SHENG 2 call announcement

NCN proposals may be submitted by any entity specified in the NCN Act, i.e.:

1. Higher Education entities,
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 2019, item 1183, as amended),
4. research institutes operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1350),
5. international research institutes established pursuant to separate Acts operating in the Republic of Poland,

5a. the 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 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1350),
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 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1183, as amended),
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 2019, item 1402),
13. legal entities established with their registered office in Poland,
14. natural persons, and
15. companies conducting research in another organisational form than laid down in sections 1-13.

The Principal Investigator for the Polish research team must be a person who holds at least a PhD degree when submitting the proposal and manages the work of the Polish research team.

The publication list of the principal investigator (drafted according to the attached template) should include a maximum of 10 of the most relevant papers published or accepted for publication (with letters of acceptance from publishers) in the proposal submission year or over the period of 10 years prior to the proposal submission year (starting from 2010). The 10-year publication period may be extended in the eventualities laid down in the Resolution on the terms of and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks to be carried out by the Polish research teams, funded by the NCN under the SHENG 2 Polish-Chinese Funding Initiative (Point 6 (6) (5) (5)).

PLEASE NOTE: Principal investigators must reside in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration period. This period includes business trips necessary for the project, in particular involving fieldwork, participation in conferences and/or library and archive research.

The principal investigator must be a person employed by the host institution for the Polish part of the research project under an employment contract on at least a half-time basis for the duration of the entire project. Furthermore, a person named as the principal investigator in an NCN proposal submitted to SHENG 2 cannot be the authorised representative of the host institution for the project.

Yes, there are. Restrictions on submitting NCN proposals are detailed in Point V of NCN Council Resolution No 136/2020 of 11 December 2020 on the terms of and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks to be carried out by the Polish research teams, funded by the NCN under the SHENG 2 Polish-Chinese Funding Initiative.

The NCN panels are divided as follows:

• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS),
• Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST) and
• Life Sciences (NZ).

Proposals submitted under SHENG 2 must cover basic research in one of the following panels: HS6 (HS6_001-HS6_007, HS6_013-HS6_014), ST4, ST5, ST8 or NZ1-NZ9.  

Research projects may be planned for a period of 36 months.

The joint project description (JPD) and CVs with the publication lists of principal investigators and co-investigators drafted jointly by the Polish and Chinese research teams must be in English.

Information in the JPD and CVs with the publication lists of the principal investigators and co-investigators must be consistent with the information in the appropriate sections of the NCN proposal submitted to the ZSUN/OSF system and annexes thereto.

There is a strict limit of 30 pages for the JPD (page size: A4, font: Arial, font size: 11 or 12, line spacing: 1.15, left-right margins: 2.5 cm, top-bottom margins 1.5 cm). Files with JPDs exceeding the 30-page limit will be rejected by the ZSUN/OSF system. 

Please upload the CVs with the publication lists for the principal investigators and co-investigators (with their names provided) of the Polish and foreign research teams in English according to the template provided in the call announcement (3 pages max. per person; CVs with the publication lists do not count towards the limit of 30 pages for a JPD). CVs should include details on their academic and research career, research project management (if applicable), research experience at home and abroad (if applicable) and the most important prizes and awards (if applicable).

Each principal investigator and co-investigator (whose name is provided) should attach a list of a maximum of 10 publications published over the period of 10 years prior to the submission of the proposal. Older publications can be cited only if the Polish principal investigator or member of the Polish research team has taken significant career breaks within the last 10 years, as laid down in the Resolution.

In the case of papers that have been accepted for publication but not yet published, the principal investigator and members of the Polish research team are required to attach letters of acceptance from publishers confirming that the papers have been accepted for publication or provide their DOI in the publication list. If these conditions are not fulfilled, the respective publication will not be considered in the review process.

CVs with publication lists must be provided for those Polish research team members only who are not selected in an open call procedure and hold at least a PhD degree. Names of persons to be selected in an open call procedure, including persons to be employed as post-docs from the NCN budget, must not be provided in the NCN proposal or joint project description (JPD).

Creating a project budget is one of the most important aspects in project planning, which aims at identifying the required resources and estimating the costs. The project budget must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research, based on realistic calculations and must specify the expenditures to be covered by the NCN (eligible costs).

The proposal may be rejected if an unreasonable budget is planned and/or discrepancies occur between the costs of projects to be carried out by Polish research teams in the NCN proposal and the JPD.

The budget of the Polish part of the project throughout its performance must be at least 250,000 PLN. There is no maximum limit for funding but the costs must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research. Detailed information on the costs of research projects funded by the NCN under SHENG 2 can be found in Annex 2 to the Resolution.

Eligible costs are subdivided into direct and indirect costs.

Direct costs include:

• salary:

• full time remuneration: funds for full-time employment of the principal investigator or post-doc(s),
• additional remuneration for members of the research team,
• salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students,

• purchase or manufacture of research equipment, devices and software,
• other direct costs, including

• purchase of materials and small instruments,
• outsourced services,
• business trips, visits and consultations (PLEASE NOTE: The costs of consultations and visits by Chinese partners who are at the same time receiving project funding from the NSFC are ineligible),
• compensation for collective investigators, and
• other costs crucial to the project that fall under none of the previous categories and comply with the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under SHENG 2, such as:

1. costs of purchasing data/databases or access thereto,
2. specialist publications, teaching aids,
3. costs of publishing the results of research. The cost of publication of monographs may be incurred once positively reviewed by the NCN.

Costs of promotion of the project and project result may be planned in the project.

Indirect costs may not exceed 20% of direct costs. In addition, indirect costs of up to 2% of direct costs may be spent on Open Access to publications and research data.

When developing the budget, it is necessary to comply with the regulations concerning the project costs for remuneration and scholarships specified in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under SHENG 2. The rules for awarding NCN scholarships are laid down in the Regulations on awarding scholarships.

When developing the budget, it is necessary to consider the following:

1. NCN proposals must specify the budget for tasks to be performed by the Polish team together with justification of individual cost categories; a JPD – for the tasks to be performed by the Polish and Chinese research teams together with justification of individual cost categories;
2. the budget in the NCN proposal must be specified in PLN; in the JPD – in EUR;
3. the budget planned for the Polish team in the JPD must be consistent with the budget in the NCN proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system. The justification of costs planned for the Polish research team in the NCN proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system must be consistent with the justification of the costs in the JPD (the justification may be copied from the NCN proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system and pasted to the appropriate section of the JPD);
4. the budget of the Polish part of the project in the JPD must be calculated according to the exchange rate published by the National Bank of Poland on the date of the NCN Council Resolution on the terms of and regulations on awarding funding for research tasks to be carried out by the Polish research teams, funded by the NCN under the SHENG 2 Polish-Chinese Funding Initiative, where 1 EUR = 4,4385 PLN (exchange rate published by the National Bank of Poland on 11 December 2020);
5. the minimum funding for the Polish part of the project throughout its performance: 250,000 PLN; and
6. the maximum funding: not specified (the costs must be justified as regards the subject and scope of research).

The proposal may be rejected if an unreasonable budget is planned.

PLEASE NOTE:

• If the costs planned for Polish research teams in the JPD are not justified in detail, the proposal may be rejected at the stage of eligibility check; the merit-based evaluation of proposals submitted to SHENG 2 is carried out on the basis of the joint project description (JPD) and includes (inter alia) evaluation of the justification of the costs planned for the Polish part of the research project as regards the subject and scope of the research, hence the justification of the costs planned for the Polish research team in the JPD must be comprehensive, detailed and consistent with the justification of the costs in the ZSUN/OSF system. It is not enough to provide the justifications in the budget completed in the ZSUN/OSF system only as the budget presented in the ZSUN/OSF system is not subject to merit-based evaluation performed by the experts. If the costs are not justified in the JPD, the proposal may be rejected.

• In the case of discrepancies between the costs planned for Polish research teams in the NCN proposal and the JPD, the proposal may be rejected at the stage of eligibility check.
• Pursuant to an Order by the NCN Director, the Open Access Policy at the NCN has been adopted, concerning open access to publications resulting from research projects, scholarships and fellowships as well as research activities funded or co-funded by the National Science Centre.
• The costs of publication of monographs (as defined in §10 of the Regulation on evaluation of the quality of research activities issued by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on 22 February 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 392) resulting from research projects are not eligible until positively reviewed by the NCN. The NCN evaluation procedure of monographs is laid down in Order No 56/2020 by the NCN Director, amending Order No 48/2020 on the evaluation of monographs in research projects funded by the NCN of 1 July 2020.

Together with other European cOAlition S agencies, the National Science Centre has drafted its Open Access Policy. In accordance with its vision of open access to research results and publications, the NCN requires that all research results should be made available in full and immediate open access. In accordance with the principles of Plan S, the National Science Centre recognizes the following publication routes as compliant with its open access policy:

• publication in open access journals and on open access platforms registered, or with pending registration, in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ);
• publication in subscription journals (hybrid journals), as long as the Version of Record (VoR) or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is published, by the author or publisher, in an open repository immediately upon the article’s online publication;
• publication in journals covered by an open access licence within the framework of so-called transformative agreements, inscribed in the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges registry (ESAC-registry).

More information on Open Access can be found here.

The terms of the call do not specify a minimum or maximum number of research team members. However, the rationale of involvement of co-investigators in the project is subject to evaluation by the expert team. The project must include the description of competencies and tasks to be performed by individual members of the expert team.

Please remember that:

• NCN scholarship recipients or persons employed as post-docs in the project must be selected in an open call;

• persons to be selected in an open call procedure, including persons to be employed as post-docs and remunerated from the NCN budget, must not be named in NCN proposals, JPDs or CVs with the publication lists;
• a person to be employed as a post-doc must meet the terms laid down in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under SHENG 2.

Yes. However, if an applicant is a natural person, the host institution for the project must not be a group of entities or entity for which project funding constitutes state aid.

More information on state aid in research projects funded by the National Science Centre can be found in the State aid section.

If a project is carried out in an entity for which project funding constitutes state aid, funds for students and PhD students may only be planned as “remuneration for students and PhD students” specified in the Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under SHENG 2 (Point 2 (1) (3) (c)).

PLEASE NOTE: All documents related to the application for state aid must bear a qualified electronic signature in the PAdES format.

A funding proposal for a joint research project must be submitted to the NCN and the NSFC by the Polish and Chinese research teams respectively. Under SHENG 2, proposals are submitted to two electronic submission systems: ZSUN/OSF (Zintegrowany System Usług dla Nauki /Obsługa Strumieni Finansowania) in the case of NCN proposals submitted to the NCN and the NSFC system in the case of proposals submitted to the Chinese agency.

• NCN proposals must be submitted electronically via the ZSUN/OSF submission system available at www.osf.opi.org.pl by 15 March 2021, 4 p.m. CET.
• Chinese applicants must submit a set of documents required by the NSFC via its electronic submission system available at http://isisn.nsfc.gov.cn/egrantweb/ by 15 March 2020, 4 p.m. CST.
• A joint Polish-Chinese research project funding proposal attached to the NCN proposal in ZSUN/OSF must be the same as the one submitted to the NSFC.

PLEASE NOTE:

Information in the NCN proposal must be consistent with information in the JPD and CV with the publication list. If any discrepancies are found, the proposal may also be rejected at the stage of eligibility check.

In SHENG 2, proposals are subject to a parallel eligibility check and merit-based evaluation performed by the NCN and the NSFC, which means that each agency performs a separate eligibility check and merit-based evaluation. Proposals submitted to the NSFC are evaluated pursuant to the rules applicable at the NSFC, whilst proposals submitted to the NCN are evaluated pursuant to the rules applicable at the NCN. Funding is awarded to proposals recommended for funding by both the NCN and the NSFC. 

ELIGIBILITY CHECK

Eligibility check of NCN proposals is performed by the coordinators and comprises:

1. verification of the proposal’s completeness;
2. verification whether the proposal meets all the eligibility criteria set forth in the resolution and call announcement;
3. verification whether the expenditures outlined in the NCN proposal and joint project description (JPD), as regards the Polish part of the research project, conform to the principles set forth in the Annex on the Types of costs in research projects funded by the NCN under SHENG 2;
4. verification whether the data in the joint project description (JPD) complies with information in the NCN proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system.

A proposal may also be rejected as ineligible at a later stage of evaluation. 

MERIT-BASED EVALUATION

Only complete proposals that comply with all the requirements of the Resolution and call announcement and are approved as eligible by both the NCN and the NSFC are accepted for merit-based evaluation.

Merit-based evaluation at the NSFC is performed in two stages according to the rules of the NSFC:

1. qualification carried out by the Expert Team established by the NCN. Information in the NCN proposal and annexes thereto are evaluated. Each NCN proposal is evaluated independently by two members of the Expert Team.

PLEASE NOTE!

In the case of a proposal which is assigned an auxiliary NCN Review Panel specifying disciplines covered by NCN review panels other than the one to which the proposal was submitted, the chair of the Expert Team may decide to seek a second opinion from a member of another Expert Team.

During the first meeting, following a discussion, a list of proposals recommended for the second stage of merit-based evaluation is compiled. Then, the proposals are subject to:

2. specialist evaluation. The proposals are sent to at least two external reviewers who perform their reviews on the basis of information in the NCN proposal and annexes thereto.

On the basis of the reviews performed by the external reviewers, the Expert Team compiles a list of proposals recommended for funding during the second meeting. 

The list of proposals recommended for funding by the NCN Expert Teams is the basis for the final ranking list compiled pursuant to comparison of the results of merit-based evaluation performed by the NCN and the NSFC. Funding in SHENG 2 is awarded to projects recommended by both the NCN and the NSFC.

Once the final ranking list is compiled based on the comparison of the results of merit-based evaluation performed by the NCN and the NSFC, information on the results of merit-based evaluation in SHENG 2 will be made available in the ZSUN/OSF system and communicated to the applicants electronically by way of a decision of the NCN Director.

Additional information on the proposal evaluation procedure at the NCN can be found in the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by the expert teams under SHENG 2.

In the course of merit-based evaluation of proposals, the following criteria are reviewed in particular:

1. compliance with the criteria of basic research, as defined in Article 2 (1) of the NCN Act;
2. scientific level of research or tasks to be performed;
3. innovative nature of the research problem addressed;
4. impact of the research project on the advancement of the academic discipline;
5. scientific achievements of the principal investigators and members of the Polish and Chinese research teams, including publications in renowned academic press/ journals;
6. evaluation of other projects carried out by the principal investigators and members of the Polish and Chinese research teams and funded by the NCN and/or from other sources;
7. evaluation of feasibility of the project’s completion;
8. justification of the costs as regards the subject and scope of research;
9. whether or not international cooperation is complementary and legitimate for the research project; and
10. development of the proposal and fulfilment of other requirements of the call announcement.

The proposal is evaluated pursuant to the proposal evaluation criteria applicable to SHENG 2.

PLEASE NOTE:

Proposals with a zero score or “no” decision agreed by the Expert Team in any reviewed criterion may not be recommended for funding. This does not apply to the data management evaluation criteria or evaluation criteria of ethics issues in research or evaluation of justification of the costs as regards the subject or scope of research applicable to the Chinese research teams.

Proposals are evaluated by the Expert Team. Experts are selected by the NCN Council from among eminent 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. Proposals may also be evaluated by inter-panel teams (HS, ST or NZ) or one team composed of representatives of all research domains.

The call results will be announced on the NCN’s website and communicated to the applicants by way of a decision of the NCN Director by the end of November 2021.

Should you have any questions or queries, please contact the NCN officers listed below. Since we are currently working online, please contact us by e-mail. You can also contact us by phone between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.

General affairs:

Magdalena Dobrzańska-Bzowska,

email: Magdalena.Dobrzanska-Bzowska@ncn.gov.pl

Magdalena Krzystyniak 

e-mail: Magdalena.Krzystyniak@ncn.gov.pl

tel.:+48 880 527 551

Dr Magdalena Godowska  

e-mail: Magdalena.Godowska@ncn.gov.pl

tel.:+48 668 385 353

Coordinator for Physical Sciences and Engineering  

Dr Marta Buchalska

e-mail: marta.buchalska@ncn.gov.pl

tel. 728 357 387

Coordinator for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences:

Dr Katarzyna Jarecka-Stępień

e-mail: katarzyna.jarecka-stepien@ncn.gov.pl

tel. 508 567 182

Coordinator for Life Sciences:

Dr Mateusz Sobczyk

email: mateusz.sobczyk@ncn.gov.pl

tel. 532 085 234

Contact at the NSFC:

Dr Li Wencong

email: liwc@nsfc.gov.cn

tel.: 86 10 62327014

Read our Call schedule and List of international programmes for 2021 and follow us on our website: https://www.ncn.gov.pl/.

If you are intending to submit a proposal to the SHENG 2 Funding Initiative:

1. read all call documents included in the call announcement, in particular:

1. Council Resolution No 136/2020 on the terms and regulations for awarding funding for research tasks funded by the National Science Centre under the SHENG 2 Polish-Chinese Funding Initiative;
2. Types of costs in research projects funded by the National Science Centre under SHENG 2; PLEASE NOTE! The cost of open access to publications may only be incurred as indirect costs. The cost of open access planned as direct costs will be regarded as a formal error. 
3. Joint project description and CVs with the publication lists;
4. NCN proposal form template, where you can find out about the information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in the ZSUN/OSF system;

2. find out about the proposal submission procedure; 
3. obtain data from the host institution 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);
4. draw up and compile:

• a joint project description (JPD) in English and CVs with the publication lists of the principal investigators and co-investigators at the Polish and Chinese research teams,
• when the proposal is submitted by a group of Polish entities, a Research project cooperation agreement, and
• letters of acceptance from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section of the Polish principal investigator and/or member of the Polish research team includes papers accepted for publication but not published yet).

Before an NCN proposal is submitted to the NCN:

1. check if all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Verification of the proposal for completeness in the ZSUN/OSF submission system 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 editing of the final version of the proposal to the NCN;
3. download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the principal investigator and authorised representative(s) of the institution; and
4. upload the signed confirmation of proposal submission.

Once the proposal is completed and all required annexes are attached, use the Wyślij do NCN [Send to the NCN] button to submit the NCN proposal to the NCN electronically via ZSUN/OSF by 15 March 2021, 16:00 CET.

Upon the end of the call for proposals:

1. evaluation of proposals will be carried out by the NCN and the NSFC,
2. after the end of merit-based evaluation, a funding decision by the NCN Director (awarding or refusing funds) will be communicated to the applicant,
3. if the proposal qualifies for funding, a funding agreement will be entered into, and
4. the project will be carried out pursuant to the funding agreement.

In the event of a breach of the call procedure or other formal infringements related to actions performed by the NCN, the applicant may lodge an appeal against the decision of the NCN Director with the Committee of Appeals of the NCN Council within 14 days of the date the decision is effectively served.