If you are a Researcher, you might want to consider a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship as your next career move. It is one of the most prestigious fellowships in Europe and perhaps one of the best in the world. However, the success rate is pretty low, around 10%. That's why I want to try to help and share with you some tips I learned during my application writing. Here is my contribution to the event "Infoday: Mobilities in Europe" organized at University of Messina (Italy). I decided to focus on the feedback I received from the Reviewers.
Briefly, the evaluation of the proposals for the MSCAs is broken down as follows:
- 50% Excellence
- 30% Impact
- 20% Implementation
The Excellence section assesses the quality of innovation and the credibility of the research proposal, the clarity of the transfer of knowledge / training of the researcher, the quality of supervisors and host institutions, the ability of the researcher to achieve a good professional maturity in scientific research.
In the Impact section, the effectiveness of the dissemination of results is assessed not only to a public specialized in the research proposal sector, but also to a wider audience such as civil society, and the ability to improve the researcher's "soft skills".
In the Implementation section, the following are assessed: the overall consistency and effectiveness of the work plan, the appropriateness of the management of the structures and procedures, and the infrastructure of the host institutions, the competence, and experience of the working groups participating in the project, the commitment of the host institutions.
Do not underestimate the Impact or the Implementation sections! The selected proposals usually have a very high score (above 98%) and even 0.1 scores can make the difference for your proposal to be among the winning ones.
Lessons I learned:
- Slavishly follow the Work Programme and revise the criteria questions!
- You need a really innovative research idea
- Show that you can and will learn, grow, and share
- Communication and Dissemination are highly evaluated
- MSCA pay particular attention to gender balance
- NCP (National Contact Points) can help you and revise your proposal!
If you have any questions please contact me through this blog, I'll be glad to help as much as I can.
Good luck with your proposal!
