The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) announces the Ulam Programme – Seal of Excellence. It is the first Polish mechanism to finance scientific projects that have received the Seal of Excellence certificate under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowships programme.

The Ulam Programme – Seal of Excellence is open to Polish universities and institutes as well as scientists that applied together for funding under the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and whose project proposals were awarded the Seal of Excellence.

The Seal of Excellence certifies the high quality of a research project. It is awarded to entities that met the MSCA evaluation criteria but could not be funded from the programme’s current budget. The EC encourages the countries that participate in MSCA and other Horizon 2020 Framework Programme calls to help proposals awarded the Seal of Excellence gain funding from other national sources, public or private. Several countries have already implemented this solution for MSCA, including Czechia, Lithuania, and Italy.

‘NAWA is joining the group of European institutions that recognise the recipients of the Seal of Excellence certificate under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowships,’ says Dr. Grażyna Żebrowska, Director General of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. ‘We offer researchers working across all disciplines and their associated universities and institutes the possibility to carry out outstanding scientific projects endorsed by the European Commission here, in Poland. The Ulam Programme – Seal of Excellence offers the researcher funding according to the principles of the current Ulam Programme. A scientist who carries out a project at a Polish entity will receive a monthly scholarship amounting to PLN 10,000 for a period of 12 to 24 months as well as a mobility and a training allowance,’ Dr. Grażyna Żebrowska adds.

The announced first edition of the Ulam Programme – Seal of Excellence is dedicated to researchers and Polish scientific institutions whose joint proposals were awarded the Seal of Excellence in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowships 2019 call. Such certificates were awarded to: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Research and Innovation Centre Pro-Akademia, Jagiellonian University, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw (two proposals), Institute of Physics PAS, and Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS.

The call for proposals in the first edition of the programme will be open from 15 September to 15 October 2020.

In the following years, the Ulam Programme – Seal of Excellence will be dedicated to scientists and research institutions that will be awarded Seals of Excellence in the subsequent editions of MSCA IF.

Detailed information concerning the programme can be found HERE