MSCA Seal of Excellence scheme kicks off in Italy

The Italian Ministry of University and Research has created a new scheme for MSCA Seal of Excellence holders who applied to Postdoctoral Fellowships under Horizon Europe or the 2020 call for Individual Fellowships under Horizon 2020.

The Ministry has published full details and eligibility conditions in Italian and English on a dedicated website.

The initiative will support 400 young researchers with €60 million to put in place outstanding projects in Italian research organisations.

The scheme is part of the country’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. It is the second example of using the Recovery and Resilience Facility to support MSCA Seal of Excellence holders, after a similar scheme in Romania.

Eligibility criteria

Individual applicants must have:

• received an MSCA Seal of Excellence in the 24 months prior to the publication of the call (August 2022)
• a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 7 years full-time equivalent experience in research, measured from the date of award of the doctoral degree

The projects must be a readjustment of the original proposal that obtained the Seal of Excellence (“First Submission”) and be submitted by an eligible beneficiary organisation, including:

• State or non-State universities and university institutions
• public research bodies supervised by the Ministry of University and Research, with operational headquarters in Italy

The deadline to submit proposals is 11 October 2022.

About the MSCA Seal of Excellence

The MSCA Seal of Excellence is a quality label awarded to applicants of Postdoctoral Fellowships and COFUND who achieved a high score in their applications (85% or more) but unfortunately were not awarded funding due to budgetary constraints.

The MSCA Seal of Excellence

• underlines the value of these projects, which  may use it to help find alternative funding
• allows other funding bodies such as national, regional and university-level schemes to  support MSCA proposals holding the label and take advantage of the Horizon Europe evaluation process