MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship

About the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships are the European Commission's flagship individual mobility scheme for postdoctoral researchers, funded under Horizon Europe and run annually by the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Two variants exist: European Fellowships fund 12 to 24 months at a host institution in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe associated country; Global Fellowships fund 12 to 24 months at a host in a non-associated third country (USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, etc.) followed by a mandatory 12-month return phase in Europe, totalling 24 to 36 months. Under the 2026-2027 Work Programme the fellowship pays a monthly living allowance of €6,350 before country correction coefficients, Switzerland and Liechtenstein top the table at 163.7%, Ireland at 135.8%, Denmark at 131.3%, Iceland at 137.4%, Norway at 127%, Sweden at 119.3%, while southern and eastern European hosts adjust down to roughly 75-95%, plus a €710 monthly mobility allowance (not country-adjusted), and where applicable family (€660), long-term leave, and special needs allowances. The host institution also receives a research, training, and networking allowance of €1,000 per month plus an institutional management overhead. Eligibility requires a PhD awarded by the call deadline and a maximum of 8 years of full-time research experience post-PhD, with documented extensions possible for parental leave, military service, long-term illness, or care responsibilities. The strict "mobility rule" requires applicants not to have resided or carried out their main activity in the host country for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately preceding the deadline. MSCA proposals are scored on three weighted criteria: Excellence (50%), Impact (30%), and Implementation (20%). Across panels success rates typically range from 15 to 18%, with Life Sciences and Social Sciences & Humanities the most oversubscribed. The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship is widely seen as a career-defining grant for postdocs aiming at tenure-track or principal investigator positions: it certifies independent mobility, international training, and the ability to write a competitive Horizon Europe proposal, three signals that the next-tier ERC Starting Grant panels weigh heavily.

Who is eligible?

• •PhD awarded by the call deadline (or thesis successfully defended)
• •Maximum 8 years full-time research experience post-PhD (extensions for parental leave, military service, clinical training, long-term illness, care)
• •Mobility rule: ≤12 months residence or main activity in the host country in the 36 months before the deadline
• •European Fellowship: host in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe associated country
• •Global Fellowship: outgoing host in a non-associated third country plus return host in an EU/associated country
• •Of any nationality; host institution determines mobility eligibility, not the applicant's passport

How to apply

1. 1. Choose your fellowship type and host

   Decide between European Fellowship (single host in EU/associated country) or Global Fellowship (outgoing host in a third country plus mandatory European return host). The choice changes the proposal narrative substantially: Global Fellowships must justify the international detour as essential to the career development plan.

2. 2. Identify and recruit a supervisor

   Your prospective supervisor is your co-author on the proposal in everything but name. Reach out 4-6 months before the deadline. Strong supervisors with MSCA track records get many requests, leave time for them to say yes and to iterate on the science.

3. 3. Confirm host institution support

   The host signs a letter committing to the project, infrastructure, training, and (for Global Fellowships) the return-phase placement. EU universities have grant offices that will check eligibility, mobility-rule compliance, and budget, engage them early.

4. 4. Draft Parts A and B of the proposal

   Part A is administrative; Part B is the science. Part B is capped at 10 pages and structured as Excellence (3 sections), Impact (3 sections), and Implementation (1 section). Each weighted criterion has its own scoring scheme, write to the criteria, not as a free essay.

5. 5. Submit via the EU Funding & Tenders portal

   Single annual call, typically opening April/May and closing in September. Portal closes at the deadline minute (17:00 Brussels time). Submission requires the host institution's PIC code, verify it weeks ahead, not on submission day.

6. 6. Wait for the single-stage evaluation

   Unlike ERC, MSCA is single-stage: three remote panel reviewers score Excellence, Impact, and Implementation; weighted score becomes the panel rank. No interview. Results land ~5 months after the deadline. Successful proposals receive a grant agreement; near-miss proposals receive evaluation summary reports useful for resubmission.

What sets winning proposals apart

• ✓Treat the Impact section as the differentiator. Most rejected proposals score well on Excellence and lose on Impact because the career development plan reads as boilerplate. Anchor it in specific positions, conferences, papers, and training events you will pursue.
• ✓Quantify the secondments. A vague "may include short stays at partner institutions" reads as filler. "Three-week secondment to Group X at TU Delft to learn cryo-EM data analysis on the in-house Talos Arctica" reads as a real plan.
• ✓Map your training gap to concrete deliverables. Reviewers want to see what you cannot already do today and how the MSCA will close that gap by month 24. A SWOT-style gap analysis in Part B Section 4 is a common winning pattern.
• ✓Pick a supervisor with an MSCA track record. A supervisor who has hosted three MSCAs knows the criteria, the timing, and the gotchas. Their letter and your career development plan will read as credible because they have lived this scheme.
• ✓For Global Fellowships, justify the third-country choice on science, not on geography. "Group Y in Boston is the only lab worldwide running the assay I need" beats "spending time in the US would broaden my horizons" by a wide margin.
• ✓Lift wording from past successful MSCA proposals (with permission). The proposal is scored against a rubric that rewards specific signal phrases ("two-way transfer of knowledge", "European added value", "open science by design"), using the funder's vocabulary lands better than reinventing it.

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