The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), together with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), is recruiting applications for a support program for Ukrainian scientists: IMPRESS-U.
Thanks to an initiative by the U.S. NSF, one of the largest research and education funding agencies globally, there will be support for scientific and technical projects integrating Ukrainian scientists into the international research community.
NAWA, as part of its commitment, will fund at least ten supplemental grants, the called International Supplements, aimed at expanding existing research projects funded by the U.S. NSF with new components and partnerships: with researchers from Ukraine and Poland.
"As part of our budget, which is 7 million PLN, we will fund salaries for group members, scholarships, mobility-related costs, and other research-related expenses. The total project budget on the Polish side within a single project cannot exceed PLN 1 million for a period of 2 years," said NAWA's Deputy Director, Dr. Zofia Sawicka. She added that the first three projects have just been approved for implementation.
“U.S. National Science Foundation is humbled by the overwhelming number of high-quality proposal submissions we received for the IMPRESS-U program. We pay particular attention to the clarity and breadth of the proposed research, novelty and uniqueness of the research approach, roles of international collaborators and other partners, and likely potential of making a meaningful contribution towards integration of Ukrainian researchers into the global research community. The creation of a state-of-the-art research/education/innovation ecosystem in Ukraine is of great significance. We expect that many of the funded projects will become enduring productive collaborations for years to come” – said Dr. Maija M. Kukla - Program Director at the Office of International Science and Engineering of the U.S.NSF.
"Integration of UA-PL-USA students and researchers to advanced science and technology of amorphous materials"
NAWA funding PLN 518 340
The first project “Integration of UA-PL-USA students and researchers with advanced science and technology of amorphous materials”, is coordinated by Yaroslav Shpotyuk, PhD from the University of Rzeszów. The uniqueness of this project lies in combining the expertise and knowledge of three participating institutions: the University of Rzeszów, Austin Peay State University, and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, in the implementation of three sub-projects which belongs to one common area – amorphous materials science.
Each sub-project was proposed by different institution and will be supervised by their senior researcher, while two remaining institutions will be participating in realization. Implementation of the project is expected to bring new diagnostic methods in medicine, as well as breakthroughs in antibacterial coating materials and new applications of amorphous materials in photonics.
"Successful realization of this part of the research, for which I am responsible, would significantly reduce the time to disease detection, especially in the case of Fabry’s disease, where conventional methods require genetic analysis.
Rapid identification of complex biomolecules serving as markers for many rare diseases is not only a cost reduction in diagnostics but also of immense importance for health, and sometimes even human life," says Dr. Yaroslav Shpotyuk from the University of Rzeszów.
"As a result of the research I am coordinating, an advanced glass material for medical equipment and antibacterial coatings will be developed. Current antibacterial glasses lack sufficient durability, leading to low reliability. The new glass will help prevent the spread of bacterial diseases in hospital or clinical environments. The antibacterial coating, especially for high-touch point articles, will also find broader applications in places like schools, gyms, offices, and other public spaces," argues Dr. Andriy Kovalskiy from Austin Peay State University.
Prof. Andriy Luchechko, the coordinator of the sub-project supervised by Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, says: "White Light Emitting Diodes (WLEDs) are an integral part of semiconductor lighting technology due to their significant advantages over traditional light sources, including low energy consumption, longer lifespan, and high efficiency. Preliminary research indicates that cerium (Ce) and dysprosium (Dy) co-doped lithium-borate glasses have enormous potential in developing a new type of efficient phosphors for WLED applications. Therefore, within this sub-project, new glass matrices doped with rare earth metal ions will be investigated."
According to the collaborating coordinators, all the described projects will significantly contribute to the results of new important scientific research. However, the primary goal of this project is to engage students from participating institutions in international scientific collaboration. The creation of joint research teams, composed of students and scientists, aims to harness the scientific and intellectual synergy from different educational systems in Poland, Ukraine, and the USA. Furthermore, this project will allow its participants to familiarize themselves with the culture of other countries involved in the project.
"Spectral and geometric methods for damped wave equations with applications to fiber lasers"
NAWA funding PLN 596 880
Prof. Yuriy Tomilow from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences is the coordinator of the second project entitled “Spectral and geometric methods for perturbed wave equations with applications to fiber lasers”.
The project is about applied mathematics and is at the intersection of the dynamical systems theory, analysis and mathematical physics. It will include research on spectral and asymptotic properties of perturbed wave equations on manifolds and metric graphs, as well as the application of the properties to modeling fiber lasers.
"A Universal Biosensing Platform Amplifying Signals Produced by NAD+/NADH-Dependent Enzymes"
NAWA funding PLN 646 580
The third project, co-financed by NAWA and titled "A Universal Biosensing Platform Amplifying Signals Produced by NAD+/NADH-Dependent Enzymes", will be implemented at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw. Dr. Klaudia Kaniewska serves as the representative of the University of Warsaw in this project.
"The goal of our project is to create novel multi-signal regulated systems that integrate a chimeric enzyme with 'smart' hydrogels and magnetic nanoparticles - says Dr Oleh Smutok from Clarkson University's Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences.
This will open up new opportunities in various areas of biosensory science, including biomedical, environmental and forensic applications.
Professor Evgeny Katz from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at Clarkson University discusses the benefits of international collaboration as follows: "The novel study formulated in the present supplement proposal increases the functionality of the biosensing process based on the NAD+/NADH-chimeric enzyme by including it in “smart” signal-responsive materials (hydrogels or/and magnetic nanoparticles). It should be stressed that the artificial allosteric enzymes activated with the NAD+ or NADH cofactors have never been created and studied before. The novel approach presented by us overcomes the problem of expensive and time consuming synthesis of an artificial chimeric enzyme for each new analyte. The original (parental) proposal solves the problem by combining commercial NAD+/NADH enzymes, which are available for many different analyte substrates, with the chimeric enzyme specific to the NAD+ or NADH cofactors. Indeed, the first enzyme produces NAD+ or NADH cofactors in response to the numerous possible analytes, and then the second enzyme binds the produced cofactor and translates the conformational changes to the biocatalytic unit switching it ON and activating the biocatalytic reaction. In that way the Thus, binding of a single analyte molecule activates the biocatalytic reaction producing the amplified output signal. Now, through international collaboration, we will combine these enzymes with smart materials to increase their functionality.”
Dr. Klaudia Kaniewska emphasizes that this collaboration is important, among other reasons, due to its multidisciplinary and international nature. "The proposed research requires a multidisciplinary approach, as it is a combination of different research fields (synthetic biology, bioelectrochemistry, material chemistry “smart”-signal responding materials) all leading to the results in biosensing which cannot be obtained without this multi-disciplinary approach, therefore work within the international team is key to the project’s success. It is great opportunity to establish long-term cooperation and exchange experiences, and it also has an educational aspect by introducing junior researchers to the international scientific" says Dr. Kaniewska.
Prof. Mykhailo Gonchar from the Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine adds: “It should be noted that the signal-amplified and signal-switchable enzyme systems will find many applications in scientific and technological areas related to biosensing, but not being exactly used for traditional sensing applications. These applications will include, but will not be limited by, enzyme-based unconventional computing systems where signal processing will be performed in a binary (0,1 / Truth/False) mode mimicking Boolean logic operations and other computational tasks (e.g., half-/full-adder, keypad security devices, etc.). Another possible application may include bioelectronic systems with switchable performance, e.g., signal-controlled biofuel cells operating as implantable or wearable bioelectronic devices with an adaptivity function.”
According to Dr. Marcin Karbarz from the University of Warsaw, these basic research studies hold the promise of numerous applications for a universal biosensor integrated with signal-responsive materials. " The results will lead to a new generic concept of biosensing with simple adaptation to different analytes measured with very high sensitivity (sub-nanomolar concentrations) being controlled by various physical signals (electric or magnetic). This will open novel possibilities in different sub-areas of biosensing, including biomedical, environmental, forensic, homeland security, etc. applications" adds Dr. Karbarz.
"Sustainable intelligent software enhanced with parallel co-processors for future high-energy physics experiments"
NAWA funding 570,400 PLN
The coordinator of the project "Sustainable intelligent software enhanced with parallel co-processors for future high-energy physics experiments" is Professor Tomasz Szumlak from the Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science at AGH University of Krakow.
The international cooperation between scientists, programmers, and ecologists from AGH University, Princeton University, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and Vilnius University is aimed at ensuring sustainable development of technology in high-energy physics while adhering to ethical data principles and caring for the natural environment.
“Within the NAWA IMPRESS-U project, I would like to tackle the problem of sustainable scientific software development, which is crucial for ensuring research accuracy, reliability, and longevity. HEP experiments often span decades, requiring software that can endure and evolve with the changing technological landscape. Sustainable software practices are essential to manage the complexity of these experiments, maintain data integrity, and facilitate reproducibility, a cornerstone of scientific research. While working with young scientists, I would like to address knowledge transfer and interdisciplinary collaboration. The former is related to the fact that team members may change over the life of a long-term experiment. Ensuring continuity through comprehensive documentation and knowledge transfer practices is essential to prevent the loss of critical expertise. The latter pertains to sustainable software development in physics experiments that often require collaboration across various disciplines. Bridging the gap between software developers and physicists to create software that meets scientific needs while adhering to best development practices can be challenging. Both topics are also related to Technological Obsolescence and Complexity Management” says Prof Tomasz Szumlak.
As part of an ongoing project, Tomasz Bołd, Ph.D., from the AGH Department of Physics and Nuclear Technology, wants to investigate how the large amount of data that will be generated by the HL-LHC can be used more efficiently. “Among the numerous responsibilities that large scientific experiments have to society is setting trends and establishing best practices for conducting research. One emerging trend that, in my opinion, needs to gain even more momentum is a responsible approach to scientific resources management. Since data is the fundamental resource, its collection, conservation, and processing should be scrutinized by the scientific community from the perspective of sustainability” says Dr. Bołd.
"DARE: Detecting and Recognizing Euphemisms"
NAWA funding 345,200 PLN
"IMPRESS-U: DARE: Detection and Recognition of Euphemisms" is coordinated by Dr. Witold Kieraś from the Institute of Computer Science at the Polish Academy of Sciences. This collaborative project, conducted in partnership with researchers from Montclair State University and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, aims to extend research on the detection and interpretation of euphemisms in Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian languages. The initiative focuses on developing advanced algorithms for recognizing euphemisms and exploring the interpretive capabilities of language models based on neural networks in this context.
The initiative focuses on developing advanced algorithms for and investigating the interpretability in this context of language models based on neural networks. The project builds on existing datasets in English, Yoruba, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese and combines linguistically motivated methods with neural network (transformer) based approaches to address the nuanced problem of detecting euphemisms in multilingual data.
The project could significantly contribute to the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) by enhancing the ability of AI systems to process euphemistic language. It aims to uncover how neural models understand and represent euphemisms, focusing on attention mechanisms and the linguistic properties of different languages. By incorporating data on Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian euphemisms, the IMPRESS-U: DARE project will enable a deeper understanding of linguistic nuances, offering valuable insights into the cultural dynamics and linguistic evolution of euphemisms.
IMPRESS-U: DARE will support cross-cultural understanding and collaboration, contributing to the development of culturally sensitive NLP algorithms. The international partnership within the project promotes academic exchange, educates the next generation of experts in linguistics and computer science, and strengthens global cooperation in the computational linguistics community. The project's focus on cross-cultural insights will ensure a comprehensive understanding of how different societies handle sensitive topics, contributing to a broader comprehension of human communication and cultural implications.
The project involves significant collaboration with international experts. Planned activities include collecting and annotating data in Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian, creating comprehensive multilingual euphemism corpora, and engaging students and researchers in practical experiences in linguistic analysis and computational modeling.
The project will contribute to the development of artificial intelligence in understanding human text and communication. The research will combine linguistics, computer science, and cultural analysis, offering new datasets and findings interesting to many academic fields. This contribution will enhance our understanding of language and its cultural implications, providing deeper insights into human communication.
IMPRESS-U (International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine) is the result of an international agreement between grant organizations from six countries: USA (U.S.NSF and NASEM), Poland (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange and NCN), Ukraine (NRFU), Estonia (ETAG) , Latvia (LCS) and Lithuania (RCL). The IMPRESS-U program will support research in any field of science, engineering, education and innovation. As part of the partnership, proposals for joint ventures carried out by American scientists in cooperation with scientists from Ukraine and researchers from at least one partner country may be submitted to the U.S.NSF. Projects that increase efficiency within international partnerships, support scientific staff and contribute to building a modern ecosystem of research, education and innovation in Ukraine will be particularly sought after.
The call for applications is ongoing until June 30, 2024.
More information about the call: https://nawa.gov.pl/naukowcy/impress-u