The National Science Centre has announced the results of the OPUS 22 + LAP/WEAVE call for proposals under which researchers at any stage of their research career could apply for funding of bilateral research projects carried out in international collaboration within the framework of WEAVE Programme.

Research projects carried out jointly by the Polish and Slovenian research teams were evaluated pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP). The NCN acted as the lead agency which means that submitted foreign proposals were evaluated together with domestic proposals under the OPUS call and they were recommended for funding on this basis. The Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) approved the results of evaluation of OPUS LAP proposals performed by the National Science Centre.

8 Polish and Slovenian joint research projects for a total of nearly 13 million PLN were recommended for funding. They include two projects from the Jagiellonian University:

• Effect of nanoscale, three dimensional arrangement of proteins on biological and Therapeutic activity (FIT), headed by Dr hab. Jonathan Heddle from the JU Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology and Prof. Ario de Marco> from the University of Nova Gorica;
• Nonergodic dynamics in disorder-free systems, headed by Prof. Jakub Zakrzewski from the JU Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, and Prof. Lev Vidmar from the Jozef Stefan Institute.        

The Lead Agency Procedure (LAP) is a new proposal review standard adopted by European research-funding agencies, designed to make it easier for international research teams to seek funding for joint research projects, as well as to streamline the process of proposal review by research-funding agencies. Projects that involve research teams from different countries are reviewed only at one institution, known as the lead agency, relevant to one of the teams participating in the call, under a scheme from its regular call portfolio. The results of merit-based evaluation performed by the lead agency are approved by all the other institutions, which then award funding to research projects recommended for funding in the course of such evaluation.

Including LAP in the OPUS 22 call enabled Polish researchers to apply for:

• research projects carried out in cooperation pursuant to the Lead Agency Procedure (“LAP cooperation”) under the Weave programme, i.e. in cooperation with foreign research teams from Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany or Switzerland that apply for funding to their respective research-funding institutions under the Weave programme, i.e. FWF, GAČR, ARRS, DFG or SNSF;
• research projects within the framework of LAP cooperation under the Weave programme, with the participation of foreign partners that do not apply for funding for that purpose under the Weave programme or with the additional use of large international research equipment.