Joint Call between the NCN, Poland, and the AEI, Spain, to Fund Joint Research Projects

1. General description

The Research State Agency of Spain (AEI) and the National Science Centre (NCN) of Poland signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 6 July 2026, expressing their intention to foster cooperation in all fields of scientific and technological research. Building on this commitment and inspired by the Weave collaboration model, both agencies are opening their national calls in 2026 to enable research groups from both countries to submit joint research project proposals.

The purpose of this call is to fund collaborative research projects involving at least one Spanish research group and one Polish research group, whose activities are genuinely integrated and do not constitute a mere aggregation of parallel activities carried out independently by each partner.

Proposals must demonstrate the added value of bringing together research teams from Spain and Poland, explaining how the complementarity of their expertise, infrastructures and approaches will significantly contribute to advancing the proposed research beyond what each team could achieve individually.

Each agency will fund its own national beneficiaries through its respective national funding instruments and calls.

2. Submission and evaluation procedure

Project proposals must be prepared jointly in English by the Spanish and Polish research groups.

Each project must constitute a single and indivisible proposal and will be evaluated as a whole. The scientific and technical proposal submitted to each agency must be identical.

Applicants must decide under which of the following two schemes they wish to submit their proposal:

·         Scheme A – NCN as the Lead Agency. The Polish research group shall submit the joint Spanish–Polish proposal to the NCN OPUS 32+LAP/Weave call. Subsequently, the Spanish research group shall submit a copy of the same proposal to the AEI Internationalisation Call, to be published for this purpose.

·         Scheme B – AEI as the Lead Agency. The Spanish research group shall submit the joint Spanish–Polish proposal to the PID2026 call. In parallel, the Polish research group shall submit a copy of the same proposal to the NCN FLAMENCO call.

Participation in both schemes with the same proposal, or acting as Principal Investigator in two different proposals submitted under both schemes, is not permitted.

Scheme A Scheme B
Lead agency NCN Lead agency AEI
Initial submission to NCN
  • The Polish PI shall submit the joint Spanish–Polish proposal to NCN.
  • Funding instrument: OPUS 32+LAP/Weave
  • Submission period: 15 September – 15 December 2026
 Initial submission to AEI
  • The Spanish PI shall submit the joint proposal to AEI
  • Funding instrument: PID2026
  • Submission period: 3–24 November 2026
Submission of the copy to AEI Mandatory complementary submission
  • The Spanish Principal Investigator shall submit a copy of the joint OPUS 32+LAP/Weave proposal to AEI.
  • Funding instrument: AEI Internationalisation Call
  • Submission period: 2027
 Submission of the copy to NCN Mandatory complementary submission.
  • The Polish Principal Investigator shall submit a copy of the PID2026 proposal to NCN.
  • Funding instrument: FLAMENCO
  • Submission period: 24 August – 1 December 2026
  • Submission: As soon as possible following the submission of a joint proposal to AEI, within 7 calendar days.

This is a bottom-up call, open to all scientific fields eligible under both the AEI and the NCN.

Guidelines for this call will be published shortly.

3. NCN useful links

OPUS LAP32+LAP/Weave: https://www.ncn.gov.pl/en/aktualnosci/2026-07-21-jesienny-nabor-opus32

FLAMENCO: https://www.ncn.gov.pl/en/aktualnosci/2026-07-21-projekty-naukowe-pl-es

4. Contact information

En la AEI: e-mail: bilat@aei.gob.es

En el NCN: e-mail: Jadwiga.Spyrka@ncn.gov.pl