation or purchase, materials and services, research trips and conferences, as well as other project-related expenses. The projects may take 12 or 24 months to complete. In justified cases, their duration can be extended, but they must all be completed before 30 April 2024.

The call attracted 99 proposals totalling more than 74 million PLN, 39 of which were recommended for funding: 21 in physical sciences and engineering (ST), 8 in life sciences (NZ) and 10 in the arts, humanities and social sciences (HS). In total, the winners will receive more than 30.5 million PLN, 85% of which will be funded from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 and 15% from domestic sources. The POLS call encompassed all disciplines of science, as specified in the list of NCN panels, with a special emphasis on polar research and social science studies. The final ranking lists of recommended projects feature three polar research proposals and ten social science projects.

The proposals were reviewed by international expert panels. Three panels were appointed, one for each group of sciences (HS, NZ, ST), and researchers from Poland and Norway were barred from the review process. Each project was evaluated by three experts. The final list of successful projects was approved by the “Basic Research” Programme Committee, while the funding decision was issued by the NCN Director.

“The Programme Committee appreciated the high quality of the proposals and considers the call a success, despite initial fears that it might be difficult to attract excellent international researchers to Polish research centres. At least ten more projects fully deserved to receive funding but, unfortunately, our budget proved insufficient”, says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, NCN Director.

The results of the POLS call

POLS is one of three calls funded under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 within the framework of the “Research” programme, in which the NCN serves as the operator responsible for basic research, with an allocation of 40% of its budget of more than 129 million euro. The “Research” programme is designed to support Polish science by, for instance, giving it an international dimension, boosting the effectiveness of EU and ERC applications, and intensifying cooperation between science, business and society.

We also wish to announce that the decisions concerning submitted proposals, both those accepted and those rejected, will be dispatched today in electronic form to the address of the Electronic Inbox (ESP ePUAP) provided in the application from. Should you fail to receive your decision, please verify that the ESP address you provided is correct. If not, contact the person in charge of your proposal, as listed in the ZSUN/OSF system.

We have just announced the second edition of the SHENG call for Polish-Chinese research projects and the fifth SONATINA call for research projects carried out by researchers at the outset of their research career. The total budget of the two calls equals 45 million PLN. 

SHENG is the first call in the NCN portfolio to be organized thanks to international cooperation that goes beyond Europe. First launched in 2018, it has attracted great interest among researchers. In response to the great demand for funding for Polish-Chinese projects, the National Science Centre has joined hands with the National Natural Science Foundation of China to resume the call this year. SHENG 2 is targeted at basic research projects carried out by Polish-Chinese research teams in one of the four basic disciplines: materials science and engineering, chemical sciences, health sciences, or life sciences. The principal investigator on the Polish side must hold a PhD degree and the projects should take 36 months to complete. The total budget of the Polish part of the project must be at least 250 thousand PLN. A total of 25 million PLN is up for grabs for Polish proposals submitted under the SHENG 2 call.

SONATINA 5 is targeted at applicants who were awarded a PhD up to three years before the year in which the proposal is submitted or expect to earn it by the end of June 2021. The purpose of the call is to support young researchers in their career, enabling them to find full-time employment, conduct research at Polish research centres and gain experience through fellowships at renowned foreign research institutions. Projects should take either 24 or 36 months to complete, while foreign fellowships should last anywhere from 3 to 6 months. As part of the grant, the principal investigator should be hired full-time, based on an employment contract, by an entity other than that which awarded the PhD degree. The budget of this year’s edition of SONATINA is 20 million PLN.

The proposals will undergo a formal eligibility check and a merit-based review by Expert Teams composed of outstanding Polish and foreign researchers. The final verdict will be based, e.g. on research quality and the innovative nature of the project.

The deadline for submission in both calls is 4 pm on 15 March 20221. Proposals should be submitted electronically via the ZSUN/OSF system, available at https://osf.opi.org.pl, in accordance with the proposal submission procedure. The results of both calls will be announced in the autumn of 2021.

As of today, the composition of the NCN Council has changed. Twelve professors have been newly appointed as members and will sit on the Council from 15 December 2020 until 14 December 2024. They include eight new professors and four previous NCN Council members.

Council members 2020-2022:

1. Prof. dr hab. Krystyna Bartol
2. Prof. dr hab. Wojciech Dajczak
3. Prof. dr hab. Stefan Dziembowski
4. Dr hab. inż. Krzysztof Fic
5. Prof. dr hab. n. med. Jakub Fichna
6. Dr hab. Joanna Golińska-Pilarek
7. Prof. dr hab. Robert Hasterok
8. Prof. dr hab. inż. Monika Kaczmarek
9. Prof. dr hab. Grzegorz Karch
10. Prof. dr hab. inż. Barbara Klajnert-Maculewicz
11. Prof. dr hab. Jacek Kuźnicki
12. Prof. dr hab. Jerzy Łuczka
13. Prof. zw. hab. Dariusz Markowski
14. Prof. dr hab. Piotr Migoń
15. Dr hab. Justyna Olko
16. Prof. dr hab. Bronisław Rudak
17. Prof. dr hab. inż. Marek Samoć
18. Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Sobczak
19. Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Szapiro
20. Prof. dr hab. n. med. Anetta Undas
21. Prof. dr hab. inż. Aneta Wojdyło
22. Dr. hab. Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz
23. Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Zaleśkiewicz
24. Prof. dr hab. inż. Teresa Zielińska

The Council of the National Science Centre consists of twenty-four eminent researchers representing various disciplines, appointed by the minister responsible for science from among the candidates nominated by the Identification Team. The duties of the Council include, e.g. laying out the priority basic research areas, specifying the conditions of NCN calls, as well as establishing the amount of funding slated for research within individual disciplines or groups of disciplines. The Council sits for a term of four years, but half of its members are changed every two years.

The first session of the new NCN Council, with the attendance of Przemysław Czarnek, Minister of Education and Science, is scheduled for 21 December 2020.

We are pleased to inform you that the CHANSE (Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe) consortium will soon announce a call for international research projects: Transformations: social and cultural dynamics in the digital age. The programme has been co-created by the HERA and NORFACE networks and will be implemented by 27 research funding organisations from 24 countries, coordinated by the National Science Centre, Poland (NCN). The total call budget amounts to EUR 36 M and includes over EUR 26 M of national allocations complemented by up to 10 million in co-funding from the European Commission.

Information about the call:

Full call topic description is available here. From mid-January 2021 onwards, all information will shift to the CHANSE website: www.chanse.org. 

Project team: Composed of at least four Principal Investigators, i.e. partners, eligible to receive funding from the CHANSE funders from four or more different countries participating in the call

Project duration: 24-36 months

Recommended cap on funding for one international project: 1 500 000 EUR

Indicative timeline:

• Official call announcement and launch of the submission system: March 2021
• Deadline for outline proposals: May 7^th, 2021, 14.00 CEST
• Deadline for full proposals (for invited applicants): December 7^th, 2021, 14.00 CET
• Call results: May/June 2022
• Earliest funded project start: September/October 2022

Countries participating in the call:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom

PARTNER SEARCH TOOL:

In order to facilitate the process of forming research consortia, we offer applicants a partner search tool available here: https://ncn.gov.pl/partners/chanse/. This tool can be used by projects looking for partners and partners looking for projects.      

In mid-January 2021 the full list of national contact points will be published on the CHANSE website and then they will be available for questions about national eligibility requirements.

For general questions please contact:

Dr Malwina Gębalska, CHANSE programme coordinator

Michał Kaczmarek, CHANSE Coordination Office

chanse@ncn.gov.pl

National Science Center, Poland

We are pleased to inform you that a new CHANSE (Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe) programme supporting research in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences will be launched at the beginning of 2021. It will be implemented by 27 research funding institutions from 24 European countries and coordinated by the NCN. The CHANSE consortium has acquired a co-funding of EUR 10 million from the Horizon 2020 EU Framework Programme. The main goal of the CHANSE programme is to announce a call for international research projects: Transformations: Social and cultural dynamics in the digital age. The total call budget amounts to 36 million euro and includes ca. EUR 26 M of national allocation complemented by the co-funding from the European Commission. The call will be pre-announced at the beginning of 2021 and the first information about the call topic will soon be published on the NCN website.

The CHANSE program has been co-created by the HERA and NORFACE networks  supporting research in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences, respectively. The CHANSE's goal is to finance high-quality international research projects and inspire collaboration between researchers and various stakeholder groups, such as: NGOs, cultural institutions, legislators, policy makers, schools, etc.

Contact:

Malwina Gębalska, malwina.gebalska@ncn.gov.pl

Michał Kaczmarek, michal.kaczmarek@ncn.gov.pl

We are pleased to announce that a member of the NCN Council, Dr hab. Justyna Olko from the Faculty of Artes Liberales of Warsaw University, has just won a prestigious Consolidator Grant awarded by the European Research Council (ERC). The researcher was selected in the field of humanities and social sciences to carry out a project entitled “Multilingual worlds – neglected histories. Uncovering their emergence, continuity and loss in past and present societies”.

This is the second time that Dr hab. Justyna Olko has won an ERC grant; back in 2012, she went away with the first ever Starting Grant to be awarded to a Polish humanities scholar. She is also the winner of two NCN calls, OPUS 1 and OPUS 15, and since 2018, she has sat on the Council of the National Science Centre. Dr hab. Olko combines research with social involvement in promoting multilingualism, language revival and helping ethnic minorities regain their subjectivity.

The grant’s winners also include two other Polish researchers. Dr Sebastian Glatt from the Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology at the Jagiellonian University (MCB UJ) won funding in the life sciences section for a project entitled “Deciphering the role of RNA modifications during ribosomal decoding and protein synthesis”, while Dr hab. inż. Piotr Faliszewski from the Krakow University of Technology will carry out a project devoted to the “Pragmatics of multiwinner voting: algorithms and preference data analysis” in physical sciences and engineering. Dr Glatt has previously won two NCN calls, conducting his projects within the framework of HARMONIA 3 and OPUS 11.

This year’s list of Consolidator Grant winners includes 327 researchers, who were awarded a total of 655 million euro in funding. Since 2008, the ERC has been awarding grants for pioneering research conducted in the European Union and associated countries. The call is targeted at researchers who earned their PhD between 7 and 12 years ago and can already boast an impressive research record, such as publications in major international journals, presentations at renowned, international conferences, as well as secured patents or other distinctions.

Hearty congratulations to all winners!

The EU Joint Programme - Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) will shortly launch a new multinational call for proposals for "Linking pre-diagnosis disturbances of physiological systems to Neurodegenerative Diseases“.

The call for proposals is currently planned to be launched in January 2021. The expected date for submitting pre-proposals is March 2021.

Please find more information at the JPND website.

Please note that this pre-announcement is for information purposes only. It does not create any obligation for the JPND network, nor for any of the participating funding organisations. The official call announcement, to be published later, shall prevail.

Contact:

Dr Małgorzata Zawiślak, malgorzata.zawislak@ncn.gov.pl

Alicja Dyląg, alicja.dylag@ncn.gov.pl, tel. +48 532 086 494

120 researchers from all over the world will relocate to Poland under a continuation of the POLONEZ programme. The National Science Centre will launch three consecutive calls in 2021 and 2022.

Successful candidates will move to Poland for 24 months to conduct basic research projects at Polish institutions. They will be free to choose the research topic and a future employer. In addition to a full-time salary, covered mostly by EU funds, POLONEZ BIS will offer scientists up to 100 000 euro to carry out their research projects and employ a project team. The programme will be complemented  by a cross-sectoral secondment phase and an attractive training package.

The first POLONEZ BIS call will open in September 2021. To learn more, visit our webpage , follow our LinkedIn profile and meet the Fellows recruited in the past calls.