Call for proposals

Horizon 2020 – Excellent Science - Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions: "COFUND - Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes" - H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2017

 

Objective and description

A new call for proposals has been published under the Horizon 2020 Programme within the pillar “Excellent Science” - Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions: "COFUND - Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes" - H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2017. The COFUND scheme aims at stimulating regional, national or international programmes to foster excellence in researchers' training, mobility and career development, spreading the best practices of Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

 

This will be achieved by co-funding new or existing regional, national, and international programmes to open up to, and provide for, international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary research training, as well as transnational and cross-sectoral mobility of researchers at all stages of their career.

                                                                                                                   

COFUND takes the form of:

A) Doctoral programmes

Doctoral programmes address the development and broadening of the research competencies of early-stage researchers. The training follows the EU Principles on Innovative Doctoral Training. Collaboration with a wider set of partner organisations, including from the non-academic sector, which may provide hosting or secondment opportunities or training in research or transferable skills, as well as innovative elements of the proposed programme, will be positively taken into account during the evaluation.

Each researcher must be enrolled in a doctoral programme. Attention is paid to the quality of supervision and mentoring arrangements as well as career guidance.

 

B) Fellowship programmes

Fellowship programmes fund individual research training and career development fellowships for experienced researchers. The programmes supported should have regular selection rounds following fixed deadlines or regular cut-off dates, allowing fair competition between the researchers applying. The selections should be based on open, widely advertised competition, with transparent international peer review and the selection of candidates on merit. Mobility types supported by fellowship programmes may be similar to the ones supported under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships. On top of transnational mobility, applicants are encouraged to include elements of cross-sectoral mobility into their programmes. Fellowship programmes should be based on individual-driven mobility, i.e., researchers should be able to freely choose a research topic and the appropriate organisation to host them, fitting their individual needs.

 

Given that the aim of the co-funded fellowship programmes is the support of individual fellows, research teams will not be funded.

 

All research areas can be funded except those covered by the EURATOM Treaty. Proposed programmes are encouraged to cover all research disciplines ("bottom-up"), but can also focus on specific disciplines. In this case the range of covered disciplines should allow reasonable flexibility for the researchers.

 

Mobility across borders is a must. Cross-sectoral mobility is also encouraged.

 

Programmes that prioritise specific research disciplines based on national or regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3 strategies) can also be supported. Synergies with the European Structural & Investment Funds (ESIF) are encouraged.

 

Eligible applicants

This action is meant for organisations that fund or manage doctoral programmes or fellowship programmes for researchers.

 

Each COFUND proposal should have a sole participant who will be responsible for the availability of the necessary matching funds to execute the proposal, and which could be a government ministry, regional authority, funding agency, university, research organisation, research academy or enterprise.

 

Participants shall be legal entities established in an EU Member State or Associated Country that fund or manage doctoral programmes or fellowship programmes for researchers. International European interest organisations that fund or manage doctoral programmes or fellowship programmes for researchers can also participate in this action. Participants are organisations from the academic or the non-academic sector. These two sectors are defined as follows:

 

Ø  Academic Sector

·  Public or private higher education establishments awarding academic degrees;

·  Public or private non-profit research organisations whose primary mission is to pursue research;

·  International European Interest Organisations.

 

Ø  Non-academic Sector

·  Socio-economic actor not included in the academic sector and fulfilling the requirements of the Horizon 2020 Rules for Participation.

 

Budget & duration

The indicative total budget of this call is 80.000.000 EUR. Of this amount, 30 million EUR is allocated to Doctoral Programmes and 50 million EUR to Fellowship Programmes.

 

Participating organisations will receive a fixed amount for each supported researcher as a contribution to the living allowance of the researcher and to the management costs of the programme.

 

Selected programmes will receive co-funding for three to five years up to a total amount of ? 10 million.

 

Deadline for proposals’ submission

The deadline of this call is 28 September 2017, 17:00 (Brussels local time).

Applicants must submit their proposal electronically, following the link on the submission service.

 

Further information

Please find attached the call documents.

 

More information: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/msca-cofund-2017.html  

 

 

Kind regards,

Rosemary

 

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).