Announcement of the OPUS 15 and PRELUDIUM 15 calls for proposals

The National Science Centre invites researchers to submit proposals under OPUS 15 and PRELUDIUM 15 calls launched on 15^th March. The former offers funding for  research projects, including purchase or construction of the necessary research equipment. The latter gives early stage pre-doctoral researchers an opportunity to make a debut as principal investigator in a research project. Researchers will compete for the total sum of over € 76.5 million in funding.

OPUS 15 is addressed to researchers at any stage of their career and  offers funding for personnel costs and the costs of research, such as the purchase of equipment, software, consumables, subcontracting/outsourcing, business trips and research visits necessary for the completion of research tasks. Young investigators employed in the OPUS research teams may be granted scholarships under the scheme.

The research projects under the OPUS programme may last 12, 24 or 36 months. There is no cap on funding; however, NCN reviewers assess if the project’s budget calculation is error-free and if the indicated costs are adequate to the tasks to be carried out in the project.

The total budget for the OPUS 15 call amounts to over € 69.5 million.

OPUS 15: call text

PRELUDIUM 15 is a funding opportunity dedicated to researchers embarking on a career in research who will not yet have earned a PhD by 15^th June 2018. The programme gives early stage researchers an opportunity to work independently as principal investigator in a research project that lasts one, two or three years. The maximum funding for a single project  is € 16,234, € 32,468 and € 48,702,  respectively. The PRELUDIUM research team may include up to three investigators, but individuals holding a habilitation degree or professorship may act only in the capacity of the principal investigator’s supervisor. The budget of the call’s 15^th edition amounts to nearly € 7 million.

PRELUDIUM 15: call text

The Council of the NCN has introduced a number of important modifications in the proposal templates.

Both the short description of the project, to be evaluated by members of the Expert Team at the first stage of merit-based evaluation, and the project abstract, will now be written in English, so that reviewers without a fluent command of the Polish language will be able to participate in the evaluation process from the very beginning, rather than join in only at the second stage, as it has been so far.

Because of the impending EU General Data Protection Regulation, new types of declarations of consent to having one’s personal data processed have been added to all proposals submitted to the NCN.

Proposals should be submitted solely in the electronic form no later than 15^th June 2018. The electronic proposal submission system ZSUN/OSF  for the OPUS 15 and PRELUDIUM 15 will be available at a later date.