The European Commission has announced the results of the 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) call for Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND).

The European Commission will fund 30 COFUND projects with €95 million. These include 16 doctoral training programmes and 14 post-doctoral fellowship programmes of outstanding quality.

COFUND provides funding for regional, national and international programmes for training and career development (doctorates and post-doctorate fellowships), through co-funding mechanisms.

It spreads the MSCA’s best practices by promoting high standards and excellent working conditions.

International cooperation

The European Research Executive Agency (REA) received 107 applications for this call of which 105 were eligible and were evaluated. With 30 selected projects, the result corresponds to a 28.6% success rate.

These collaborative programmes are implemented by international partnerships.

They cover over 511 organisations in 39 countries in the EU, countries associated to Horizon Europe and beyond, including 141 companies and 74 small and medium-sized enterprises.

Selected projects are coordinated by organisations in 11 countries

• Spain: 8 projects
• France: 6 projects
• Finland and Turkey: 3 each
• Germany, Ireland and Norway: 2 each
• Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden: 1 each

These projects have the following participations by EU member states and countries associated to Horizon Europe

• Spain: 110 participations
• France: 66
• Italy: 41
• Germany: 35
• Finland and Norway: 33 each
• Turkey: 30
• Ireland and the Netherlands: 14 each
• Belgium and Sweden: 10 each
• Denmark: 9
• Austria and Portugal: 5 each
• Greece, Poland and Romania: 4 each
• Cyprus and Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia: 2 each
• Bulgaria and Estonia: 1 each

The call was also open to organisations based outside these countries, which can join projects as associated partners. The projects have the following participations by third countries

• United Kingdom: 21 participations
• United States: 18
• Switzerland: 9
• Australia and Canada: 4 each
• India: 3
• Argentina, United Arab Emirates: 2 each
• Brazil, Burundi, Chile, Colombia, Japan and New Zealand: 1 each

Since 2014 the MSCA have supported 272 COFUND projects, including those funded in this round.

Frontier research in all fields

Selected projects span various scientific disciplines and will conduct research in areas such as

• life sciences, health
• engineering or social sciences
• humanities

While some of these are multidisciplinary research and training projects, others were developed fully with a bottom-up approach.

Focus of the projects

The projects selected this year follow the main current trends, with a good number focused on artificial intelligence or data science, and respond to most pressing challenges such as the green and digital transition or climate change. Some projects are aligned with the goals and plans of the Mission on Cancer.

Once the grant agreements are finalised, the complete list of funded projects will be published on CORDIS.

High-quality programmes

Selected programmmes will promote international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral collaboration to

• foster high quality training of up to 1000 researchers and innovators at doctoral and postdoctoral level in academia and beyond
• allow them to enlarge their networks and share knowledge to carry out cutting-edge research
• provide them with new knowledge, skills (including transferable skills) and career development perspectives
• boost their creativity and entrepreneurship

They will carefully consider important aspects such as

• open science
• community engagement
• entrepreneurship
• gender
• ethics or
• high-quality supervision

About the programmes

These programmes will  allow organisations to

• attract international talent to EU Member States and regions
• increase visibility and attractiveness  
• boost research and innovation capacities

A number of projects are also linked to European University Alliances.

Next steps for successful applicants

The European Research Executive Agency sent out letters on the results of the evaluation to inform applicants of the outcome of the selection.

Applicants should be able to access the results of the evaluation on their personal space of the Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal.

The letter sent out to the successful applicants contains all the instructions about the next steps to prepare the grant agreement with the agency.

The first projects will start at the earliest in late summer 2023. Projects on the reserve list will be contacted once all the grants have been signed.

Next funding round is coming soon

The next call for MSCA COFUND will open on 10 October 2023.