HORIZON-MSCA-2025-COFUND-01-01: MSCA COFUND 2025

Expected Outcome: Projects results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

For supported doctoral candidates or postdoctoral researchers:

  • Deeper and more diverse set of research-related and transferable skills and competences;
  • Improved employability and career prospects both within academia and beyond;
  • New mind-sets and approaches to R&I work forged through international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary experience;
  • Enhanced networking and communication capacities with scientific peers, as well as with the general public that will increase and broaden the research and innovation impact.


For participating organisations:

  • Enhanced quality and sustainability of research training;
  • Increased global attractiveness, visibility and reputation of the participating organisation(s);
  • Stronger R&I capacity and output among participating organisations;
  • Increased contribution of the participating organisations to the local, regional and/or national socio-economic ecosystems;
  • Regular feedback of research results into teaching and education at participating organisations.


Scope: Applicants submit proposals for new or existing doctoral or postdoctoral programmes with an impact on the enhancement of human resources in R&I at regional, national or international level. These programmes will be co-funded by MSCA COFUND. Proposed programmes can cover any research disciplines ("bottom-up"), but exceptionally can also focus on specific disciplines, notably when they are based on national or regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3 strategies). In this case, the range of covered disciplines should allow reasonable flexibility for the researchers to define their topic.

COFUND takes the form of:
A) Doctoral programmes:
Doctoral programmes 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, fostering good scientific conduct such as research integrity, 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 and approaches, opening access to publications and to other research outputs including data, FAIR data management, societal 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. Collaboration with a wider set of associated 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. The selection procedure for doctoral candidates must be open, transparent and merit-based, in line with the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The vacancy notice (to be widely advertised internationally, including on the EURAXESS76 website) must mention if the published rates include all employer and employee's taxes and contributions. If possible, the gross salary (net salary + employee’s taxes and contributions) should be published.


B) Postdoctoral Programmes:
Postdoctoral Programmes 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 good scientific conduct such as research integrity, foster innovation and entrepreneurship and promote and (where appropriate) reward Open Science practices (open access to publications and to other research outputs including data, FAIR data management, societal engagement and citizen science, etc.). Postdoctoral Programmes should have regular selection rounds following fixed deadlines or regular cut-off dates, allowing fair competition between researchers. The selection procedure https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/ for postdoctoral candidates must be open, competitive, merit-based and with a transparent international peer review, in line with the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The vacancy notice (to be widely advertised internationally, including on the EURAXESS website) must mention if the published rates include all employer and employee's taxes and contributions. If possible, the gross salary (net salary + employee’s taxes and contributions) should be published. On top of compulsory international mobility, applicants are encouraged to include elements of cross-sectoral mobility and interdisciplinarity into their programmes. Researchers will be able to freely choose a research topic and the appropriate organisation to host them, fitting their individual needs.

 

Applicable unit contributions:

The EU contribution for MSCA COFUND will take the form of unit contributions for Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions under the Horizon Europe Programme.

  • For researchers recruited under an employment contract: not lower than EUR 3300(for doctoral candidates) and EUR 4700 (for postdoctoral researchers);

  • For researchers recruited under a fixed-amount fellowship: not lower than EUR 1400 (for doctoral candidates) and EUR 1990(for postdoctoral researchers).


The COFUND allowance contributes to:
 

  • costs of the researchers including the remuneration payable to the individual doctoral or postdoctoral researchers recruited under an employment contract/equivalent direct contract with full social security coverage and complying with the applicable social security legislation, as well as the mobility costs and, if applicable, the family costs, and/or

  • costs related to the training, research expenses, transfer of knowledge and networking activities of researchers, costs of managing the action and indirect costs.

 

Eligibility:

  • Applications must be submitted by a single entity established in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country.

  • Recruited researchers can be of any nationality (see also specific condition for COFUND Postdoctoral Programmes below) and must comply with the following mobility rule: they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting beneficiary or implementing partner for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the deadline of the co-funded programme's call.

  • Supported researchers must be either doctoral candidates or postdoctoral researchers, depending on the action:

    • For COFUND Doctoral Programmes, researchers must be doctoral candidates, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the deadline of the co-funded programme's call. Researchers must be enrolled in a doctoral programme leading to the award of a doctoral degree in at least one EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country.

    • For COFUND Postdoctoral Programmes, researchers must be in possession of a doctoral degree166 at the deadline of the co-funded programme's call. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but who have not yet formally been awarded the doctoral degree will also be considered as postdoctoral researchers and will be considered eligible to apply. The successful defence must be unconditional (no further requirements/corrections that need to be addressed) and take place before the call deadline. Supporting documentation may be requested. (For COFUND Postdoctoral Programmes: researchers must be nationals or long-term residents of an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, in case the main part of the research training activities is carried out in a country other than an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country.)

 

Duration of the action:

  • The maximum duration of the action must be 60 months from the starting date set out in the grant agreement. It also includes the time that is needed to select and recruit the researchers.

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

 

Call Information:

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND) 2024 call is open as of 23 January 2025. The deadline for submission of proposals is 24 June 2025. 

Under this call, the European Commission will award €101.8 million to support institutional, regional, national and international training and career development programmes for researchers. 

 

Call Documents:

 

TÜBİTAK Pre-evaluation Support:

Within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Pre-Evaluation Support ,aims to provide pre-evaluation support by consultant / consulting company for projects that will be submitted to the MSCA COFUND call before the projects are submitted.

The main purpose is to ensure that more and higher-quality projects are submitted to be conducted in host organizations in Türkiye and thereby enhance the success of our country within the scope of the Horizon Europe Program.

It is required that the project proposal within the scope of the MSCA COFUND Call is written according to the evaluation criteria determined by the European Commission. The project pre-evaluation service includes the review of the written project proposal by expert individuals or organizations, making necessary improvements and corrections, and providing consultancy support.

Click for details.

You can contact ncpmobility@tubitak.gov.tr for any queries. 

 

TUBITAK Co-finance Opportunity:

In previous years, TÜBİTAK has provided co-funding support to the top two highest-scoring MSCA-COFUND project proposals from Turkiye that were deemed eligible for funding. Currently, there are six ongoing projects being implemented with co-funding support.

 

COFUND

For potential applicants, we would like to share the websites of those projects co-funded by TUBITAK in recent years:

Research Universities, Public Institutions, Research Centers, and Research Infrastructures with legal personality under Law No. 6550 from our country applied to the Horizon Europe MSCA-COFUND Program calls in recent years. If they were deemed eligible for funding, TÜBİTAK provided co-funding support to the two highest-scoring project proposals under the 2236-B MSCA-COFUND Fellowship Programs Contribution Fund Program in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Click for details.

No decision has been made yet regarding TÜBİTAK’s co-funding support for the 2025 MSCA-COFUND call. If support is approved, an announcement will be made through our website.

 

Opportunuties to Find Scholarships in COFUND Projects:

Organizations that provide or plan to provide funding for COFUND calls prepare project proposals and submit them to the European Commission.

It is not possible for individual researchers to prepare and submit COFUND project proposals. However, they can find opportunities to work and receive funding as doctoral students or postdoctoral researchers within COFUND projects that have been supported in previous years. Such opportunities are required to be published on the European Commission's EURAXESS portal. Through this portal, research position announcements for COFUND (and MSCA - Doctoral Networks) can be accessed by selecting the desired country.

You can contact ncpmobility@tubitak.gov.tr for any queries.