SONATA: PhD holder grants (2-7 years after PhD award)

SONATA is a funding opportunity intended to support the Principal Investigator in conducting innovative basic research, using advanced research equipment and/or an original methodology.

• SONATA 16 - open until December 15^th, 2020
• SONATA 15 – open until December 16^th, 2019
• SONATA 14 – open until December 17^th, 2018
• SONATA 13 – closed on September 15^th, 2017

Principal Investigator: researchers who have had their PhD conferred within 2 to 7 years prior to the submission of proposals.

Projects carried out by research teams must consist of  no more than one researcher holding a habilitation degree or the title of professor and on condition that they are collaborators from an institution other than the host institution of the Principal Investigator.

Duration: 12, 24 or 36 months

Funding:

Researchers may apply for funding of costs relevant necessary and directly connected to the proposed research, including:

• Personnel (including scholarships pre-doctoral researchers and post-doc positions)
• Costs of reduced obligatory teaching load: the entity that employs the principal investigator under a full-time employment contract may be provided with funding to cover the reduction by 50% of the obligatory teaching load of the principal investigator;
• Consumables
• Research equipment: up to 500 000 PLN for projects in the fields of life sciences or physical sciences and engineering; up to 150 000 PLN in the field of arts, humanities and social sciences
• Travel and subsistence costs
• Outsourcing
• Other: publication costs, collective investigators, devices and software, etc.
• Indirect costs: up to 20%; additionally, indirect costs of up to 2% of direct costs may be spent on open access to publications and research data.

There is no cap on funding for an individual project.

Evaluation criteria:

• proposals from within NCN Panels, involving basic research,
• scientific quality and the innovative nature of the research project,
• scientific qualifications of the principal investigator (the principal investigator’s research achievements, evaluation of the results of research projects conducted by the principal investigator funded from the budget for science)
• impact on the development of the research discipline,
• relevance of the costs planned,
• preparation of the proposal 

Evaluation procedure: merit-based evaluation by peer review panels and external reviewers in two stages

Application: written partly in Polish and partly in English

Call timeline

Contact:

informacja@ncn.gov.pl

Tel: 0048 12 341 9000