CALL 2024

UPDATE 23.04.2024

THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AS PROGRAMME OPERATOR OF THE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROGRAMME, APPLIED RESEARCH financed by the Second Swiss Contribution to selected Member States of the European Union to reduce socio-economic disparities within the European Union
ANNOUNCES THE 2024 CALL FOR PROPOSALS (Call 2024)

Objective of the Programme

The programme aims at achieving sustainable development and long-term economic growth through research-based knowledge development.
International research and development projects implemented under the programme should lead to improved competitiveness of companies in applied research, and support young and female researchers in the projects.

Thematic areas

Call 2024 is not thematically limited. Research planned under the project shall be focused exclusively on civil applications.

Types of eligible partners

Projects have to be submitted by consortia comprising of at least one Polish and one Swiss entity. The eligible consortium has to include at least one enterprise, established in Poland or Switzerland.

For each proposal, partners designate a Programme Component Operator (PCO) that has the formal administrative responsibility for the project, and has to submit the proposal on behalf of the consortium. PCO must be duly authorized to represent all Programme Component Partners (PCPs) on behalf of which it submits the project proposal.

The PCO is responsible for signing the partnership agreement with the PCPs. The partnership agreement has to be in English and has to be submitted to the Programme Operator before the signing of the project contract.

The PCO designates the Principal Investigator (PI), who is the researcher having the scientific lead of the project on a daily basis.
PCO can be:

Research organisation as defined in the Article 2 paragraph 83, Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, and as stipulated in Article 7 paragraph 1 of the Polish Law on Higher Education and Science and Article 37 paragraph 1 of the Act on the National Centre for Research and Development, established as a legal person in Poland;
Enterprise as defined in the Article 2, Annex I, Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, established in Poland.

PCPs can be:

Research organisations, as defined in the Article 2, paragraph 83, Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, and as stipulated in Article 7 paragraph 1 of the Polish Law on Higher Education and Science and Article 37 paragraph 1 of the Act on the National Centre for Research and Development, established as a legal person in Poland or in Switzerland;
Enterprises as defined in the Article 2, Annex I, Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, established in Poland or in Switzerland.

Entities from other countries than Poland and Switzerland are allowed to participate in the project using their own funding.

Type of research

The Call 2024 aims to support international, Polish-Swiss applied research projects. The following types of research/development are eligible:

Industrial research, as defined in Article 2(85) of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014,
Experimental development, as defined in Article 2(86) of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014.

The amount of co-financing

Grants in the Call 2024 may cover up to 100% of eligible costs for research organisations. In case of enterprises, funding quota will be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the size of the company, type of research/development, in accordance with the Regulation on granting state aid through the National Centre for Research and Development (Journal of Laws item 1456, 2020).

Only industrial research and experimental development will be funded. Other types of activities (e.g. coordination, dissemination, management) are not eligible for funding as separate tasks. They can be however be included in an appropriate cost category within research tasks in Work Packages.

Large Enterprises

Medium Enterprises

Small Enterprises

Research organizations

Industrial Research

Up to

50+5/15*

(max 65 %)

Up to

50+10+5/15*

(max 75 %)

Up to

50+20+5/15*

(max 80 %)

Up to

100 %

Experimental development

Up to

25+5/15*

(max 40 %)

Up to

25+10+5/15*

(max 50 %)

Up to

25+20+5/15*

(max 60 %)

Up to

100 %

The financial allocation between partners should reflect the actual contribution made by each party and should be the subject of joint preparations between the PCO and the PCPs. The eligible costs claimed by the Swiss entities participating in the project shall not exceed 40% of the total eligible costs of Polish and Swiss entities.

In the case of participation in a consortium of entities from outside Poland and Switzerland, their share in the total eligible costs of the project shall not exceed 10%

The budget of the Call

The total allocation for the Call 2024 is PLN 66,590,563 (sixty-six million five hundred ninety thousand five hundred sixty-three PLN) / CHF 15 000 000 (fifteen million CHF).

The minimum amount of funding per project is PLN 2,242,400 (two million two hundred forty-two thousand four hundred PLN) / CHF 500 000 (five hundred thousand CHF); the maximum amount is PLN 4,484,800 (four million four hundred eighty-four thousand eight hundred PLN) / CHF 1 000 000 (one million CHF).

The project implementation period is from 24 months up to 36 months.

The final cost eligibility date is 31st March 2029.

All expenditures and payments between PO, PCO and PCPs must be accounted and reported in PLN. The exchange rate to be used for conversions from Swiss francs – CHF to PLN in the Call 2024 is as follows: CHF 1 = PLN 4.4848. An exchange rate reserve has been established to cover exchange rate losses on transfers from PCOs to Swiss PCPs.

Eligibility of expenditures

The description of the categories can be found in ‘Cost Eligibility Guide’.

The first and final dates of eligibility of each project will be stated in the project contract for that project.

Expenditures incurred after 31st March 2029 will not be eligible.

Expenditures incurred within the project may fall into one of the following categories:

Staff
Subcontracting
Equipment
Other direct costs
Overheads – Indirect cost

Evaluation process and selection criteria

Evaluation of project proposals consists of formal (administrative) assessment and scientific peer-review. Only proposals that meet the formal criteria will be subject to scientific peer-review.

The formal assessment is carried out by the Programme Operator. Following criteria are checked:

Submission of the project proposal within the deadline set by the Programme Operator;
Composition of the project consortium and eligibility of project partners;
Project budget size;
Project duration;
Types of research activities;
Project budget (currency used, allocation to cost categories, intensity of state aid);
Compliance with requirements set in part. 2.1 of the Guide for applicants regarding ethics, gender balance and sanction measures;
Project proposal form filled in according to instructions set in Proposal Manual;
Compliance with the scope of the Call.

The scientific-peer review is carried out by international experts and consists of 3 stages:

Individual assessment by experts
Consensus assessment by experts
Selection Committee panel

The project proposal can receive a total number of 25 points in the evaluation procedure. To be recommended for funding, the proposal must receive at least 15 points and pass all the thresholds according to the values presented in the table below.

Criteria	Thresholds	Weight
1. Relevance	YES	N/A
2. Scientific and/or technical excellence	3/5	x3
3. Quality and efficiency of the implementation and management	3/5	x1
4. Impact of the project	3/5	x1

More detailed information on evaluation procedure is presented in the document ‘Guide for Evaluators’.

Payment system

Payments towards the PCO are executed in the form of advance payments and, in justified cases, in form of reimbursement of incurred eligible expenditures. The advance payment may be conditional upon the establishment of collateral in one or several of the forms referred to in the Regulation of the Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy of 21 September 2022 on advance payments under programs financed with European funds (Journal of Laws of 2022, item 2055).

The first advance payment is transferred to the PCO based on the signed project contract. The maximum value of the first advance payment for PCO is up to 30% of the total funding. Subsequent advanced payments will be paid in compliance with the financial schedule of the PCO, upon the presentation of a payment request settling at least 70% of the funds from all previously transferred advance payments.

Within the system of settlement of payments to PCO, the PCO submits to the PO payment requests before the date stipulated in the project contract. Payment requests are subject to verification based on a checklist.

Submission of proposals

PCO submits project proposal for financial support under the Call 2024 to the PO.

The PCO must be duly authorized to represent all PCPs on behalf of which it submits the project proposal (at least a letter of intent should be signed).

Proposals have to be submitted electronically in English through the POs on-line submission system, available under the following address: https://lsi.ncbr.gov.pl/. The PCO can edit and validate the proposal until the closing date of the call.

Only proposals that have been completed fully and correctly may be submitted.

Only the PCO (identified by user id and password) is authorised to submit a proposal on behalf of the consortium.

Detailed description of the application form and the instruction on how to submit the proposal are presented in ‘Proposal Manual’