Announcing Institution: 

National Science Centre

General information on preparing OPUS 22 and OPUS LAP proposals:

• The principal investigator’s scientific achievements must include at least one paper published or accepted for publication.
• The project’s principal investigator may only be employed over the entire course of the project’s implementation at the entity planned as the host entity, pursuant to a contract of employment for at least half time. The project’s principal investigator shall spend at least 50% of the project’s time on the territory of the Republic of Poland. This period includes business trips essential to the implementation of the project, especially related to field research, participation in conferences and archive searchers.
• One may be named as principal investigator only once in a given call edition. This means that in the present edition of the NCN calls a person may only once be named as principal investigator and only in one funding scheme in the current call edition: (OPUS/ OPUS LAP/ RELUDIUM BIS 3/ SONATA 17).
• Research team:
  • in addition to the principal investigator, involved in work on the project may be other investigators, including students and doctoral students as well as persons employed on
  • post-doc type posts, provided that:
    • the person named in the proposal was awarded a doctoral degree no earlier than 7 years before the year of employment in the project;
    • has been conferred a PhD degree by an entity other than the one planning to employ them at this post or has completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in an entity other than the participating entity and in a country other than the one in which they have been conferred a PhD degree.
  • The programme allows for receiving NCN research scholarships and allowances known as doctoral scholarships, for doctoral students who meet the requirements specified in the Act of 20 July 2018, “Law on higher education and science”.
• Direct costs may not cover the costs of publishing articles nor costs of making research data available in Open Access. Calculating open access costs as direct costs shall result in rejecting the proposal at the stage of formal eligibility check. Article Processing Charges in hybrid journals, as defined in the NCN Policy of open access to publications are in no way eligible (including under indirect costs).
• Publishing a monograph resulting from a research project implementation do not count as eligible costs until positive evaluation in the review process by the NCN.
• A purchase of a qualified electronic signature should be included in the project’s budget under direct costs, amounting ca PLN 205 (a signature suite + validity extension – valid 4 years).
• The project’s budget should account for the amount of VAT (VAT is an eligible cost), please state gross amounts in the cost estimate.
• Indirect costs: they are expenditures connected with the research project indirectly, but essential to its implementation. These include:
  • Open Access indirect costs in the amount up to 2% of direct costs, which may be directed exclusively toward the costs related to the making publications or research data available in open access. Please include these costs in the planned budget in the maximum possible amount;
  • other indirect costs in the amount up to 20% of direct costs, which may be directed toward the costs related to the project indirectly, including also costs of making publications or research data available in open access.
• Basic data of the entity (JU) required for the completion of the proposal are available on the website of the CAWP: cawp.uj.edu.pl/projekty/dla-wnioskujacych/dokumenty.

Detailed information on preparing OPUS 22 proposals:

• Under the call a research project may be planned with a duration of 12, 12, 24 or 48 months.
• The project OPUS (not applicable to OPUS LAP) may provide for a post of Senior Researcher. It is a full-time post, co-financed by the project’s host entity, which will act as the employer, planned by the project’s principal investigator for a person who was awarded a doctoral degree at least 7 years before the date of submitting the proposal and has benefited from a post-doc fellowship, has specialist knowledge, unique competence and experience essential to the implementation of the project’s research tasks.
• A person employed as Senior Researcher must meet all of the following conditions:
  • they will be employed for a period of at least 6 months, full-time. Under the project a remuneration of PLN 60,000 a year may be planned; the host entity undertakes to finance salaries of at least PLN 60,000 (one person may be employed as Senior Researcher for the entire period of project implementation);
  • has completed an and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship(s) of at least 24 months combined in an entity(ies) other than the entity where the employment is planned, including a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in an entity other than the participating entity and in a country other than the one in which they have been conferred a PhD degree,
  • in the period of receiving the full-time remuneration they shall not be receiving other remuneration paid out of funds awarded under the heading of direct costs in research projects funded under NCN calls;
  • in the period of receiving the full-time remuneration they shall not be receiving remuneration from another employer pursuant to a contract of employment, including from an employer established outside the territory of Poland,
  • will not receive pension benefits from the social security system.

Detailed information on preparing the OPUS LAP proposals:

• Under the call a research project may be planned with a duration of 24, 36 or 36 months, in case of cooperation with partners from Austria, Switzerland or Slovenia; in case of cooperation with partners from Germany or Czechia: 24 or 36 months. PLEASE NOTE: project duration should be the same (if possible) or similar as closely as possible for all teams involved in a given project.
• The proposal should provide for research based on harmonious and complementary contribution of research teams, carried out as:
  • bi- or multilateral collaboration between a research team from Poland (applying for grant with the NCN) and foreign teams from Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Germany or Switzerland applying for grant with an appropriate research funding agency in the Weave programme.
  • Each research team involved in the LAP collaboration will appoint a principal investigator, while in charge of the implementation of the Polish part of the project is the head of the Polish research team.
• It is mandatory to support the proposal with an annex in the form of budget table, which should present a cost estimate for the research project for all foreign research teams, drawn up in accordance with the regulations applicable at a given partner institution (funding institution) in Austria (FWF), Czechia (GAČR), Slovenia (ARRS), Germany (DFG) or Switzerland (SNSF).
• The budget table is divided into sections dedicated to each research team; fill them out
  • specifying the costs which the foreign research team requests from the FWF, GAČR, ARRS, DFG or SNSF, identical to those indicated in the national proposals submitted to these institutions;
  • the cost amounts should be quoted in:
    • EUR (for Austrian, Slovenian and German research teams);
    • CZK (for Czech research teams);
    • CHF (for Swiss research teams). The amounts will be automatically converted to PLN in accordance with the exchange rate of the National Bank of Poland of 9 September 2021: 1 EUR = 4.5315 PLN; 1 CZK = 0.1784 PLN; 1 CHF= 4.1663 PLN;
  • required are detailed justifications for the amounts listed. Please bear in mind that cost estimates for the foreign partners entered in the budget table will be subject to evaluation carried out at the NCN in its capacity of leader agency, in terms of cost relevance for the research subject and scope;
  • no cost justifications are required for Slovenian teams applying with the ARRS. PLEASE NOTE: Failure to provide justification of individual costs in the budget table may result in rejecting the proposal.

Internal regulations:
Pursuant to the Order no 56 of JU Rector 11 July 2016 on: The procedure for drawing up and implementing projects funded from external sources at Jagiellonian University, persons interested in entering the call are asked to deliver to the call assistant at the CAWP:

• by 29 November 2021 – in the event that the project is planned in collaboration with other entities:
  • and JU acts as leader in project:
    • the agreement on collaboration of a group of entities toward implementation of the proposed research project (drawn up by the NCN), to be downloaded from the ZSUN/OSF system (under tab “Host entities”) in the form of a PDF file;
    • additional agreement confirmed by JU Legal Team, drawn up in accordance with the template attached as annex 1 to this Communication (an extended version of the agreement on collaboration of a group of entities toward implementation of the proposed research project),
    • Research project registration form, filled out in the JU Project Zone system at: https://strefaprojektow.uj.edu.pl/
  • and in the event that JU acts as partner in the project:
    • the agreement on collaboration of a group of entities toward implementation of the proposed (drawn up by the NCN) in the form of a PDF file, sent by the project's leader,
    • additional agreement confirmed by JU Legal Team, drawn up in accordance with the template attached as annex 1 to this Communication (an extended version of the agreement on collaboration of a group of entities toward implementation of the proposed research project),
    • a research project registration form, filled out in the JU Project Zone system available at: https://strefaprojektow.uj.edu.pl/

Provisions included in the template agreement (drawn up by the NCN) may not be modified or appended with additional regulations between the entities.

PLEASE NOTE: Supporting the signed agreement (drawn up by the NCN) in the ZSUN/OSF system is a condition of blocking the proposal for edition and generating the required confirmation. The document in the PDF format should be supported, signed with a qualified electronic signature. Alternatively, a scan of the document with a handwritten signature may be supported.

Please bear in mind that the additional agreement should not be attached to the Funding proposal in the ZSUN/OSF system.

• by 29 November 2021, the draft version of the proposal in the form of a pdf file sent to the address of the call assistant at the CAWP (the draft version means at least the need to complete at lest the sections: Applicant, Principal Investigator, Investigators, Research plan, Cost estimate and its justification);
• by 8 December 2021 (3:30 p.m. GMT+1):
  • final version of the proposal in the form of a pdf file generated by the ZSUN/OSF system: select option ‘Print PDF’ named in accordance with the template: Surname and given name of the principal investigator, name of the programme, date of the document (Kowalski_Jan_OPUS22_08-12-2021), signed with a qualified electronic signature by the head of the JU organisational entity (the dean or director/head of other organisational entity) acting as the project’s host entity,
  • a document generated by the ZSUN/OSF: “Confirmation of proposal submission by the representative of the host entity”;
  • a signed scan of the document generated by the ZSUN/OSF: ‘Confirmation of submitting the proposal by the principal investigator’ or a document signed with a qualified electronic signature, and
  • a research project registration form, filled out in the JU Project Zone system (not applicable to proposals for which an agreement on collaboration of a group of entities toward implementation of the proposed research project has been submitted alongside the registration form at the CAWP).

PLEASE NOTE: in case of planning to employ a person at the post of Senior Researcher please submit in the JU Project Zone a research project entry form (owing to the need for a JU entity to secure own contribution towards covering employment costs of the Senior Researcher).
The JU Project Zone system is available at: https://strefaprojektow.uj.edu.pl/.
Out of concern for the quality of the submitted projects, especially in terms of meeting formal requirements, you are encouraged you to deliver the documents to the CAWP well ahead of the above mentioned deadlines.
Please consider the above mentioned deadlines as final.

Please bear in mind that sending the proposal in the system cannot be reversed and prevents later modifications. The proposal should be sent in using the ZSUN/OSF system, supported with a signed version of the document “Confirmation proposal submission by a representative of the entity” and “Confirmation of proposal submission by the principal investigator”.

Deadline and form for submission: 

15 December 2021

Form of submitting proposals:
The proposal alongside the required annexes shall be submitted in electronic form by the principal investigator in the ZSUN/OSF (Zintegrowany System Usług dla Nauki/Obsługa Strumieni Finansowania) system, accessed through the website: osf.opi.org.pl

More information:

Vice-Rector's communication

Annex no 1 to Communication

NCN