About the action

The COFUND action provides funding for regional, national and international programmes for training and career development, through co-funding mechanisms. It spreads the MSCA’s best practices by promoting high standards and excellent working conditions. COFUND promotes sustainable training and international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility.

MSCA COFUND aims at implementing the uniform standards and requirements recruitment and the employment of researchers based on the European Charter for Researchers.

Who can apply

COFUND is a mono-beneficiary action. Only one legal entity established in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country will apply to the COFUND scheme through the Funding and Tenders Portal, as beneficiary. An International European Research Organisation' (IERO)7 is eligible to apply for COFUND and receive funding, including if it is established in a country which is neither an EU Member State nor a HE Associated Country. A single legal entity in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country applies. Additional partners can be included in the project.

The types of organisations COFUND may work with include: government entities, regional authorities, funding agencies, universities, research organisations, enterprises, NGOs.

The beneficiary may fund, recruit, supervise, host or train the researchers, either on its own or in conjunction with Implementing and Associated partners.

• Implementing Partners - legal entities receiving financial support from the beneficiary and implementing the MSCA COFUND Doctoral or Postdoctoral Programme. Implementing partners are not signatories of the Grant Agreement. Therefore, they cannot claim costs of the programme directly from the European Research Executive Agency (REA) Implementing partners can employ researchers. Implementing partners that recruit researchers in the context of a Doctoral or Postdoctoral Programme must be established in an EU Member State, the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States, HE Associated Country, or low- and middle-income third countries included in the list of countries eligible for funding provided in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
• Associated Partners - entities which participate in the action (e.g. providing training or secondments), but without the right to charge costs or claim contributions. They contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant agreement. Associated partners may not employ the researchers under the action.
  Associated partners can be established anywhere in the world and can be from any sectors.

Types of COFUND

There are 2 types of COFUND:

• Doctoral Programmes Doctoral Programmes supported by COFUND offer research training activities to allow doctoral candidates to develop and broaden their skills and competences. They will lead to the award of a doctoral degree in at least one EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. The training activities should be based on the EU Principles on Innovative Doctoral Training.

Substantial training modules, including digital ones, addressing key transferable skills and competences common to all fields and fostering the culture of Open Science, innovation and entrepreneurship will be supported. They will include, inter alia, training on the use of collaborative tools, opening access to publications and to research data, FAIR data management, public engagement and citizen science.

On top of compulsory international mobility, applicants are encouraged to include elements of cross-sectoral mobility and interdisciplinarity into their programmes. Moreover, they must provide for call(s), which would allow the researchers to propose their own project or to choose among research projects proposed to them. Collaboration with a wider set of partners, including from the non-academic sector, will be positively taken into account during the evaluation. These organisations may provide hosting or secondment opportunities or training modules in research or transferable skills.

Particular attention is paid to the quality of supervision and mentoring arrangements as well as career guidance.

• Postdoctoral Programmes fund individual advanced research training and career development fellowships for postdoctoral researchers. Postdoctoral Programmes supported by COFUND fund individual advanced research training and career development fellowships for postdoctoral researchers. The programmes should offer training to develop key transferable skills and competences common to all fields, foster innovation and entrepreneurship and promote and (where appropriate) reward Open Science practices (open access to publications and to research data, FAIR data management, public engagement and citizen science, etc.).

On top of compulsory international mobility, applicants are encouraged to include elements of cross-sectoral mobility and interdisciplinarity into their programmes. Researchers are expected to write their own proposals and choose their host institution. Programmes, which predefine the fellow's research work at a given location, do not conform to this principle.

Researchers will be able to freely choose a research topic and the appropriate organisation to host them, fitting their individual needs. Typically, researchers are recruited and/or seconded within the partnership mentioned in the proposal. However, with the REA project officer's prior approval, it is normally possible to add more Associated or Implementing partners during project execution.

In any case, Postdoctoral Programmes under COFUND will not support "recruitment schemes" to fill regular research vacancies. Researchers, who are already permanently employed by the organization hosting them, cannot be funded by COFUND.

The maximum duration of the action must be 60 months from the starting date set out in the Grant Agreement, however shorter programmes are possible depending of the specificity of the proposed training. Normally, the duration of the programmes vary between 36 and 60 months from the starting date specified in the Grant Agreement.

The minimum duration of each fellowship (on the basis of full-time employment) must be three months.

• Doctoral Programmes:
  • The fellow must be employed for at least the period taken to achieve a PhD.
• Postdoctoral Programmes:
  • The typical duration of the researchers’ individual fellowships varies from 12 to 36 months.

What does the funding cover

The EU contribution for MSCA COFUND will take the form of unit contributions, as stipulated in Decision of 11 March 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions and unit contributions for Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions under the Horizon Europe Programme.

The following budget categories apply:

A beneficiary can receive a maximum of €10 million per call.

Application and evaluation process

Applications must be complete and contain all parts and supporting documents: fill in the submission forms online that will become part A of the proposal and upload parts B1 and B2.

A proposal will then consist of an administrative part (Part A), filled in online via the submission forms. Please note that Associated partners must be listed in the part A (under the Participants’ section) as well as in the part B2. Implementing partners must be listed in the part B2 only. Implementing partners known at the proposal stage must be listed in the section 5 of the part B2.

For more detailed instructions please refer to the templates.

Furthermore, the section ‘’Researchers involved in the proposal’’ under the Participants’ section in the part A is not applicable, and therefore must be kept empty as in COFUND researchers have not yet been recruited at the submission stage.

A narrative Part B composed of two separate PDF files (Part B1 and Part B2), must be uploaded as separate PDF files:

• Part B1, containing a maximum of 34 (thirty four) A4-sized pages. Any excess pages (i.e. numerical page 35 and beyond) will not be available to the evaluators;
• Part B2, with no strict page limit for A4-sized pages but applicants should respect the instructions given per section.

The MSCA COFUND proposal template (part B1 and part B2) can be downloaded from the call page on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal and the REA website. All instructions for completing part B1 and B2 of the proposal as well as requirements with regard to the minimum font size allowed are embedded in the template. These instructions must be removed before proposal submission.

Proposals will be evaluated by experts on the basis of the award criteria 'excellence' (50%), 'impact' (30%) and 'quality and efficiency of the implementation' (20%). Evaluation scores will be awarded for each of these criteria, and not for the different aspects listed in the table below. Each criterion will be scored out of 5. Scores will be awarded with a resolution of one decimal place and will be subject to a weighting factor as indicated in the table below.

Proposals scoring equal to or above 70% will be considered for funding — within the limits of the available call budget. Other proposals will be rejected.

Seals of Excellence will be awarded to applications with a total score equal to or higher than 85%, but which cannot be funded due to lack of budget available to the call.

Grant agreement

Model Grant Agreement

Reporting