MAESTRO

MAESTRO 18

Funds advanced Polish research groups with ambitious scientific goals in frontier topics.

MAESTRO 18 is the 2026 edition of the National Science Centre (NCN) frontier research competition, reserved for senior researchers with at least seven years of post-doctoral experience. The programme targets pioneering basic-research projects with scientific ambition equivalent to that expected at ERC Advanced Grant level, spanning all NCN discipline clusters — humanities and social sciences, sciences and technology, and life sciences. Projects run 36, 48, or 60 months. The prior call, MAESTRO 17, had a budget of 25,000,000 PLN and funded approximately 7 projects from 83 submitted proposals, yielding a success rate of roughly 8%.

The principal investigator must hold their PhD for at least 7 years at the submission deadline and must maintain at least 50% presence in Poland through a part-time or full-time employment contract at the host institution. Applications are submitted through a Polish university or accredited research organisation via the NCN OSF portal; individual applications are not accepted. For-profit entities and organisations without recognised research status are ineligible.

The programme's approximately 8% historical success rate makes it the most selective regular NCN competition, and proposals are evaluated against an internationally frontier standard — reviewers expect proposals to address genuinely open scientific questions of significance beyond the Polish research community. Applicants should plan for a multi-stage review process and budget preparation that reflects the long project durations (up to 60 months). The competition page for MAESTRO 18 was not yet live at the time of data collection; applicants should monitor the NCN schedule for the exact opening date when the call is formally announced.