Narodowe Centrum Badan I Rozwoju (NCBR) – Poland

he National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) is a governmental agency established on 1 July 2007 in order to implement tasks in the area of science and innovation policy. The legal status and tasks of NCBR as well as a supervisory role of the Minister for Science towards the agency are stipulated in the Act of 30 April 2010 on the National Centre for Research and Development. NCBR’s mission is to enhance the cooperation of scientific institutions and enterprises in order to develop their capabilities to create innovative applications and solutions based on R&D results, which will strengthen the economy and be beneficial for the society. The main tasks of NCBR include: management and financing the national strategic R+D programmes defined in the National Research Programme, supporting the commercialization of research results and technology transfer, financing the programmes of applied research, supporting young researchers’ career through targeted programmes, supporting researchers’ mobility and participation in international programmes and financing R+D projects carried out by Polish teams in international collaboration

NCBR collaborates with numerous foreign research funding institutions, mainly in the frame of FP6 and FP7 initiatives aiming at the development of the European Research Area (ERA), such as ERA-NET and ERA-NET Plus projects and initiatives realized on the basis of Art. 185 and 187 EC Treaty.

In 2012 NCBR GRAF–TECH Program was established in order to develop innovative products based on graphene. The main objective of the GRAF-TECH is to increase the competitiveness of the Polish economy through the practical application of the results of research aimed at the development of innovative solutions based on the use of this material.

The NCBR budget in 2012 was around 1 103 million euro, over 2 500 projects were co-funded. Actually NCBR staff is around 250.