For calls with deadlines in 2022 and beyond, once a project proposal is selected for funding following evaluations, consortium partners concerned by the eligibility criterion will have until Grant Agreement signature to confirm they have a GEP in place.

This is mainly for statistics purposes.

External evaluation agencies would be seen as service providers, the applicant shall explain that they will be using an external agency when describing the evaluation and selection process under excellence, no need of letter of commitment in this case as they are not partners.

Own resources mean all resources – beneficiaries + implementing partners + associated partners (if applicable).

Yes, they will assess if the appropriate level of co-financing is committed to effectively implement the proposal.

The JRC, as the Research Centre of the European Commission, is considered academic. The JRC can participate in a Doctoral Networks consortium but not as a beneficiary. They can only participate as an Associated Partner – they can be involved in the training and can host doctoral candidates on secondment but cannot recruit them directly or receive direct funding from the Commission.

All MSCA projects have to advertise their job offers on the EURAXESS website at a minimum. On top of that, they can also be advertised by the specific universities: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs

Currently, Switzerland has the status of a third country not associated to Horizon Europe in the frame of the DN and PF calls.

For PF: As long as this status remains unchanged, researchers with a Swiss host institution are not eligible to apply to the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships. Switzerland is eligible as host country for the outgoing phase of a Global Fellowship. However, Swiss nationals are NOT eligible for participation in MSCA Global Fellowships unless they are long-term residents of an EU Member State or a country associated to Horizon Europe.

For DN: Organisations based in Switzerland can participate in MSCA Doctoral Networks as ‘Associated Partners’. The Swiss project partner will not be funded by the European Commission but by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation.

More info can be found at https://www.euresearch.ch/en/horizon-europe/excellent-science/marie-skodowska-curie-actions-(msca)-55.html

UK is to be considered as an Associated Country to Horizon Europe in the frame of PF and DN calls.

For PF: a fellow who plans to be hosted by an institution located in the UK must apply for a European PF.

For DN: partners located in UK can be beneficiaries and the doctoral candidate(s) recruited by UK partners are taken into account in the count of person-months funded by the EC (max. 360 or 540 person-months depending on the DN mode).

If the HE Association Agreement between UK and EC is not signed by the signature of the PF 2022/ DN 2022 Grant Agreements, successful UK applicants will receive funding from UKRI. Currently, the UK government guarantee only covers those eligible calls where the grant agreement needs to be signed by 31 December 2022.

More info can be found at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/horizon-europe/

Researchers must be enrolled in a doctoral programme leading to the award of a doctoral degree in at least one EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, and for Joint Doctorates in at least two. If they want to enrol them in a PhD programme in a TC, it should be in addition to the one in a MS/ AC.

The deadlines and procedures are set out in the evaluation result letter. For more information on complaints about proposal rejection: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/funding-tenders-opportunities/display/OM/Complaints+about+proposal+rejection.

NCPs cannot share examples of successful MSCA PF proposals due to copyright ownership. Applicants and research managers should be contacting previous MSCA fellows directly.

As clarified in the EC FAQ 16399, there can be only one supervisor per host institution. As European Fellowships have only one host institution, fellows can only have one supervisor. For Global Fellowships, an additional supervisor should also be appointed for the time spent at the associated partner for the outgoing phase. Other (senior) colleagues supporting the supervision of the fellow at the same host institution can be included as ‘mentors’ in the descriptive part of the proposal.

Applicants should follow the formatting guidelines in the 2022 MSCA PF Standard Application Template, which they can download from the Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal.

• The non-academic placement can only take part in a EU Member State or a country associated to Horizon Europe, at the end of the MSCA Fellowship and only for a maximum of 6 months. 
• The host institution for this placement needs to be from the non-academic sector. Interested organisations should check their sectoral status assigned by the European Commission during the validation process on the FTOP. 
• The host institution for the non-academic placement must provide a letter of commitment for the application. A template is available in section “8. Letter(s) of commitment from associated partners (only for hosts of outgoing phase of Global Fellowships or non-academic placement)” in the MSCA PF Standard Application Template which can be downloaded from the FTOP submission system.
• A dedicated budget for the non-academic placement is available in the 2022 MSCA PF call. Care must be taken to encode the request for a non-academic placement correctly in the online submission system. Applicants are encouraged to check the REA’s document on most common mistakes in MSCA PF proposals. 

In this case, the applicant must still select the keywords in the drop-down menu in the Part A which would best describe their research as explained in the EC FAQ 16507. They can also provide additional information on their research area in the “free keywords” section of the Part A. The vice chairs of the evaluation panels will take this information into account when allocating proposals to evaluators.

The first thing to note is, that even though they cannot directly claim costs, it does not mean that they cannot indirectly receive some funding for the role they have in the DN. Typically for each unit cost, there is one part that goes to the researcher and then there is the institutional part, and this part should not be seen as funding for just this particular fellow, and this beneficiary. It is rather a common pot for the whole consortium to run the project. In the consortium agreement the consortium defines how this is split. This funding can be distributed to the different partners according to their needs in the project: some partners provide more trainings, for instance, the coordinator typically has more management costs, so this funding can be redistributed, and some of this money can go to associated partners to cover the costs of them hosting researchers for secondments, or for them to provide trainings. So these are internal arrangements within the consortium (in the broader sense with the associated partners) so they can get indirectly money for their action. Of course, there are also non-financial incentives; the interest for them to participate could be transfer of knowledge or being part of a dynamic network and being associated to the research project.

For PF, direct financial benefits may not be there but there are plenty indirect benefits – scientific contributions, networking, getting experience in this type of projects, hosting events.

All Open Science aspects are moved under Excellence in the methodology. Open Access should not be described under Impact and Dissemination as it is assessed under Excellence.

This requirement should be applicable to beneficiaries and not to associated partners.

For calls with deadlines in 2022 and beyond, once a project proposal is selected for funding following evaluations, consortium partners concerned by the eligibility criterion will have until Grant Agreement signature to confirm they have a GEP in place.

For calls with deadlines in 2022 and beyond, once a project proposal is selected for funding following evaluations, consortium partners concerned by the eligibility criterion will have until Grant Agreement signature to confirm they have a GEP in place.