Call for Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence in Poland

Call for Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence in Poland Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG) and National Science Centre Poland (NCN) open the fourth call for Dioscuri Centres of Scientific Excellence in Poland.

The joint call by MPG and NCN is designed to establish up to three Centres of Scientific Excellence at Polish Host Institutions. Going beyond the scope of a pro­ject grant, a Dioscuri Centre (DC) is built around a distin­guished researcher position. It is awarded to excellent scientists capable of establishing and leading an out­standing, highly visible research group. A DC shall connect the local research land­scape to the wider scientific community while simul­taneously positioning the leader of the DC in the res­pective field. These efforts will be suppor­ted by Partners from German universities or research institutions. Partners will pro­mote the Centres’ structural develop­ment and integration in scientific networks, thereby strengthening scientific exchange between Poland and Germany. The DC’s develop­ment will further be suppor­ted by an international Scientific Advisory Board.

DCs are expected to conduct top-class internationally competitive and innova­tive research. Each of them will be funded with up to € 300,000 p.a., initially for five years. This amount will be part of a larger package invol­ving supplementary funds, infra­structure, scientific equip­ment, and a long-term perspec­tive for the leader of the DC at the respective Host Institution (to be arranged individually between selected candidates and their Host Institutions). This will put the DCs in a position to attract additional funding from NCN and other Polish or European / inter­national sources.

Applicants are asked to provide a concept for the DC they plan to establish, which includes an innova­tive research programme as well as an out­line for the DC’s structural develop­ment. The deadline for applications is 15 June 2021.

In the present call, up to a total of three DCs will be established in the fields of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Natural Sciences and Technology.

Each DC established through this call will be monitored and evalu­ated by the Dioscuri Scientific Committee, and will be awarded the title of

Dioscuri Centre of Scientific Excellence.

A programme initiated by the Max Planck Society, jointly managed with the National Science Centre in Poland, and mutu­ally funded by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science (MEiN) and the German Federal Ministry of Edu­cation and Research (BMBF)

Dioscuri is a programme devised by MPG to support the development of light­houses of scientific excellence in Central and Eastern Europe by pro­moting outstanding scientists who want to conduct their research in this region. Following a bottom-up and sustain­able approach, it strives to establish future-oriented research fields and inte­national standards of scientific quality. Dioscuri serves to streng­then the European Research Area as a whole and to expand the foundations for long-term economic and social pros­perity in Europe.

The detailed call and further information about the Dioscuri Programme are available at
https://www.mpg.de/dioscuri and https://ncn.gov.pl/dioscuri/dioscuri4/.