Dr hab. Jakub Urbanik from the University of Warsaw will perform a project under Weave-UNISONO together with researchers from Germany and Austria. The Polish research team will receive a grant of nearly 150 thousand zlotys for their work on the documents from Roman Empire period.

Dr hab. Jakub Urbanik from the University of Warsaw in tandem with Prof. Rudolf Haensch from the German Archaeological Institute and Prof. Thomas Corsten from the University of Vienna will carry out a project focused on a complete edition of the imperial correspondence preserved as edicts and letters and collected by the Corpus of the Documents of the Roman Rule (Corpus der Urkunden der römischen Herrschaft, CURH). The documents will be available to a much wider public than before by completing each document with a translation, and a thorough historical, legal and philological commentary. The project will extend our knowledge of the history of Roman administration and emperor’s communication with his subjects. 

The proposal was evaluated by the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the evaluation results were approved by the National Science Centre and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Weave-UNISONO

The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any discipline of science.

The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for merit-based review and the others simply accept the result.

Under Weave, partner research teams apply in parallel to the lead agency and their relevant domestic institutions. Their joint proposal must include coherent research programmes and clearly spell out the added value of international cooperation.

The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to carefully read the call text and submit their funding proposals.

Dariusz Wieczorek, Minister of Science and Higher Education has created an Advisory Team to promote Polish science abroad. The Team includes Dr Marcin Liana, Deputy Director of the National Science Centre.

Dr Marcin Liana, photo by Łukasz Bera/NCN

Internationalisation of Polish science is one of NCN’s priorities. Our agency fosters various types of international collaboration to effectively support research projects carried out by Polish research teams in tandem with foreign partners. Together with the German Max Planck Society, the National Science Centre operates the DIOSCURI programme aimed to create Centres of Scientific Excellence in Poland. Furthermore, the NCN coordinates the CHANSE and QuantERA programmes carried out in collaboration with other European research funding agencies and operates the “Research” programme for basic research funded by the EEA and Norway Grants. The NCN is also an active member of Science Europe and Global Research Council that impact public science policies. 

Dr Marcin Liana has been the Deputy Director of the National Science Centre since 2018. Other Team members include Dr Marta Łazarowicz-Kowalik, Deputy President of the Board of the Foundation for Polish Science and Dr Zofia Sawicka, Deputy Director of the Polish National Academy for Academic Exchange (NAWA). The term of office of the Team members will start on 10 April and will last till the end of December 2026.

The call for proposals at the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) acting as lead agency ends on 17 April 2024, 14:00.

If a joint proposal is submitted to the FNR as the lead agency, an NCN proposal must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system as soon as possible following the submission of the joint proposal to the FNR, i.e., by 24 April 2024, 23:59 at the latest.

Once the work on the NCN proposal has started in the OSF submission system, the Polish research team has 45 calendar days to complete the proposal and submit it to the NCN. After that, the proposal can no longer be edited, in which case a Polish research team that has not sent its proposal to the NCN must prepare a new proposal and complete it in the OSF submission system.

You can now registrate to our workshops during the 2024 NCN Days in Bydgoszcz.

The 2024 NCN Days will be held on 15 and 16 May 2024 at the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology on the Fordon campus.

A number of workshops will be held for researchers, including PhD students, university administrative staff, open research data officers and students.

You can now register for:

• Workshop on Data Management Plans (DMP)
• Workshop for researchers: evaluation of proposals- Expert Team meeting at the NCN

Media support

The Swiss National Science Foundation has launched the MAPS (Multilateral Academic Projects) call for projects carried out by scientists based in Switzerland in collaboration with research teams from Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania. Proposals may be submitted by the end of June. Under the call, Polish research teams will receive funding from the Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme as part of the second Swiss contribution to selected EU member states.

Under the recently opened MAPS call, researchers may request funding of their basic research projects in all academic disciplines. Apart from a Swiss team (project leader), the international consortium comprising Polish researchers must include at least one partner from another participating country. A partner search tool is available.

The MAPS call is addressed to experienced researchers who, on the closing date for proposal submission, have been PhD holders for at least four years. Additionally, the Principal Investigator of the Polish component of the joint research project must be qualified to lead research teams. They will be evaluated by the Swiss agency (SNSF) based on the qualifications described in the proposal, such as experience in leading research projects or research teams, acting as the supervisor or the assistant supervisor in the process for an award of the doctoral degree, publishing record, etc.  

Polish institutions eligible to host international research projects under MAPS are listed in an Annex to the call documentation. The Principal Investigator must be employed by the host institution from the project start date to its end date pursuant to an employment contract. Such host institution must ensure that the research team will have access to the respected research facilities. The Swiss project leader must submit a declaration in the mySNF electronic submission system for the purposes of MAPS proposals, operated by the SNSF, signed by the authorised representative of the Polish host institution, confirming required involvement and support of such institution for the project, should it be recommended for funding.

The projects may have a duration of between 36 and 48 months and may involve researchers and auxiliary staff. Personnel cost eligibility criteria are laid down in an Annex to the call documentation. The project budget may also include funds for services, business trips, reciprocal visits and short research stays with consortium partners, purchase of research equipment, devices and software, as well as materials and small equipment. Other costs necessary to the research project implementation must be in line with the call announcement and eligible costs in SNSF projects.

The maximum amount of funding for each team in each country is 350,000 francs. The cost of the Polish part of the project will be financed entirely by the SNSF. The call is not financed by the NCN or any other Polish institution.

The Swiss project leader submits a proposal under the MAPS call by Monday, 1 July, via the mySNF electronic submission system operated by the SNSF. Polish applicants are not required to submit a separate proposal to the OSF submission system. The head of the Swiss research team must enter information on the merits and finances of the Polish part of the project to the mySNF submission system in agreement with the Polish partners. 

Evaluation procedure and project results 

Projects will be subject to a multi-stage merit-based evaluation. First, they will be reviewed by external reviewers and then evaluated by the Expert Team. Next, a ranking list of proposals will be compiled by the Funders Forum, based on the available funding in a budget of each participating country. Finally, an official decision will be taken by the Steering Committee of the MAPS Programme.

The call results will be published once the evaluation procedure is over, by the end of April 2025. Projects may start in May 2025 and must end by 30 June 2029. Polish applicants will enter into agreements with the Swiss institution identified in the joint proposal submitted to the SNSF, the Swiss PI and other consortium partners. The Swiss PI will be in charge of disbursing funds to the Polish applicants from the Swiss Host Institution’s account. 

Contact Details

Barbara Świątkowska

Should you have any questions on the submission of proposals in the mySNF submission system or SNSF project funding terms, please contact the Swiss project leader or SNSF International Cooperation Department.

The NCN is considering launching a mentoring initiative for participants of the MINIATURA call for proposals. Researchers willing to mentor their colleagues are strongly encouraged to complete our questionnaire. This will help us to establish how many researchers are interested in the initiative.

Mentoring will be available under MINIATURA from 2025 to ensures mentoring support in the development of future research projects submitted to NCN calls. The National Science Centre will compile a list of mentors including principal investigators of projects submitted to the NCN calls, such as MAESTRO, OPUS, SONATA BIS, SONATA, as well as winning applicants of ERC calls. 

The questionnaire with the link to a questionnaire for potential mentors, has been sent to the e-mail addresses of the winning applicants of our calls who have been entered into our database. We have received response from over 1600 people, of which over 1430 expressed their intention of becoming a mentor and nearly 140 are still considering that possibility.

In the next few days, researchers interested in becoming a mentor who have not yet participated in our questionnaire may still do so.

An active participation of more experienced researchers in the initiative may provide valuable assistance to researchers intending to apply for NCN funding of their own research projects.

Mentoring programme and link to the questionnaire 

Participates of the questionnaire are not automatically enrolled in the mentor database. Enrolment is voluntary.

We have launched a call for research components addressed to scientists who decide to return to Poland under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme.

Polish Returns NAWA (Polskie Powroty NAWA) is a programme of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). The aim of the programme is to allow the outstanding Polish scientists working abroad to return to Poland and conduct their research at Polish universities and research institutes. Junior and experienced scientists can request funding of their research and project teams established in Poland. More on the programme. 

By collaborating with the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, the National Science Centre provides funding for research components carried out by scientists who return to Poland under the Polish Returns NAWA programme. 

The NCN call is open to scientists whose projects have been recommended for funding under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme and include research components recommended by the NAWA Evaluation Team. Among the eleven winners of the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 call, there were nine such projects.

Research components can be carried out over the first eighteen months of the project performance. The maximum funding of one component is PLN 200,000.

The NCN Council has allocated PLN 2 million for research components to be completed under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme.

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system together with the final version of the proposal funded under the Polish Returns NAWA 2023 programme in PDF format. Proposals submitted to the NCN must include the same information as proposals submitted to NAWA and must comprise the budget recommendations of the Evaluation Team (if any).

Funding proposals for research components are only subject to NCN’s eligibility check following their merit-based evaluation performed by the NAWA.

Two researchers from the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University are among the new winners of the Weave-UNISONO call. Their projects, prepared in cooperation with partners from Germany and Austria, will receive a total of 2.15 million zlotys in funding.

Dr hab. Małgorzata Sandowicz from the University of Warsaw, together with a group of scientists from Germany and Austria, will work on a project entitled DigEanna, which aims to collect and organise documents from the archive of the Eanna Temple, an ancient centre of worship and an important Babylonian economic institution. Drawing on the recent advances in cuneiform methodology and digital humanities tools, the research team are planning to collect all the documents into a dossier and distinct collections. Making the documents available in digital format will allow us to expand our knowledge of bureaucratic, economic, social and cultural changes in the ancient Near East in the first millennium BCE. The project will be conducted in cooperation with research groups headed by Prof. Michael Jursa from the University of Vienna and Prof. Johannes Hackl from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Dr Renata Mężyk-Kopeć from the Jagiellonian University will work with Prof. Tobias Langenhan from the University of Leipzig on a project entitled Proteolytic processing of adhesion G protein-coupled receptors through proteases. The scientists want to study cell-to-cell communication, with a focus on the recently-distinguished aGPCRs (adhesion G protein-coupled receptors), which regulate a wide range of important processes, including cell migration, proliferation and differentiation. Disruptions in the function of these receptors underlie the development of nervous, immune and circulatory system disorders, as well as the development and progression of various types of cancer. The research team will investigate the process whereby NTF fragments of aGPCRs are released due to proteolysis by external proteases and study its effects. Depending on the results, the proteases studied in the project could emerge as new therapeutic targets in the treatment of diseases caused by impaired aGPCR activation.

The proposal submitted by Dr Renata Mężyk-Kopeć’s team was evaluated by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as the lead agency under LAP (Lead Agency Procedure), and later approved by the National Science Centre. The proposal submitted by Dr hab. Małgorzata Sandowicz was evaluated at the FWF (Austrian Science Fund), and approved by the NCN and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Weave-UNISONO

The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any discipline of science.

The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for merit-based review and the others simply accept the result.

Under Weave, partner research teams apply in parallel to the lead agency and their relevant domestic institutions. Their joint proposal must include coherent research programmes and clearly spell out the added value of international cooperation.

The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to carefully read the call text and submit their funding proposals.

On 15-16 May 2024, Bydgoszcz will host the 10th jubilee NCN Days, during which students, PhD candidates and scientists working at Polish institutions can learn about funding opportunities.

NCN Days are held once per year, always in a different academic town in Poland. The event consists of two full days of meetings, workshops, panels and lectures, providing scientists and research project administration professionals from all over the region with a rare opportunity to talk to NCN representatives in person and ask everything they want to know about the way in which research projects are funded, carried out and billed at the NCN. This year, the event will be hosted by the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology on the Fordon campus.

Bydgoszcz, fot. Ryszard Wszołek “We are going to Bydgoszcz to encourage researchers from the region to apply for research funding and to explain which call provides funding for which purposes. We can also help them prepare an efficient and correct grant proposal. We want to make sure that researchers from the region join our calls and acquire funding for their research more and more often,” says Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, NCN Director.

The opening session will feature presentations by three researchers from different universities in Bydgoszcz. Researchers with outstanding research achievements, representing Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), Physical Sciences and Engineering (NZ) and Life Sciences (ST), will talk about their careers and research.

“I am glad to know that the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology will be the venue for the academic community to discuss research development measures. We are honoured to host the tenth edition of the NCN Days in Bydgoszcz. The event is in line with many activities we have undertaken to strengthen the academic potential of our city and region,” says Prof. Marek Adamski, Rector of the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology.

On the first day, an open meeting with NCN Council members will be held, during which they will answer frequently asked questions on NCN calls and will dispel any doubts and queries. Participants will find out about research funded by the NCN, its call portfolio, points that should be focused on when preparing a proposal, researchers responsible for the evaluation of proposals and allocation of grant money, etc. The panel discussion „NCN grants: application, evaluation, implementation - is it worth it?” will be held with researchers from Bydgoszcz, during which participants will be allowed to ask questions. The first day will wrap up with a quiz about the National Science Centre, the winner of which will be invited to the NCN Award ceremony, which will take place in Krakow in October. Bydgoszcz, fot. Ryszard Wszołek

The NCN Days provide a great opportunity for researchers from the region to join our workshops and improve their skills in grant writing. Bydgoszcz will host NCN coordinators in charge of the proposal evaluation procedure who, inter alia, work directly with the experts at the panel meetings. On 16 May, a mock peer review workshop will be held, during which researchers will take on the role of experts evaluating proposals.

“At the workshop, we will use the authentic project documents submitted to the NCN whose authors allowed us to use them for training purposes. Participants will assume the role of experts, view well written proposals and learn about errors that should be avoided,” says Dr inż. Anna Koteja, NCN coordinator. “We know from experience that this is a unique opportunity to gain a new perspective on the proposal writing and evaluation,” she adds.

At the NCN Days in Bydgoszcz, a new interactive workshop on the Data Management Plan will be held, to teach participants how to efficiently plan, collect and share data in line with the best practice and standards of FAIR.

The agenda also included the usual workshop for research support professionals who work in research or administration departments. NCN professionals in charge of proposals explained the ins and outs of funding agreements, project implementation, annual and final reporting, project review, grant settlement, etc..

This year’s event will be hosted by the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology together with the Mayor of Bydgoszcz, Kazimierz Wielki University, the Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum (an extension of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń), the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music, the Kujawy and Pomorze University in Bydgoszcz, the University of Bydgoszcz, the University of Economy of Bydgoszcz, the College of Health Sciences in Bydgoszcz, the WSB Merito University, and the Rother’s Mills Centre for Science and Culture.

Free admission on the first day and prior registration (starting on 3 April) required for the workshops.

Kampus Politechniki Bydgoskiej, fot. PBŚ

Media patronage