In a letter issued by the NCN Director on 21 September 2026, the National Science Centre clarified the rules governing the use of unused funds from the Open Access (OA) indirect costs category. The key information for project leaders and grant applicants is that the end of a project does not mean that activities related to open science must also come to an end. Unused OA funds may remain at the disposal of the host institution and continue to be used after the project has been completed.
Importantly, NCN emphasises that OA indirect costs should be understood more broadly than merely as funds for article processing charges (APCs).
These funds may support, among other things:
- publishing research results in the Open Access model,
- preparing research data for sharing in accordance with the FAIR principles,
- organising, documenting, and curating research data,
- preparing and updating data management plans,
- assigning metadata and persistent identifiers,
- anonymisation and pseudonymisation of data,
- costs related to data sharing and archiving,
- maintenance and development of infrastructure supporting research data management,
- professional development of staff supporting open science, including data stewards and data managers.
Importantly, NCN also indicates that these funds may be used to cover salaries and support the professional development of individuals responsible for research data management and for assisting researchers in fulfilling open science requirements.
There is no fixed deadline for using unused OA funds after the completion of a project. This reflects the long-term nature of obligations related, among other things, to the storage and sharing of research data. Moreover, the funds may be used to finance an Open Access publication that is not directly related to the project from which the lump-sum allocation originated, provided that the expenditure supports the implementation of open science principles. If the project leader is no longer employed by the institution, the funds remain at the institution’s disposal and may be used to support Open Access activities carried out by other researchers.
This is an important change from an institutional perspective: OA indirect costs can now be treated as a long-term instrument for supporting open science rather than solely as a budget for APCs within a specific project.
Details are available in the Letter of the NCN Director of 21 September 2026 on the Principles for the Use of Open Access Indirect Costs (in Polish).
