MSCA Choose Europe for Science

The MSCA Choose Europe for Science pilot scheme aims to increase the attractiveness of European research careers by addressing precarity  and offering excellent working conditions, turning the current challenge of brain drain in the R&I sector into brain gain.

Choose Europe for Science will support projects in which academic and non-academic organisations recruit postdoctoral researchers with a vision to employment beyond the project period. The main novelty of the initiative is that organisations will also be selected based on their offers of longer-term professional perspectives.

The total budget for this call is €22.5 million, and a beneficiary can receive a maximum of €3.5 million for this call.

Projects should recruit at least 3 researchers for up to 5 years, with MSCA co-funding the first 2 to 3 years and the institutions providing the funding (with internal or external funds) for an additional 2 years. Funding helps host organisations cover a fixed amount (Choose Europe for Science allowance) to support any cost items of the programme, equivalent to the minimum salary that researchers should receive during the first 2-to-3-year phase of the project (€6700), a long-term leave allowance and a special needs allowance, if applicable, for each supported researcher.

Researchers recruited onto selected MSCA Choose Europe for Science projects are supported during the full duration of the project (48 months or 60 months depending on the length chosen by the institution for the first phase).

Recruited researchers must have a doctoral degree, and can be of any nationality, but should comply with the mobility rules: in general, they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the deadline of the co-funded programme’s call