Announcement of the UWERTURA 4 call

Proposals in the call may be submitted by the following entities specified in Article 7 (1) (1), Article 7 (1) (2), and Article (7) (1) (4)-(6) (b) of the Act on Higher Education and Science of 20 July 2018 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 1668, as amended):

1. Higher Education entity,
2. federation 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 institute operating pursuant to the Act on Research Institutes of 30 April 2010 (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 736);
5. international research institute established pursuant to other acts and acting in the Republic of Poland,

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

Eligible fellowship candidates must:

1. have at least a PhD degree,  
2. be employed by an applicant pursuant to an employment contract,
3. have at least one paper published or accepted for publishing;
4. have acted or act as the principal investigator in research projects funded under domestic or international calls or be a recipient of a prestigious scholarship; acting as a principal investigator also means managing/ coordinating the work of a research group in international research projects or programs and
5. not be an ERC grantee.

The above conditions must be met on the end date of the call for proposals, i.e. 17 September 2019.

Scientific achievements should cover the period of the last 10 years prior to the proposal submission year (as of 2009). In specific cases, the period can be extended (§ 4 (5) of the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call).

Yes. Pursuant to the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call, a person may receive funding for his/her fellowship under the UWERTURA call only once.

Proposals may be submitted to the call covering basic research in any of 25 NCN panels within the core areas: HS – Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; ST – Physical Sciences and Engineering; NZ – Life Sciences. 

Please note that new amended NCN panels applicable to the calls have been in place since 14 December 2018.

In the call, a fellowship may be planned for a period of 1 – 6 months. The fellowship may be divided provided that it is completed within 24 months of singing the funding agreement for the fellowship.

Fellowship can be planned according to the list of countries laid down in Annex 1 to the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call.

Fellowship cannot be held in Poland.

Funds may be obtained in the call to cover :

1. flat-rate funds of PLN 15,000 per month, multiplied by the percentage correction rate set for a given country, according to the values set forth in Annex 1 to the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call, to cover the costs of a fellowship candidate staying at a foreign research institution hosting the fellowship ;
2. flat-rate funds of PLN 1,000 to PLN 10,000, depending on the distance between the place of residence and the foreign research institution hosting the fellowship, according to the rates set in Annex 2 to the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call, to cover the cost of return travel to and from the foreign research institution hosting the fellowship.

No. State aid cannot be applied for under the UWERTURA call. Detailed information can be found in the State aid section.

Proposals are subject to an eligibility check and merit based-evaluation.

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

Merit-based evaluations shall be performed in two stages.

At the first stage, proposals shall undergo a preliminary evaluation based on the data included in the proposal, annexes thereto and project description. The preliminary evaluation shall consist in:

• individual reviews drafted by two members of the expert team acting independently and
• expert team’s verdict at the first meeting consisting in discussing the individual reviews.

After the discussion on all proposals, a ranking long list of proposals approved for the second stage of evaluation shall be drafted.

At the second stage, proposals shall undergo evaluation consisting in:

• expert team’s verdict pursuant to an interview with the fellowship candidate held by the experts,
• expert team’s verdict at the second meeting consisting in discussing the results of the interview.  

After the discussion on all proposals, a ranking short list of proposals recommended for funding shall be drafted.

An interview with the fellowship candidate shall be held at the second stage of merit-based evaluation in English, at the registered office of the NCN in January/ February 2020.

Additional information on the proposal evaluation procedure can be found in the Detailed procedure of evaluating proposals by expert teams.

PLEASE NOTE! The description of a research project to be carried out, information on the ERC grantee and foreign research institution as well as reasons for choosing the ERC grantee must be drawn up in English only.

In the evaluation of proposals, the following criteria shall be reviewed in particular:

1. whether or not the criterion of basic research has been met,
2. research achievements of the fellowship candidate,
3. quality of research to be performed under the research project as regards the likelihood of receiving funding under an ERC call,
4. appropriate choice of the ERC grantee and the foreign host institution hosting the fellowship,
5. additionally, development of the proposal and fulfilment of other requirements of the call announcement are evaluated.

Proposals shall be evaluated by inter-panel teams (consisting of experts from respective panels, i.e. HZ, ST or NZ).

Experts shall be selected by the NCN Council among eminent Polish and foreign researchers who are at least PhD holders, including former NCN grantees, considering their research achievements and experience in evaluating research projects under the ERC calls and experience in carrying out research projects funded on a competitive basis in Poland and abroad. Expert teams shall be established for each call edition. The composition of the expert team shall be subject to the number and subjects of proposals submitted to each panel.

The evaluation of proposals shall be laid down in the Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call. Proposals shall be evaluated pursuant to the Criteria for evaluating proposals submitted under the UWERTURA call.

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 date, by March 2020 at the latest.

The fellowship candidate undertakes to complete the fellowship and apply for an ERC grant within 24 months of signing the funding agreement. If the applicant fails to adhere to the foregoing obligations, he/she will have to reimburse the total amount of allocated funds.

For more information on the call, read the Information for applicants on the NCN's website.

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

Read our Call Schedule and Schedule of International Programs for 2019 and to follow news on our website: https://www.ncn.gov.pl/

If you are intending to submit a proposal to the UWERTURA 4 call:

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

1. Resolution on the terms of the UWERTURA call,
2. specimen proposal form, where you can find out about information and annexes needed to complete the electronic proposal form in ZSUN/OSF,

2. find out about the proposal submission procedure,
3. decide how long the project is to be: 1 – 6 months,
4. obtain data from the applicant that is required to complete the proposal and find out about the internal procedures that may affect the proposal and fellowship (cost planned in the fellowship, procedure for acquiring signature(s) of authorised representative(s) of the institution to confirm submission of the proposal),
5. draw up, in English:
   1. description of a research project to be carried out in a Polish institution, in which the fellowship candidate shall act as a principal investigator for the project submitted under an ERC call, specifying the type of the call and including the concept and plan of research: description of a research problem, general research plan, research implementation method as well as methods, techniques and research tools to be used;
   2. information on the ERC grantee and foreign research institution planned as the host institution for the fellowship and written consent for the fellowship by the ERC grantee and representative of the research institution hosting the ERC grant,
   3.  reasons for choosing the ERC grantee hosting the fellowship, including information on research carried out by the grantee and potential use of knowledge and skills acquired during the fellowship in the proposal submitted under an ERC call,
6. acquire and prepare letters of acceptance from publishers confirming that the paper has been accepted for publication (when the scientific achievements section includes papers accepted for publication but not published yet).

Before submitting an NCN proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system:

1. make sure that all information in and annexes to the proposal are correct. Please note that the Sprawdź kompletność [Check completeness] in ZSUN/OSF provides information that all sections of the proposal have been completed. It does not, however, guarantee that all information entered is correct and/or required annexes have been attached;
2. generate the final version of the NCN proposal;
3. download the confirmation of proposal submission to be signed by the fellowship candidate and authorised representative(s) of the host institution and
4. upload the signed confirmation of proposal submission in ZSUN/OSF.

Once the proposal is completed and all required annexes are attached, use the Wyślij do NCN [Send to NCN] button to submit the proposal to the NCN electronically via ZSUN/OSF.

Upon the end of the call for proposals:

1. evaluation of proposals shall be carried out,
2. after each stage of evaluation, the funding decision of the NCN Director shall be announced,
3. if the proposal is qualified for funding, a funding agreement for the fellowship shall be entered into by 31 October 2020 and
4. the project shall 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 shall be lodged within 14 days of the effective delivery of the decision.