Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming call for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions’ postdoctoral fellowships
Photo credit: European Union
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In April, the European Commission will open its annual MSCA postdoctoral fellowships call to help connect excellent researchers with host institutions around the world.
It’s a prestigious and highly international funding scheme, which supports over 1,000 researchers in learning and mobility each year. The grantees can choose to go work in a European or non-European institution for up to three years, as long as it’s not the country they currently live in.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral grants are very popular, with the success rate hovering around 15%. That is up from 13% since the Commission moved to limit the candidate pool by introducing a rule that applicants cannot have more than eight years of scientific experience.
“We had to take measures to limit the number of applications, because of the great interest in this action which could not be met by the budget available,” Claire Morel, head of MSCA at the European Commission's education and culture directorate, told Science|Business.
This year, the budget is €270 million. Of this, €230 million will go to European mobility and a further €40 million to global mobility.
What does the MSCA do?
The MSCA is part of Horizon Europe’s Pillar 1, which funds bottom-up excellent science. Its goal is to support and train researchers at all stages of their careers around Europe and beyond, in all sectors and disciplines.
The MSCA doesn’t have any calls targeting specific science fields and is open to any organisations, from private companies to museums, from basic research to innovation.
As part of MSCA, the European Commission runs five grant programmes that all complement each other. The two biggest ones are doctoral networks and the postdoctoral fellowships.
Doctoral networks connect institutions that deliver doctoral training. This covers training and mobility at the earliest stages of researchers’ careers, with a strong focus on going beyond academia.
The postdoctoral fellowship scheme is the next stage for researchers who have up to eight years of experience since their PhD. It’s open to researchers from all over the world and allows them to do the research both in Europe and abroad.
All this comes with attractive working conditions. To remedy Europe’s issues with precarious research careers, the Commission asks host institutions to offer its researchers secure working contracts that include social security – a luxury for many young researchers in Europe.
MSCA’s other programmes include COFUND, under which the Commission co-funds postdoctoral and doctoral programmes run by other organisations; Staff Exchanges for short-term international and intersectoral exchanges; and a MSCA & Citizens programme that aims to bring science closer to citizens.
What are the postdoctoral fellowships about?
The fellowship scheme highlights the importance of all sorts of cooperation in science, including working with different economic sectors.
Researchers are encouraged to work outside of academia, and MSCA now offers a six-month extension to its fellowships to allow researchers to continue a placement outside of academia. “We’re trying to be more flexible,” says Anouk Lafortune, policy officer responsible for the scheme at the Commission.
A big part of this is science policy. The MSCA is actively trying to promote cooperation with policymaking bodies and the public sector.
The global aspect is important too. “The goal of going beyond Europe is to increase the excellence of EU research, to develop researchers' networks and careers and allow them to be trained and have access to facilities that could additionally enhance our research capacity,” says Morel.
With the global fellowships, researchers spend a year or two abroad and then return for another year in Europe. Most go to the US.
The Commission says most of the researchers then stay in Europe. Latest numbers suggest 69% of MSCA researchers continued their careers in the EU afterwards. Of those that leave the EU, 80% are non-European nationals.
How much support can you get and how?
The postdoctoral fellowships call is set to be open for submissions between 10 April and 11 September. But there’s a chance the opening date could be slightly delayed this year.
Researchers and their host institution must submit a joint application. This is the hard part for many – finding the right research/host match. Each researcher’s personal network is massively important here.
But if relying on your own network isn’t possible, there are platforms that help. There is an active network of National Contact Points. These centres based in each Horizon country help connect researchers with host institutions in other countries. There’s also an alumni network that provides guidance.
The Commission also funds a virtual matchmaking platform, but it’s coming to an end this May. It’s unclear yet if the platform will continue once the current EU funding runs out.
Once the applicants win a grant, money is provided by the EU to the host institution which in turn pays the researcher a living allowance, a mobility allowance, and any other allowance a researcher might need, such as a family or special needs one. The amounts depend on the institution, but the MSCA demands that host institutions provide attractive employment conditions, including social security.
There’s also money for research, training and networking activities as well as management and any indirect costs.
Researchers going to stay in European host institutions can come from anywhere in the world and the fellowships last 12 to 24 months. Global fellowships are available to European nationals and long-term residents. They get to go abroad for 12 to 24 months after which they must join a European institution for a 12-month return phase.
There are a few extra things that matter, such as adherence to the Green Charter, which promotes the sustainable implementation of research activities. All MSCA projects must report on the ways they have sought to minimise the environmental impact of their research at the final reporting stage. There are measures for both researchers and host institutions.
It’s not used to weigh the application but is likely to become a deciding factor in the future if two proposals get the same score. “It is a criterion we would introduce in the next sets of calls, to use it to weigh two equal proposals,” says Lafortune.
There’s also a special measure for host institutions in Widening countries, that is, Horizon Europe countries that tend to get less money out of the programme than others. Researchers going to these countries get a second chance to secure funding through a dedicated fund for ERA Fellowships. Essentially, if their proposal gets a high score but fails to get funding directly from MSCA due to budget constraints, they have a backup scheme to get funding from.
The track record
The postdoctoral fellowship scheme is very popular scheme and receives the biggest number of applications in the Horizon Europe programme. In the last few years, it received between 8,000 to 9,000 applications in each call.
In 2020, the last call under the previous Horizon 2020 research framework, it received 11,000 applications in one go. That’s just before the Commission changed the rules and introduced scientific ‘age’ restrictions.
The success rate now hovers around 15%. This is up from 13 to 14% in Horizon 2020, prior to the change in rules.
It’s also very international: in Horizon 2020, 40% of its grantees were outside of the EU, making the MSCA the most international part of the programme.
Some grantees are former graduates of EU’s other schemes, such as Erasmus+, Erasmus Mundus or MSCA’s own doctoral networks. But it’s not a trend, the Commission says.
Women do well in MSCA programmes too. Under Horizon 2020, 42% of MSCA fellows were women. This percentage is higher than the average percentage of women researchers in the EU, which in 2018 stood at 33.8%.
Most common host countries in Horizon 2020, according to number of participations, were: UK (14%), Germany (12%), France (10%), Spain and Italy (both 8%).
And the money is allocated to each scientific field, depending on how many applications are received from each one. Social sciences and humanities tend to lead with the most funding, followed by life sciences.
Because money is divided per field and thus per evaluation panel – there are eight total – each one has roughly the same success rate.
Useful info
- MSCA Work programme 2023-2024
- List of National Contact Points
- MSCA alumni network
- Virtual matchmaking platform
- A look at MSCA in Horizon 2020
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