The National Science Centre has announced the results of the POLS call co-funded within the framework of the Norway funds. According to the announcement, five scientists, who have been previously working in Austria, Mexico, Italy and the US, will receive nearly 4 million zlotys (~850 thousand euro) for their research projects, to be carried out at the Jagiellonian University.
POLS is a scheme designed to support researcher mobility, implemented in the form of small grants awarded to international researchers who wish to conduct their research in Poland. The arrival of both well-established and promising researchers with at least a PhD degree is expected to contribute to strengthening the research potential of Polish institutions. The grants (ranging from 100 to 200 thousand euro) can go towards the costs of research team salaries, equipment depreciation or purchase, materials and services, research trips and conferences, as well as other project-related expenses. The projects may take 12 or 24 months to complete. In justified cases, their duration can be extended, but they must all be completed before 30 April 2024.
The call attracted 99 proposals totalling more than 74 million PLN, 39 of which were recommended for funding: 21 in physical sciences and engineering (ST), 8 in life sciences (NZ) and 10 in the arts, humanities and social sciences (HS). In total, the winners will receive more than 30.5 million PLN, 85% of which will be funded from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 and 15% from domestic sources. The POLS call encompassed all disciplines of science, as specified in the list of NCN panels, with a special emphasis on polar research and social science studies. The final ranking lists of recommended projects feature three polar research proposals and ten social science projects.
The proposals were reviewed by international expert panels. Three panels were appointed, one for each group of sciences (HS, NZ, ST), and researchers from Poland and Norway were barred from the review process. Each project was evaluated by three experts. The final list of successful projects was approved by the “Basic Research” Programme Committee, while the funding decision was issued by the NCN Director.
The following researchers will carry out their projects at the Jagiellonian University:
- Dr Przemysław Jacek Pałka, Private Law of Data: Concepts, Practices, Principles & Politics
- Dr Barbara Anna Stępień, Autonomous and Unmanned Vessels in International Law: Yara Birkeland and Norway's challenge to the Law of the Sea
- Dr hab. Dorota Maria Węziak-Białowolska, Positive Health Program
- Dr Maik Gröger, Dynamical complexity and pseudometrics
- Dr Elena Perez del Rio, Doors to the Mirror World - searching for the Dark Matter candidates with the novel J-PET detector
POLS is one of three calls funded under the third edition of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 within the framework of the “Research” programme, in which the NCN serves as the operator responsible for basic research, with an allocation of 40% of its budget of more than 129 million euro. The “Research” programme is designed to support Polish science by, for instance, giving it an international dimension, boosting the effectiveness of EU and ERC applications, and intensifying cooperation between science, business and society.
source: National Science Centre
