1 About the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA)
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are European grants offered to researchers at all career stages and encourage transnational, intersectoral and interdisciplinary mobility.
The expected impact of the MSCA in Horizon 2020 includes the support of ca. 65,000 researchers, including 25,000 PhD candidates, ca. 200,000 scientific publications in high impact peer-reviewed journals, and ca.1,500 patent applications.
2 MSCA - What’s in it for Japanese researchers?
- Innovative Training Networks (ITN) is the main European doctoral training programme, with a special emphasis on non-academic sector participation and the innovation dimension.
Applications from Japanese research institutions: organisations such as universities, research centres or companies, which want top propose a research training network can join a consortia to submit a proposal (annual calls).
Applications from Japanese researchers: individuals can apply to the PhD positions created by these networks, including Industrial Doctorate and Joint Doctorate. They are advertised on the Euraxess Job portal.
- Individual Fellowships (IF) are for experienced researchers (holders of a PhD degree or equivalent research experience) to undertake their own research project at a host organisation in another country, thus gaining new skills through advanced training and possibly intersectoral mobility.
Researchers based in Japan can apply for a European fellowship, choosing to apply either for a re-integration grant or a scientific grant.
Researchers based in Europe can apply for a global fellowship to carry out research in a third country such as Japan and to return to Europe. The can also apply for a European fellowship for mobility within the EU or associated countries.
Calls are annual and advertised on the Horizon 2020 Participant Portal.
- Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) enables international and intersectoral collaboration, based on short-term staff exchanges between organisations worldwide. The RISE programme is the successor programme of the previous IRSES under FP7.
Japanese research institutions can join a consortia as partner, but can’t receive direct funding from the European Commisson for the secondment of their researchers.
- Co-Funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND) calls are open to European research institutions and is thus not relevant for Japanese research organisations. It results in many high-quality fellowship or doctoral programme positions which include transnational mobility and are advertised on the Euraxess portal.
Japanese researchers can apply directly to COFUND positions advertised on the EURAXESS job portal.
Sources: EURAXESS Links Network newsletter, Issue 5, April 2014; Come to Europe brochure; Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) – European Commission's website.
EURAXESS Links Japan is seeking Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellows or Alumni!
Are you a former or current Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow? Do you currently live in Japan? You want to share your experience and take part in EURAXESS events?
Contact us to discuss collaboration opportunities and help us promote the European Research Area.