Nicolaus Copernicus Polish-German Research Award

Candidates are academics who have at least a doctoral degree, work at a public university and/or a research institution in Germany or any entity belonging to the higher education and science system in Poland.

Candidates shall be engaged in ongoing research projects.

Candidates are expected to have rendered outstanding services to Polish-German research cooperation by bringing together complementary skills, expertise, and resources in order to jointly address research problems. The results of such cooperation should be of significant relevance for the respective research community and have future potential to open up new perspectives in the respective research field or also beyond.

Nominations of female researchers are encouraged.

The purpose of the award is to give a distinction to the individuals most active in Polish-German scientific cooperation who have made exceptional research achievements as a result of that cooperation.

Candidates may be nominated by researchers holding a doctoral degree who are working at universities and/or research institutions in Germany and Poland. Self-nominations shall be considered.

Nominations shall be submitted in English according to instructions published on the DFG’s or FNP’s websites and must contain the following documents:

• Acknowledgement of the clearly defined, joint academic achievement of the two candidates
• Curricula vitae of each candidate in tabular form (max. two pages each)
• A list of up to ten publications based on verifiable joint research in support of the achievement
• One additional independent letter of reference for each couple of researchers when the nomination is submitted by a third party, two independent letters of reference for self-nominations
  (acknowledgement and independent letter(s) of reference have to come from different persons).

Award winners are selected by a Jury appointed jointly by DFG and FNP. The Jury consists of eight long-term jury members.

The jury evaluates the merit of nominations based on the academic excellence of joint achievements and the success of the cooperation, both with special relevance to the respective research field. In order to cover all fields of science and the humanities represented by the candidates, up to two associate jury members may additionally be appointed.

The deadline for submitting nominations is 15 July 2025. Nominations must be submitted electronically using the DFG’s submission portal elan.

If you are using the elan portal for the first time, please register before 1 July 2025. This applies also to nominations by third parties. For self-nominations, both cooperation partners must be registered in elan. Please also indicate your subject area and select the call “Copernicus Award 2026” during the registration.

For technical assistance, please contact the elan hotline: +49 228 885-2900, elan-helpdesk@dfg.de

To start the online form for the submission process, please select “Proposal Submission” from the navigation bar and go to “Nominations”.

In order to complete the submission process, please send a scan of the signed compliance form (Quittungsdokument) in PDF format to Stephanie Lass (stephanie.lass@dfg.de).

The awardees will be announced in spring 2026, and the award ceremony will take place in Poland in June 2026.

Please find more information about the Copernicus Award on the DFG.

The next call will be launched in mid-2027.

• Dr. Annina Lottermann, International Affairs, Europe, phone +49 228 885-2802, annina.lottermann@dfg.de
• Stephanie Lass, International Affairs, Europe, phone + 49 228 885-2442, stephanie.lass@dfg.de

The award is a joint venture of the Foundation for Polish Science and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

• The first competition took place in 2006, and the COPERNICUS award ceremony was held on 2 May 2006 in Max Liebermann Haus in Berlin.
• The second edition of the competition took place in 2008. The award ceremony was held on 14 May 2008 in the Old Orangerie (Łazienki Park in Warsaw).
• The third edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2010. The award was conferred on 10 May 2010 in Berlin, in the Leibniz Hall of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
• The fourth edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2012. The award was conferred on 17 September 2012 in Warsaw, in the Palace on the Isle in Royal Lazienki.
• The fifth edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2014. The award was conferred on 10 September 2014 in Berlin, in the Leibniz Hall of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
• The sixth edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2016. The award was conferred on 7 June  2016 in Warsaw, in the Palace on the Isle in Royal Lazienki.
• The seventh edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2018. The award was conferred on 25 November 2018 at the Charité Museum of Medical History in Berlin.
• The eighth edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2020. Due to the epidemic situation, the award ceremony was postponed and organized jointly with the ninth edition ceremony in 2022.
• The ninth edition of the competition was adjudicated in 2022. The awards from the eighth and ninth competition were conferred jointly on 9 June 2022 in Warsaw, in the Palace on the Isle in Royal Lazienki.
• The tenth edition of the competition was decided in 2024. The awards ceremony of the tenth edition combined with the anniversary conference took place on October 24-25, 2024 in Berlin.