One of the main priorities of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine is to expand opportunities for international cooperation for Ukrainian researchers and their integration into the international scientific community. To this end, the Foundation’s representatives establish partnerships with foreign scientific organizations and constantly analyze their experience to attract and implement best practices in competitions of scientific projects.
In particular, an online meeting was recently held with representatives of the Polish National Research Center (Narodowe Centrum Nauki, Krakow) – the Director of the Center Zbigniew Błocki and the Head of the International Cooperation Department Justyna Woźniakowska.
Let’s get acquainted with the experience of Polish colleagues in organizing competitions and the process of evaluation and examination of research projects. Here are some interesting facts:
– Competitions of scientific projects take place in 2 stages. At the first stage, the submitted projects are considered and evaluated by two experts of the relevant panel (competition commission). The second stage is a review of research projects that have successfully passed the previous stage. Polish colleagues noted that after the first stage, more than 50% of projects are eliminated.
– In the Polish National Research Center, there are 25 panels (competition commissions), consisting of 10 experts each. It is a regular practice to elect former grantees to the expert panels.
– 96% of reviewers of the Polish National Research Center are foreign scientists.
– The average duration of competitions of research projects is 5-6 months.
– Among the main requirements for grantees is the presentation of the 10 best scientific publications for the last 10 years.
An equally important event was the online meeting of the NRFU representatives with Radi Domoustchiev, Education and Science Counselor of the Bulgarian Embassy in Ukraine. During the meeting, the Counselor expressed the interest of the Bulgarian scientific community in cooperation with Ukrainian scientists, in particular through the partnership of the Bulgarian National Science Foundation and the NRFU.
