New edition of OPUS 17 and PRELUDIUM 17 calls and the National Science Centre launches its collaboration with Austria, i.e. MOZART

We are announcing calls for basic research projects under OPUS 17 and PRELUDIUM 17 under a refreshed formula and a new international call MOZART, carried out in co-operation with the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). There is a total of PLN 335.5 million to win.

All scientists, regardless of the stage of their scientific careers, may participate in the OPUS call to fund research projects. As concerns the PRELUDIUM call, it is a chance for persons who do not have a doctoral degree yet to win a grant, while MOZART offers the possibility of obtaining funds for Polish-Austrian research projects by partnership teams from both countries.

OPUS 17 is a call addressed to a broad circle of recipients under which it will offer financial remuneration for a research team, scholarships for students or doctoral students, purchase or manufacture of equipment and other costs related to expenditures necessary for carrying out a research project. A Principal Investigator may be a person whose scientific achievements include at least one paper that has been published or accepted for printing, or one artistic achievement or artistic and scientific achievement. Projects carried out under the OPUS 17 call may last 12, 24 or 36 months, and the amount to be allocated stands at PLN 300 million.

PRELUDIUM 17 is a call addressed to researchers who have no doctoral degree and under which as much as 30% of the research project’s value may be obtained for equipment purchase. Funding amounts that may be applied for under the call: PLN 70,000 for projects lasting 12 months, PLN 140,000 for projects that are 24 months long and PLN 210,000 for projects for which the implementation period is 36 months. A research team may be comprised of a maximum of three persons, including the principal investigator and a scientific supervisor. In PRELUDIUM 17, scientists may be allocated as much as PLN 30 million.

“OPUS 17 and PRELUDIUM 17 are the first calls announced after the so-called Act 2.0 has come into force; it's therefore been necessary to adapt the terms and conditions of calls to its provisions. Modifications have also included the rules that govern granting scholarships under NCN projects.” says Małgorzata Kossowska, Chairwoman of the Council of the NCN. “Further to those changes, we would strongly advise applicants to read carefully the content of the announcement and call documentation.”

MOZART is an international call for projects carried out by Polish-Austrian research teams. Its budget amounts to PLN 5.5 million. It is organised under a bilateral co-operation between the National Science Centre and the Austrian Science Fund. The call focuses on Polish research teams which, together with their Austrian partners, may apply for project financing. MOZART offers opportunities for obtaining funds for remuneration of the research team, scholarships for under- and post-graduate students, purchase or manufacture of equipment and for covering other necessary expenditures related to the project. A scientist having at least a doctoral degree may be a principal investigator of the Polish team. A research project may last 24 or 36 months.

“We're very happy about expanding our international co-operation to include a call organised jointly with the Austrian Research Fund.” says Prof. Zbigniew Błocki, Director of the NCN. “The call is one of the elements of closer collaboration between agencies financing scientific research in the region of Central Europe.”

Proposals under the MOZART call shall be accepted on an ongoing basis. Proposals shall be submitted to both the NCN and the FWF: domestic proposals shall be submitted by Polish scientific teams via the ZSUN/OSF platform (https://osf.opi.org.pl), whereas joint proposals by Austrian scientific teams shall be submitted via the ELANE system https://elane.fwf.ac.at/. Proposals shall be evaluated pursuant to the rules applicable at FWF under the “Stand-Alone-Projects” programme, and in the case of evaluation of projects relating to clinical research, they shall be evaluated pursuant to the documents of the “Programme Clinical Research” (KLIF). The results of the MOZART call shall be known within 12 months from the submission date of a domestic proposal.

Proposals for OPUS 17 and PRELUDIUM 17 calls shall be submitted in an electronic form via the ZSUN/OSF platform (https://osf.opi.org.pl). The deadline for submitting proposals will expire on 17 June 2019, while the results will be known no later than in December 2019. Proposals shall be evaluated pursuant to a two-stage procedure by Expert Teams of the NCN consisting of eminent scientists specialising in a given discipline, supported by external experts, including foreign ones, too.