This year’s annual MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call has attracted considerable interest from the research community, with 10,360 proposals submitted.
The fourth call of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions-funded Postdoctoral Fellowships, part of the EU’s Research and Innovation framework programme Horizon Europe, closed on 11 September 2024.
The European Research Executive Agency received 10,360 proposals. By comparison, 8,039 proposals were submitted in 2023. This represents an increase of 29%.
Since this year the United Kingdom is an associated country to Horizon Europe, so organisations based in the country will be able to participate on the same terms as those based in the European Union and other countries already associated to Horizon Europe.
Through this call, the European Commission is expected to fund about 1,700 projects, with an indicative budget of €417.2 million. This represents an increase of 60% of the budget compared to the last call.
This year’s submitted proposals are distributed as follows
- European fellowships: 9,303 proposals
- Global fellowships: 1,057 proposals
To see the charts of proposals by type of fellowship, country of coordinator and outgoing country – Global fellowships please read the article’s source.
Funding for excellent research
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers holding a PhD and who wish to acquire new skills in Europe and elsewhere in the world through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to excellent researchers of any nationality.
The scheme encourages researchers to work on research and innovation projects in the non-academic sector. It is open to researchers wishing to reintegrate in Europe as well as to those with high potential who are seeking to restart their careers in research.
Organisations from all socioeconomic sectors in any country can host and train talented researchers through Postdoctoral Fellowships.
ERA Fellowships
Researchers applying for a European fellowship with a host organisation from a “widening country” (i.e. a country with low participation rates in Horizon Europe) can have the chance to be considered for the ERA Fellowships call.
The ERA Fellowships will fund high-scoring proposals submitted under the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships which cannot be funded due to budget constraints.
Seal of Excellence
The European Commission will also award Seal of Excellence certificates to researchers who applied under the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call in 2024 but whose proposals cannot be funded due to budgetary constraints.
This label recognises the value of these high-quality proposals and helps individual applicants secure alternative funding, whilst host institutions gain international visibility and attractiveness.
Indicative timeline
- mid-September 2024 to mid-February 2025: evaluation by the European Research Executive Agency and external independent expert evaluators
- mid-February 2025: notification of call results to applicants, including those eligible for ERA fellowships
- applicants will be able to access the results of the evaluation on their personal space of the Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal
- an overview of the evaluation results, cut-off scores and statistics will be published on the page of the call Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024
- April 2025: award of Seal of Excellence certificates for eligible applicants
- April-May 2025: expected signature of the grant agreement with the European Commission for successful projects
- as of April 2025: First EU-funded projects start. Projects can start at the latest up to two years after the call deadline (i.e. September 2026)
Source: European Commission (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions) | What’s new (https://shorturl.at/Q3uaK)