Announcement of the PRELUDIUM 18 call for proposals

A person who is not a PhD holder on the proposal submission date may act as the principal investigator in a project submitted under the PRELUDIUM call. The subject of the proje4ct may, but does not have to, be connected with the subject of a PhD dissertation. One can act as a principal investigator under the PRELUDIUM call only once.

Proposals in the call may be submitted by any entity specified in the Act on the National Science Centre (NCN), namely:

1. universities;
2. federations of science and HE entities;
3. research institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, operating pursuant to the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 1475);
4. research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 736);
5. international research institutes established pursuant to separate Acts, operating in the Republic of Poland;

5a. Łukasiewicz Centre operating pursuant to the Act on the Łukasiewicz Research Network of 21 February 2019 (Journal of Laws, item 534);

5b. institutes operating within the Łukasiewicz Research Network;

6. Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences;
7. other entities involved in research independently on a continuous basis;
8. groups of entities (at least two entities mentioned in sections 1-7 or at least one institution as such together with at least one company);
9. scientific and industrial centres within the meaning of the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 736);
10. research centres of the Polish Academy of Sciences within the meaning of the Act on the Polish Academy of Sciences of 30 April 2010;
11. scientific libraries;
12. companies operating as R&D centres within the meaning of the Act on Certain Forms of Support for Innovative Activity of 30 May 2008 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 141);
13. legal entities established with registered office in Poland;
14. natural persons; and
15. companies conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13.

Restrictions on submitting proposals are detailed in Chapter III of the Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre as regards research projects.

Proposals may be submitted to the call covering basic research in any of 25 NCN panels comprising three groups:

• HS – Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences;
• NZ – Life Sciences; and
• ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering; and

Proposals are reviewed within the panels (e.g. HS1, ST1, NZ1). The principal investigator selects the panel. If an incorrect panel is selected, proposals may be rejected.

The subject of the project may, but does not have to, be connected with the subject of a PhD dissertation.

Under the call, funding may be requested for research projects to be carried out over the period of:

• 12 months,
• 24 months or
• 36 months.

The research team includes:

1. principal investigator,
2. mentor, and
3. optionally: co-investigator who is at least a PhD holder.

A proposal must include the description of qualifications and tasks of particular members of the research team whose relevance for the project will be reviewed by the expert team. The budget for remuneration is described, in detail, in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the NCN.

The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research and must be based on reasonable calculations.

The maximum funding cannot exceed:

1. PLN 70,000 for projects that will last 12 months;
2. PLN 140,000 for projects that will last 24 months;
3. PLN 210,000 for projects that will last 36 months.

The project budget includes direct costs and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

1. remuneration of up to PLN 1,500 per month for the research team, i.e. principal investigator and (optionally) co-investigator;
2. purchase or construction of research equipment, devices and software: the costs of research equipment, devices and software to be purchased or constructed cannot exceed 30% of the funds applied for in the research project;
3. purchase of materials and small equipment;
4. outsourced services;
5. business trips, visits and consultations;
6. compensation for collective investigators; and
7. other costs crucial to the project which comply with the Types of costs in research projects funded by the NCN.

A mentor cannot be a beneficiary of funding for the project submitted to the PRELUDIUM call in any form whatsoever.

PLEASE NOTE!

The costs of publication of monographs (as defined in §10 of the Regulation on evaluation of the quality of research activity issued by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 392)) resulting from research projects may only be incurred following a positive review by the NCN.

Indirect costs may be a maximum of 20% of direct costs. As of this edition of the call, the indirect costs shall be calculated on all direct costs, including research equipment, devices and software. During the project implementation, the host institution shall agree with the principal investigator the coverage of a minimum of 25% of the indirect costs.

If unjustified costs are planned, a proposal may be rejected.

Detailed information on costs in NCN-funded research projects  

Information to be provided the proposal:

PLEASE NOTE: The following information must be provided in English!

1. details of the principal investigator, including information on his/her academic and research career and research experience as well as 1-10 papers published in the proposal submission year and over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; for research in art, 1-10 most important papers published or artistic achievements and achievements in research in art in the proposal submission year and over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year;
2. details of the mentor, including information on his/her academic and research career and research experience as well as 1-10 papers published over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year; for research in art, 1-10 most important papers published or accepted for publication or artistic achievements and achievements in research in art in the proposal submission year and over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year;
3. basic information on the proposal and host institution for the project (also in Polish);
4. work plan (also in Polish);
5. information on the scope of work carried out by the co-investigators in the project;
6. summary of the project;
7. abstract for the general public (also in Polish);
8. short project description with bibliography (no more than 5 pages, A4);
9. full project description with bibliography (no more than 15 pages, A4);
10. information on ethical issues in the research planned;
11. data management plan (DMP) concerning data generated or used in the course of a research project; and
12. project budget.

PROPOSAL FORM

Proposals in the PRELUDIUM call include application for state aid, except where a natural person applies for funding. Detailed information can be found in the State aid section.

PLEASE NOTE! All documents concerning proposals for state aid shall be signed with a qualified electronic signature in the PAdES format.

Eligibility check shall be carried out by the coordinators. Only complete proposals that comply with all the requirements set out in the call announcement shall be accepted for merit-based evaluation.

Proposals approved in the eligibility check shall be subject to merit-based evaluation performed in two stages:

1. qualification check performed by the expert team appointed by the NCN, based on the data included in the proposal and annexes attached thereto, with the exception of the full project description.

   Each proposal is evaluated by two members of the expert team acting independently. Then, based on the discussions, a list of proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation is drafted by the expert team at the first meeting.

2. specialist evaluation of proposals recommended for the second stage of evaluation. Proposals are addressed to at least two external experts and evaluated thereby based on the data included in the proposal and annexes attached thereto, with the exception of the short project description.

Based on the individual reviews drafted by the external experts, a ranking list of proposals recommended for funding is drafted by the expert team at the second meeting.

Additional information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the Detailed procedure according to which proposals are evaluated by the expert teams.

The evaluation of proposals shall focus in particular on:

1. compliance with the criterion of basic research laid down in Article 2 (1) of the NCN Act;
2. quality of the project;
3. publication track record of the principal investigator and mentor;
4. feasibility of the project;
5. description of ethical issues in the proposal; and
6. relevance of the costs planned.

Detailed information on the proposal evaluation criteria

Merit-based evaluation of proposals is performed by the expert team. Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among outstanding Polish and foreign researchers who are at least PhD holders. Expert teams are established for each call edition. The composition of the expert team is subject to the number and subjects of proposals submitted to each panel. At the stage of specialist evaluation, proposals recommended for the second stage are evaluated by external reviewers selected by the coordinators from among the candidates recommended by the expert team.

The call results shall be announced on the NCN’s website and communicated to the applicants by way of a decision by the NCN Director within 6 months of the proposal submission deadline, by June 2020 at the latest.

Should you have any more queries, please contact us by e-mail: informacja@ncn.gov.pl or by phone: +48 12 341 90 00.

If you plan to submit a proposal in the PRELUDIUM 18 call:

1. read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:
   1. terms of the PRELUDIUM call;
   2. proposal form template, where you can find out about information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in ZSUN/OSF;
   3. Regulations on awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre;
   4. proposal submission procedure;
2. obtain data from the host institution for the project that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and project performance (cost planned in the project, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal);
3. when the proposal is submitted by a group of entities, draw up an Agreement on collaboration for the purposes of completion of the requested research project (in Polish only);
4. prepare acceptance letters from publishers confirming that the work has been accepted for publication (when the publication track record section includes research papers accepted for publication that have not been published yet); and
5. have the mentor sign the declaration (in Polish only) confirming that the project description has been read and consent to supervise the project.

Before the proposal is submitted to the NCN:

1. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. The verification of the proposal for completeness in ZSUN/OSF by pressing the Sprawdź kompletność [Check completeness] button does not guarantee that all information has been entered correctly and that the required annexes have been attached;
2. disable the final version of the proposal to NCN;
3. download and sign the confirmation of submitting the proposal in the call – the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the institution; and
4. attach the confirmation of submitting the proposal with a signature.

Once you have filled out the form and attached all the required files, the proposal should be electronically submitted to the National Science Centre via the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button.

Once the call for proposals has been closed:

1. evaluation of proposals shall be carried out;
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision by the NCN Director shall be delivered;
3. if the proposal is qualified for funding, a Funding Agreement (in Polish only) shall be entered into; and
4. the project will be carried out pursuant to the Funding Agreement and Regulations on the implementation of research projects, fellowships and scholarships.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements, the applicant may appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council. The appeal must be lodged within 14 days of the effective delivery of the decision.