Marie Curie project proposal

The success rate of the MSC-IF is quite low, which means that it is quite competitive. The score of your application is calculated by weighted summation of the scores you receive for the three individual criteria for each you receive a number between 1 to 5 (poor to excellent).

Three criteria of Marie Curie project

The three criteria are Excellence, Impact, and Quality and efficiency of the implementation, with 50% weighting for each, 30% for Impact, and 20% for Quality.

1) Excellence: Excellence is determined by the quality and credibility of the researcher and innovation project, training of the researcher at the host institute and quality of the supervisor. At the time of application, you probably cannot change your level of quality, but you can certainly improve the level of innovation in your proposal. We will elaborate on this in the sections below. Another essential factor in this criterion is the training plan as well as the opportunity to train at the host institution, which some applicants underestimate. At least one page should be devoted to the training you will receive at the host university (practical training, teaching experiences, courses or supervision experiences). Projects with no training plans cannot be awarded an MSC-IF. On the other hand, the quality of the supervisor is very important. The reason you selected this specific professor as your project supervisor should be clearly explained in your proposal.

To justify the credibility and quality of the supervisor, you should answer the following questions in your proposal. If you could join that person’s group, what would you learn from him or her? The host professor and his or her team have what competencies that could enhance your ability to become more knowledgeable about the proposed research subject? Is there any way the host or group can help you become prepared to be an academic professor in the future? Underestimating any single sub-section of the “Excellence” criterion will guarantee failure.

2) Impact: In this section of the Marie Curie project proposal, you should explain how this project will benefit your career. You should explain how this proposal will boost your career prospects in this section. Additionally, you need to clearly describe how the results of your project will be disseminated. In fact, Marie-Curie Fellowships pay among the highest salaries in the world. You are therefore expected to communicate your results in a variety of ways. A public outreach program is crucial to raising awareness of research activities around the world. Create a half-page plan summarizing your plans to communicate the results of your research with the public (e.g. seminars or experiments in schools, videos of your research (YouTube channel), animations of your activities, etc.). Here you should clearly state your plan to disseminate your results (article, patent, conference abstract, etc.). Communication (public outreach) should not be mixed in with disseminating your results.

3) Quality and efficiency of the implementation: In order to earn a very high score in this criterion, you should have a very comprehensive work plan. In order to meet the project’s objectives, it should be planned effectively. Ensure that the tasks allocated for the project are matched to the available resources (infrastructure, administration, and supervision) in the host institute. As an example, if you are planning to conduct nanotechnology research, the host institution should have cleanroom facilities, and you can get access to those facilities within a reasonable timeframe. Even though the project is risky, it should sound feasible despite the risk. So, in other words, you should communicate the potential risks in the proposal and explain which measures you have taken to mitigate those risks. The contingency plan is the minimum requirement to show that if your initial idea fails, you have another way to reach your goals.

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Your fellowship remuneration is different depending on the host country. In another post, we have described how to calculate the salary of MSC-IF in different countries.

Here, you can find more details of this Fellowship (MSC-IF):

• What is the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship?
• Marie-Curie Fellowship Salary Calculator
• Salary of Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021
• Salary of PhD students in Marie-Curie ITN
• Top 20 countries with the highest salary of Marie-Curie Fellowship
• Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

Please note that there is another type of Marie-Curie for PhD which is known as ITN. You can read more about that in our previous post. We will update all different types of academic positions (the latest ones) so you can find them on our home page, and also on the academic jobs page. Therefore, make sure to follow our Facebook page to not miss any new vacancies and also enjoy our tips and advice on academic jobs. But if you get bored reading text, watch our PhD and Postdoc-related videos on our YouTube Channel.