Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

13 December 2022

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship is a highly competitive program since its success rate is quite low. Applicants are selected based on the scores they receive from reviewers. Based on the weighted sum of your scores for the three individual criteria, your score will range from 1 to 5 (poor to excellent).

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

The purpose of the fellowship is to support scientists’ careers and foster excellence in research. Through this program, PhD holders will be able to conduct research abroad, acquire new skills, and develop their careers. In addition, these fellowships provide junior researchers with the opportunity to gain experience in other countries, as well as in other disciplines and even outside of academia.

Who is eligible for Marie Cuire postdoctoral fellowships?

You should submit an application together with a host organization. The host can be a university, research institution, business, SME, or other organization based in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. Postdoctoral fellowships are available in all disciplines, and there is no limit to the subjects that are eligible.

Applicants must meet the following criteria:

  • Hold a PhD degree at the time of application. A doctoral candidate who has defended their thesis, but who has not received a doctorate degree, may also apply.
  • A candidate should not have more than eight years of research experience following the award of their PhD. However, those years outside of the research environment will not count towards the above maximum. The same applies if you have taken a career break. Moreover, if you are an EU citizen who has worked several years of research outside of Europe (in third countries), you can be exempt from that rule if you wish to reintegrate into Europe
  • The last rule is mobility. The candidate must not have lived nor conducted their main activity including work or study in the country that they wish to do their fellowship for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the call deadline
  • How to write a good Marie Curie project proposal?

Can I reapply if my application were successful?

The new rules state that you can only reapply if your score in the last round is at least 70%.

Where the host can be located?

There are two types of fellowships, European Postdoctoral Fellowships and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships.

European Postdoctoral Fellowships

This type of Postdoctoral fellowship is open to every nationality and should be conducted in Europe. It means your whole fellowship should be in one of the EU member states or Horizon Europe Associated Country and can last up to two years.

Global Postdoctoral Fellowships

This type of Postdoctoral fellowship is not open to every nationality and is limited to EU citizens or long residents of the EU. The fellowship can be up to three years. The first 1 to 2 years of the fellowship should be spent in thirds countries (outside Europe) but the fellowship last year should be conducted in one of the EU member states or Horizon Europe Associated Country.

Bear in mind of no matter which fellowship you apply for, you will have also an opportunity for short-term secondments anywhere in the world during the fellowship.

In the Fellowship program of 2022, a new option is also added. The fellows can get extra support and additional support to do a placement of up to 6 months in a non-academic organization. However, the organization should be either in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. All placement should be done at the end of the fellowship.

Value of the funding: Benefits

The host institute of organizations which is called a beneficiary should hire the Postdoctoral fellow for the duration of the funding. The Marie Curie Funding is one of the most generous ones in the world which not only covered the research expenses of the postdoc but also provide a generous living allowance (monthly salary), extra money for mobility, and funding for family.

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, the training of the researcher at the host institute, and the 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.

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

Would you like to know the salary amount of PhD and postdoc positions in Europe? 

You can find all the available full-funded PhD positions in different countries here.

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) and 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.