Sixty-nine researchers joined the ranks of the winners of the tenth edition of NCN’s small grant initiative. Their research will include studies on novel drug delivery systems for antifungal therapy, the architectural accessibility of historic buildings for people with special needs, and the mechanical properties of aluminium alloys. The current results apply to proposals submitted in April.
MINIATURA is addressed to researchers with a PhD degree, who may apply for funding of their research activities. This small grant scheme is designed to help them take their first steps in the grant system and serve as the basis for developing their research ideas that may evolve into full-scale research projects in the future.
MINIATURA is open to researchers with a PhD awarded between 1 January 2014 and the proposal submission date, whose scientific achievements includes at least one paper published or accepted for publication or at least one artistic achievement or achievement in research in art, and who are employed by Polish research institutions under an employment contract. They must not have been awarded an NCN grant to date.
Research activities may have a form of preliminary studies, library or archive searchers or research visits carried out over a period of up to 12 months, with a budget ranging from PLN 5 and 50 thousand. The project budget must include all research activity-related costs and mentor involvement. More on NCN mentoring initiative.
A MINIATURA grant may be awarded only once.
Successful applicants’ projects
Proposals submitted to the MINIATURA call are evaluated on a rolling basis and published monthly. Successful applicants on today’s list were selected among 175 proposals submitted to NCN in April. Funding will be awarded to 69 research activities with a total value of nearly PLN 2.7 million. Most of them are preliminary studies selected by 61 researchers, 15 researchers will go on research visits and 7 chose to conduct library and archive studies. 11 research activities combine multiple forms.
Dr Arkadiusz Kozłowski from the University of Gdańsk is among the successful applicants in Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences. He will pursue preliminary studies on the use of non-probability sampling and machine learning methods to estimate finite population parameters in surveys. Dr inż. Elżbieta Grodzka from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology will analyse architectural accessibility of historic buildings for people with special needs on the example of selected departments of architecture in Poland, and Dr Arkadiusz Pietluch from the University of Rzeszów will perform a mixed-method study on the relationship between the well-being of academic language teacher educators and pre-service language teachers.
Recommended research activities in Physical Sciences and Engineering include a project by Dr inż. Adam Zwoliński from the Lublin University of Technology, who will perform studies in material engineering, aimed at assessing the influence of layer deposition direction and sequence on anisotropy of mechanical properties in wire laser metal deposition technology for aluminium alloy. Dr inż. Tomasz Feliks from the Opole University of Technology will analyse and validate the minimum‑variance predictive control, using generalised inverses and extended prediction horizon to improve the control robustness of real-life industrial systems, and Dr inż. Agnieszka Szuster-Janiaczyk from the Poznań University of Technology will study the influence of plastic particles in water intended for human consumption on its biological stability performing an analysis using cascade filtration.
The winning applicants in Life Sciences include Dr Katarzyna Olechno from the Medical University of Białystok, who will work on a formulation containing luliconazole, an active substance used in the treatment of superficial fungal skin infections. Her research will focus on the development of mucoadhesive biopolymeric buccal films. She will investigate the effect of genipin crosslinking on the pharmaceutical properties of the developed films. Another grant will go to Dr Roland Wesołowski from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, whose research will focus on Blastocystis spp., intestinal protozoa associated with diarrheal disease in humans. He will investigate how the shedding dynamics of these organisms and their molecular heterogeneity influence their detectability. Dr Weronika Galus from the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice will assess choroid plexus volume and its association with peripheral blood immunological markers in patients with multiple sclerosis.
The subjects of research activities recommended for funding under MINIATURA 10 are available on the ranking lists.
MINIATURA 10 Ranking List No 3 in .pdf
Funding per group:
- Humanities, Social Sciences and Art Sciences (HS): 20 research activities with a total value of PLN 624,939
- Physical Sciences and Engineering (ST): 24 research activities with a total value of PLN 894,744
- Life Sciences (NZ): 25 research activities with a total value of PLN 1,171,324.
A total funding of PLN 2,691,007 was awarded to 69 research activities.
The last month of the call for proposals
These are the final days of the MINIATURA 10 call for proposals. Proposals can be submitted via the OSF submission system by the end of July. The results for proposals submitted in July will be published at the end of the year.