SONATA Programme

The National Science Centre (the “NCN”) has launched the SONATA 21 call for researchers with a PhD degree conferred within 2 to 7 years before the proposal submission year. The applicants may apply for funding of their basic research projects carried out over a period of 12, 24 or 36 months.

The call budget is PLN 170 million.

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the OSF submission system (https://osf.opi.org.pl/en/) pursuant to the proposal submission procedure. The proposal form will be accessible in the OSF submission system as of 17 September 2025.

The call for proposals in the OSF submission system is open until 15 December 2025, 2:00 p.m.

The call results will be published in June 2026.

Significant modifications:

• the principal investigator is required to spend at least 50% of the project duration period in Poland or at the foreign division of the participating entity, and be available to the participating entity;
• the qualifications and scientific achievements of the principal investigator will not be evaluated by external experts;
• the post-doc’s remuneration rate has been updated to PLN 140,000 - 210,000 per year;
• it is no longer required to justify post-doc’s remuneration over PLN 140,000 per year;
• the post-doctoral fellowship can now be pursued during the course of studies and its duration has been reduced from 10 to 9 months;
• there is a new maximum limit on salaries and scholarships for students and PhD students of PLN 8,500 for each student or PhD student under NCN-funded research projects;
• the doctoral scholarship rate has been increased to PLN 6,500;
• the restriction on receiving NCN full-time salary alongside pension benefits has been extended to include equivalent foreign benefits (the modification applies to all types of full-time salaries for principle investigators, post-docs, senior researchers, and supporting staff);
• the policy of open access publication of research results has been updated;
• the definition of a collective investigator has been modified.