Funding institution:

National science Centre

Purpose of the call:

The SHENG 2 competition is jointly organized by the National Science Center (NCN) and the Chinese agency National Natural Science Foundation of China (hereinafter referred to as NSFC), under a parallel evaluation procedure. This means that both agencies will conduct a simultaneous formal and content-related assessment of applications, and only those projects that are recommended by the National Science Center and NSFC will receive funding.

Application conditions and rules:

• The project implementation period may be 36 months.
• The minimum amount of financing for the Polish part of the project for the entire period of its implementation is PLN 250,000. The maximum value of financing is not specified (costs must be reasonable in relation to the subject and scope of the research).
• The application may only cover scientific disciplines in the area of life sciences, selected disciplines of science and technology, and social sciences, as specified in Annex 1 to the NCN Resolution 136/2020 of 11 December 2020.
• Requirements for the Principal Investigator:
  • holds at least a doctoral degree,
  • does not act as a Principal Investigator in other NCN calls in a given edition of the calls (announced and closed on the same day),
  • in the national application in the SHENG 2 call, a person who is planned to implement a scientific activity in the application submitted in the MINIATURA call and for whom the funding decision has not become final cannot be designated as the Principal Investigator,
  • the Principal Investigator may only be a person employed throughout the project implementation period in the entity planned as the place of the research project implementation under an employment contract for at least half of the full-time working time,
  • the Principal Investigator is obliged to stay in Poland for at least 50% of the project duration. This period includes business trips necessary for the implementation of the project, in particular related to field research, participation in scientific conferences or conducting queries,
  • the person indicated as the Principal Investigator in the national proposal in the SHENG 2 call may not be a person for whom, on the closing date of the call for proposals, the total number of implemented NCN projects and proposals qualified for funding or under evaluation at the NCN is greater than or equal to 3 (excluding applications submitted or projects financed under the following competitions: TANGO; DIOSCURI; FAST PATH TO ACCESS FUNDING FOR COVID-19 RESEARCH; CEUS-UNISONO for which a joint application was submitted to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as the lead agency in the Stand-Alone Projects concerns research on epidemic or pandemic crises covered by the accelerated path of substantive assessment (FWF Urgent Funding for Research Into Humanitarian Crises like Epidemics and Pandemics).
  • The rules for constructing the project budget, including the guidelines on remuneration, are set out in the Guidelines for Polish research teams and in Annex 2 to the NCN Council Resolution No. 136/2020 of 11 December 2020.
  • You can plan the so-called doctoral scholarships for doctoral students who meet the requirements set out in the provisions of the Act of July 20, 2018 Law on Higher Education and Science (doctoral schools), necessary to receive a doctoral scholarship for the entire duration of the planned tasks in the project.
• Indirect costs can be up to 20% of direct costs. An additional amount of indirect costs of up to a maximum of 2% of direct costs may be allocated to costs related to the open access of publications or research data.
• The project budget should include the value of VAT (VAT is an eligible cost in the project). Please provide gross amounts in the cost estimate.
• As part of direct costs, the project budget should include the cost of purchasing a qualified signature in the amount of PLN 205 (a new kit valid for two years and a renewal kit also valid for two years).
• The cost estimate of the Polish part of the project in the Joint Project Description (JPD) should be calculated on the basis of the average exchange rate in force announced by the NBP
• on the date of adoption by the NCN Council of Resolution No. 136/2020 of December 11, 2020, i.e. EUR 1 = PLN 4.4385.
• Relevant provisions on cost eligibility:
• the eligible costs are not the costs of consultations and visits of collaborators from partner Chinese institutions receiving parallel funding of a research project from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC),
• eligible costs are not the costs of publishing a monograph resulting from the implementation of a research project that has not been positively assessed by the NCN,
• eligible costs are not Article Publishing Charges for hybrid journals, as defined in the National Science Center Policy on open access to publications,
• direct costs may not finance the costs of publishing scientific articles or the costs of making research data available in open access, with the exception of services referred to the cost catalogue in point 2.3.2.
• Basic data of the unit (JU) necessary to complete the application are available on the CAWP website: www.cawp.uj.edu.pl/projekty/dla-wnioskujacych/dokumenty

Application form:

An application for funding a joint research project must be submitted to the NCN and the NSFC by the Polish and Chinese research teams, respectively.

Applications under the SHENG 2 call are submitted simultaneously in two IT systems: ZSUN / OSF (Integrated System of Services for Science, Handling of Financing Streams) for national applications submitted to the NCN and in the NSFC system for applications submitted to a Chinese agency.

The joint Polish-Chinese application for funding a research project, attached to the national application in ZSUN / OSF, must be the same as the version submitted to the NSFC. Discrepancies in the versions of the joint project description submitted to the NSFC and NCN may result in the rejection of the proposal at the stage of formal evaluation.

Deadline for submitting proposals:

The deadline for submitting applications is 15 March 2021 at 4.00 pm.

Internal regulations of the Jagiellonian University:

In accordance with the Jagiellonian University Rector’s Directive No. 56 on 11 July 2016 on the rules of procedure for the preparation and implementation at the JU of projects financed from external sources, researchers interested in participating in the call should submit to the CAWP:

• by 22 February  2021 -  the draft agreement or guidelines for the agreement (consortium agreement - applies only to the Polish group of entities appearing in the national application)

• if the applicant is a group of entities and the Jagiellonian University acts as a partner and the leader has his own agreement template - then the document should be sent to Mrs. Magdalena Duda, phone 12 663 30 10, magdalena.duda@uj.edu.pl,
• if the Jagiellonian University is the leader in the project, please use the agreement template approved by the Team of Legal Advisers of the Jagiellonian University, which is attached as Appendix 1 to this Announcement.

NOTE: Attaching the signed agreement to the ZSUN / OSF system is a condition for blocking the application and generating appropriate confirmations.

• by 26 February 2021  - a draft version of the application in the form of a pdf file generated by the ZSUN / OSF system, sent to the address of the call supervisor at CAWP, together with a description of the joint project and the researchers' CV;
• by 8 March 2021 (3.30 pm) -  the final version of the application in pdf format:
  • document generated from the ZSUN / OSF system: option "Print PDF" with the name according to the formula: Surname and first name of the Principal Investigator, name of the program, date of the document (Kowalski_Jan_SHENG 2_05-03-2021), signed with an electronic signature qualified by the head of the unit in which a project will be implemented (i.e. the Dean of the Faculty or according to the specificity of the unit)
• ​together with:
  • The Project Registration Form, completed in the electronic system of the Jagiellonian University Project Zone, available at: https://strefaprojektow.uj.edu.pl/. Instructions for filling in the form are available at: https://cawp.uj.edu.pl/strefa-projektow,
  • a document generated from the ZSUN / OSF system: "Confirmation of the proposal submission by the person representing the entity”, signed with an electronic qualified signature by the head of the unit where the project will be implemented (i.e. the Dean of the Faculty or according to the specificity of the unit),
  • a scan of the signed document generated from the ZSUN / OSF system: "Confirmation of the proposal submission by the Principal Investigator" or a document signed with an electronic qualified signature

Please note that sending the application by the system is an irreversible operation, preventing any subsequent changes. The application should be sent in the ZSUN / OSF system after attaching the signed document "Confirmation of submission of the application by the person representing the entity" and "Confirmation of submission of the application by the project manager". The documents mentioned above, signed by the JU authorities, will be sent to the e-mail addresses provided by you to the call supervisor.

More information

NCN

Announcement of the vice-Rector for research