This is the sixteenth time that the National Science Centre (NCN) has opened a new call for proposals within the OPUS and PRELUDIUM funding schemes, and the fourteenth time within the SONATA scheme. A total of PLN 480 million is available in all national calls. In addition, BEETHOVEN CLASSIC 3 and a new program, BEETHOVEN LIFE 1, are launched in cooperation with the German Research Foundation. International schemes offer grants up to a total amount of PLN 50 million. Altogether, applicants in the recently announced calls will vie for a record total of PLN 530 million.

Following the success of the previous two editions of the BEETHOVEN call, a new edition is launched this year under a new name, but with the same conditions. BEETHOVEN CLASSIC 3 is targeted at Polish-German research projects in arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as the selected disciplines in physical sciences and engineering. The call’s budget, organised in cooperation with the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), amounts to PLN 30 million.

A new addition to the call portfolio, BEETHOVEN LIFE is designed as a supplement to BEETHOVEN CLASSIC, and is aimed at scholars involved in life sciences. For the Centre, it will be the first call conducted on the basis of the Lead Agency Procedure, and the DFG will play the role of the lead agency in the first edition. The German agency will have the sole responsibility for scientific assessment, while the National Science Centre will accept national proposals for the funding of the Polish part of research projects in question. A total of PLN 20 million is available within the BEETHOVEN LIFE call.

“We are happy that our cooperation with the German Research Foundation has now been expanded to include a call in the life sciences. This rounds out our offer for researchers cooperating with the German side”, says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, Director of the National Science Centre, “Our office will have a chance to test the Lead Agency Procedure in practice and see whether it facilitates and expedites the assessment of submissions in calls organised in cooperation with foreign partners. In the future, we would like to implement the same system in all such calls.”

Apart from international funding opportunities, the National Science Centre also announced its flagship national calls: OPUS, PRELUDIUM and SONATA. The budgets of all three calls have been substantially increased in this edition with PLN 350 million to be distributed in OPUS 16, 40 million in PRELUDIUM 16, and PLN 90 million in SONATA 14.

“OPUS, PRELUDIUM and SONATA are the most popular calls in the National Science Centre offer. The quality of submitted proposals gets better and better every year and it is not unusual for good projects to be rejected because of insufficient funds, which is why it has been so important for us to increase the budget and thus give many more valuable projects an opportunity to get off the ground”, says Professor Janusz Janeczek, Chairman of the Council of the National Science Centre.

The OPUS 16 funding scheme is open to all researchers, irrespective of their academic level. Within the framework of the project, they may receive funds to hire a research team to work on a given subject matter, as well as purchase or construct the research equipment necessary for the project. Young researchers are also eligible for special fellowships.

PRELUDIUM 16 is dedicated to researchers at the outset of their academic career, who do not yet have the title of doctor. Doctoral students may conduct an independent research project for one, two or three years, not necessarily connected to the subject of their doctoral thesis. The maximum funding for a single project equals, respectively, PLN 70,000, 140,000, or 210,000.

Last, but not least, SONATA 14 is addressed to scholars who earned their doctoral degree between 2011 and 2016 and aims to support them in conducting innovative research with the use of state-of-the-art equipment and original methodology. This edition has done away with the obligatory interviews with principal investigators at the second stage of the assessment process.

Effective as of the new calls announced in September, the Council of the National Science Centre has introduced important changes into the job funding requirements within NCN’s calls. An additional condition has been formulated for post-doc applicants. They must not have had an employment contract with the entity where the research project is to be conducted within 2 years prior to their post-doc.

“The change is designed to create the conditions for increased researcher mobility, both on the national and international scale. The opportunity to cooperate with scholars representing other experiences and work cultures benefits the entire research team and improves the quality of the research project”, says Professor Janeczek.

Proposals should be submitted by means of the ZSUN/OSF system (https://osf.opi.org.pl) until 17 December 2018.

• OPUS 16 call for proposals for research projects, including purchase or construction of research equipment necessary for their completion
• PRELUDIUM 16 call for proposals for research projects conducted by researchers at the beginning of their career in research, who do not hold a doctorate degree.
• SONATA 14 call for proposals for research projects carried out by researchers who have been awarded a doctorate within 2 to 7 years before submitting the proposal
• BEETHOVEN CLASSIC 3 for Polish-German research projects within humanities, social sciences, chemistry, physics, mathematics and material sciences. 
• BEETHOVEN LIFE 1 for Polish-German research projects within life sciences.

QuantERA Consortium is pleased to announce that the 2^nd Call for Proposals in the field of Quantum Technologies will be launched at the end of November 2018.

Thematic scope of the Call will include the topics of:

• Quantum communication
• Quantum simulation
• Quantum computation
• Quantum information sciences
• Quantum metrology sensing and imaging

The 2^nd QuantERA Call will be open for consortia composed of researchers from at least three QuantERA Partner countries, participating in the Call (the list of the countries to be confirmed): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey.

Please note that this announcement is for information purposes only. It does not create any obligation for the QuantERA consortium nor for any of the participating funding organisations. The official Call Announcement, to be published later, shall prevail.

The BiodivERsA consortium has a new international funding opportunity for researchers in Life Sciences. The launch of the call “Biodiversity and its influence on animal, human and plant health” is scheduled for October 2018, with the deadline for submission of pre-proposals in November 2018. Funding of the projects selected in the call will start in late 2019.

For more information, please refer to : http://www.biodiversa.org/1481

Contact:

• dr Anna Wiktor, e-mail: anna.wiktor@ncn.gov.pl, tel: 12 341 9166
• Joanna Komperda, e-mail: joanna.komperda@ncn.gov.pl, tel: 12 341 9138

Advanced researchers, researchers collaborating internationally and researchers who have been awarded a doctorate within five to twelve years before submitting the proposal may apply for the three funding opportunities open at the NCN. The deadline is 17 September 2018. See the detailed submission instructions of MAESTRO 10, HARMONIA 10 and SONATA BIS 8.

We are pleased to inform you that one of the most prestigious scientific magazines in the world – “Cell” – has published an article written by a team of Polish scientists from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (IBB PAN). This is the second publication in its history to have a Polish mailing address in the magazine, the first having been published in 1990.

The first author of the publication and originator of the research project was Dr Zbigniew Warkocki. The other members of the team were Dr Paweł Krawczyk, Dorota Adamska, Krystian Bijata and Jose L. Garcia-Perez and the project was supervised by Prof. Andrzej Dziembowski.

The article published in “Cell”, entitled Uridylation by TUT4/7 Restricts Retrotransposition of Human LINE-1s, concerns the mechanisms of defence against the so-called jumping genes (retrotransposons) which were described for the first time by the Polish researchers. The retrotransposons are DNA fragments that constitute characteristic parasites in cells, they are completely useless, and even harmful. Earlier descriptions involved the manner of inhibition by a cell of DNA fragment activity, which leads to the multiplication of harmful retrotransposons, whereas, at present, the Polish scientists have explained how a cell may defend itself against these genetic parasites during a further stage, when a retrotransposon has already activated.

The research conducted by the team lead by Prof. Dziembowski was, to a great extent, financed by the National Science Centre within the FUGA 1 grant, during which Dr Warkocki came from Germany for an placement in IBB PAN. The research was also financed from the two grants received by Prof. Andrzej Dziembowski: the ERC Starting Grant and the TEAM grant by the Foundation for Polish Science TEAM. Prof. Dziembowski is also a grantee of the National Science Centre and a 2013 NCN prize-winner.

Article in "Cell"

The names have been published of the early awardees in the second edition of the MINIATURA call, a funding opportunity supporting activities instrumental in basic research.

In the MINIATURA 2 call, unlike in other calls operated by the National Science Centre, submissions are accepted on a continuous basis and the review process has been trimmed down to 4 months. In the first round, 30 research proposals have been awarded funding. Subsequent ranking lists will be published systematically by the end of April 2019.

The MINIATURA scheme is addressed to researchers with a doctorate received within 12 years of submitting the proposal, who have not acted as principal investigators to NCN-funded research projects, nor have been laureates of the NCN doctoral scholarship and post-doctoral fellowship programmes. Prospective entrants to the call must also secure a research position with a contract of employment in the research institution acting as applicant.

Grants under the MINIATURA 2 call may be worth c. €1,160 to €11,600, and the time of their implementation may not exceed 12 months. The list of research efforts eligible for funding in the call is limited to such activities as preliminary studies, pilot studies, library and archive searches, fellowships, conferences, research travels and consultations.

The first edition of MINIATURA, announced and concluded in 2017, saw a record-high response from researchers. Thanks to MINIATURA 1 as many as 828 applicants received funding worth nearly € 7 million in total.

To see lists of the research activities approved for funding under the MINIATURA 2 call, click here (in Polish only).

Today we learned the results of the second edition of the UWERTURA call proposals, in which entrants competed for fellowships in international research teams carrying out ERC grants. The National Science Centre has received proposals from 21 researchers, of whom 8 will be awarded the total sum of €156,000.

UWERTURA’s aim is to help Polish researchers successfully apply for European resources, and to increase their share among the recipients of ERC (European Research Council) grants. Those eligible were scholars with a doctorate or higher level of academic qualification, who have carried out an NCN-funded research project as principal investigator. The laureates, awarded the status of fellows, will join research teams abroad in their work on ERC-funded projects and within 18 months of returning to Poland, the visiting researchers will prepare and submit a research proposal to ERC themselves.

The essence of UWERTURA is the opportunity it offers to work alongside excellent researchers, winners of ERC grants. The applicants themselves choose the teams they want to join should their fellowship application prove successful. We are positive that working with international research teams will be for them a springboard to success later on, when they seek to secure grants from the European Research Council, said Professor Zbigniew Błocki, director of the NCN. As a matter of fact, we have already had our first success in this regard, as the laureate of the UWERTURA 1 call, Dr Tomasz Żuradzki of Jagiellonian University was among those awarded with ERC Starting Grants. Dr Żuradzki works on a new interpretation of the ethical disputes over contemporary advances in medicine.

In UWERTURA’s second edition, 21 researchers applied for fellowships, while 8 of them will go abroad to carry out research. For 3 to 6 months they will collaborate with eminent European scholars from the best centres. Dr Michał Tomza of the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw will be a fellow at the University of Innsbruck, working with Professor Francesca Ferlaino. He will investigate new dimensions in ultracold complex quantum molecular systems. Dr Błażej Nikiel-Wroczyński, of the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University (UJ) will conduct low frequency studies of atypical, poor galaxy systems. To that end, he will use the International LOFAR Telescope and the LoTSS Survey. The fellowship will be hosted by the University of Leiden, under the supervision of Professor Hubertus Röttgerin. Dr Piotr Micek of the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Technologies, UJ, focuses his research interests on the structure theory for posets. To study the subject he will go on a fellowship to Berlin’s Technical University, to work in the research team led by Professor Stephan Kreutzer. Dr inż. Błażej Scheibe of the NanoBioMedical Centre, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM) will also go to Berlin. At the Humboldt University he will investigate Van der Waals heterostructures and nanocomposites based on MXenes and hexagonal layered 2D nanomaterials. The principal investigator of the fellow’s host team is Dr. rer. nat. Michael J. Bojdys. Another laureate in the same field of physical sciences and engineering is Dr Łukasz Pawlik of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, the University of Silesia in Katowice. In his project WINDIMPACT, Dr Pawlik will carry out research into extreme windstorms affecting European forests under climate change and their long-term impacts on bio-geomorphic and paedogenic systems. His fellowship will take him to the University of Reading in the UK. He will join a research team led by Professor Sandy P. Harrison.

The only laureate of the UWERTURA 2 representing life sciences is Dr Michał Bogdziewicz of the Faculty of Biology, UAM. His hosts will be the team of Professor Josep Peñuelas at the Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB in Spain. His project entitled EXPMAST envisages experimental tests of mechanisms driving variability in the reproduction of trees. In the field of arts, humanities and social sciences, fellowships have been awarded to Dr Michał Marciak and Professor Dariusz Jemielniak. The former works at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Technology, University of Rzeszów, and he carries out interdisciplinary research on the cultural, economic, military and political aspects of the presence of the Imperium Romanum in Mesopotamia. He will continue his work with Professor Caroline Warzeggers at the University of Leiden. Professor Jemielniak of Kozminski University will be a fellow at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where in the team of Professor Samer Hassan he will examine online communities and knowledge-legitimation systems such as alterscience, citizen science and open collaboration.

To see the list of the projects approved for funding, click here.

The results of the SONATINA 2 call for researchers in the early stages of their research career are in. Awardees have received the total sum of more than € 7 million for their research projects and international fellowships.

SONATINA is aimed at researchers who have held their doctorate for no longer than 3 years. In the call’s second edition 154 proposals have been submitted, of which 45 have been approved for funding. The budget distributed among the winners exceeds € 7 million. The grants provide for full-time employment of the laureates by research institutions, implementation of their research projects and 3-6 month fellowships at research centres abroad.

SONATINA is an opportunity for those who have received their doctorate relatively recently and thus, on the one hand, need a steady position at a research institution, and on the other, need experience, for which international collaboration is a welcome environment, said Professor Zbigniew Błocki, director of the NCN. When their projects are over, they will be able to apply for funding under SONATA, a call aimed at more experienced PhDs, or SONATA BIS, which comes with the opportunity to launch a new research team.

The largest share of proposals received in the SONATINA 2 call has been submitted to the arts, humanities and social sciences panels. Out of the 59 projects, funding of more than € 1.85 million was granted to 14. Scholars representing physical sciences and engineering have submitted 55 projects, of which 18, worth in total c. € 2.78 million were approved for funding. In life sciences, researchers proposed 40 projects, with funding of nearly € 2.44 million granted to 13 of them.

To see lists of the projects approved for funding under the SONATINA 2 call, click here.

A Polish research team, headed by Professor Jan Marcin Węsławski from the Institute of Oceanology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot, has made the list of winners of the BiodivScen call for international research projects focused on biodiversity and ecosystems. The call was organised by the BiodivERsA consortium, the umbrella for the National Science Centre, and the Belmont Forum network.

Within the framework of the successful ACCESS project, Polish researchers, alongside partners from Denmark, Norway, Canada and the US, will study the deglaciation of the Arctic coastline.

Entitled Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the call drew 143 submissions. 21 research projects were selected to receive funding of over 28 million Euro.

The results of the sixth edition of the ETIUDA call are in. Successful doctoral students will receive a total of ca. PLN 15 million in research scholarships. Out of the 355 young researchers who vied for funding, 147 were selected.

ETIUDA is a grant call offered by the National Science Centre, targeted at researchers who are still taking their first steps in academia. Within the framework of the programme, selected doctoral students receive regular research scholarships of PLN 4,500 per month. They also get the opportunity to complete an internship at a foreign research centre of their choice. To cover their expenses abroad, they are paid a further PLN 9,000 every month.

"Ever since its inception, the National Science Centre has aimed to increase researcher mobility as one of its priorities", says Professor Zbigniew Błocki, the director of the NCN, "Exchanging experiences and transferring knowledge are the only effective ways to help Polish researchers play a greater role in the international arena. The sooner they start cooperating with other research centres, the greater the chance they stand to build large and diverse research teams in the future. The ETIUDA call has already proven its worth in activating the young generation of researchers".

Doctoral students can choose to complete their foreign internship during the grant period, or within a year after its end. They also commit themselves to obtaining their doctorate no sooner than 6 months from the beginning of receiving the scholarship and no later than a year after the last scholarship payment.  

Representatives of different academic disciplines vied for grants available within the ETIUDA 6 call. The largest number of submissions, as many as 152, came from the physical sciences and engineering; out of these, experts chose 64 projects to recommend for funding of nearly PLN 6.5 million. 108 applications were submitted in the arts, humanities and social sciences; 44 received scholarships of PLN 4.3 million in total. Last but not least, 39 out of 95 submissions in life sciences will soon be funded with a total of PLN 4.1 million.

ETIUDA 6 ranking list (in Polish only)