The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) specifically support the aforementioned factors and help researchers to develop their skillsets. The MSCA is part of the ninth European research and innovation framework programme Horizon Europe and is the European Union’s (EU) flagship career development support programme with a budget totalling €6.6 billion from 2021 to 2027. The programme comprises a set of major research funding schemes including the renowned MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships, Doctoral Networks, Staff Exchanges, Co-funding of regional, national, and international programmes (COFUND), and MSCA Citizens schemes.

The aim of MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships are to enhance the creative and innovative potential of postdoctoral researchers with new skillsets acquired through advanced training as well as international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral mobility. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships support researchers with a doctoral degree and a maximum of 8 years of post-graduate experience. The mobility of researchers is a key requirement in all MSCA schemes. There is a general rule that researchers cannot have resided or carried out their main activity in the country of the host institution for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately prior to the call deadline. This requirement is intended to direct researchers holding a PhD to move abroad to work on cutting-edge research projects. In the new Horizon Europe framework programme, there are 2 types of MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships. The European Postdoctoral Fellowships support a stay of up to 24 months in any European host institution. The Global Postdoctoral Fellowships include an “outgoing phase” of 12 to 24 months to a host institution in a non-European country, followed by a mandatory “return phase” of 12 months at a host institution based in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country. In the MSCA programme, a host institution can be a public (university or research institute) or a private (company, university, or research institute) entity. Further opportunities to review include MSCA COFUND actions. These are schemes of doctoral and post-doctoral research training programmes, which are partly funded by the EU/MSCA. These schemes have more tailored eligibility criteria and sometimes have smaller budgets. However, the application success rate of these MSCA COFUND actions is usually higher.

Make sure that you understand the overall logic as well as specific requirements of the MSCA programme. This helps you to develop your idea in the proper context and to successfully address both the call text as well as specific questions and points in the project template. Review the most up-to-date MSCA Guide for Applicants, which you can find on the European Commission website. There you can also find relevant guides for more specific issues (e.g., ethics). For MSCA, as well as for other programmes, the EU publishes the evaluation form well before the submission deadline. It can help you to better understand what is expected from your proposal and allow you to look at it from the reviewers’ perspective. If you have questions after reading these documents, do not hesitate to ask the persons in your institution responsible for EU funding or your national contact point (free of charge) for help and explanations. Further, free seminars and webinars that explain the current EU framework programme and the MSCA funding scheme are offered frequently from the regional to the EU level. Note that attending such an event in person presents you with an excellent networking opportunity. The better you understand the aim and the structure of the MSCA fellowship, the better you can design your application.

We recommend seeking out successful MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship applications from previous years. This will give you additional insights into the overall structure, necessary quality of presentation and depth of details, as well as the balance between the different parts of proposal. However, successful grant proposals are sometimes difficult to get. Ask colleagues who were successful with an MSCA application if they can share their proposal. If you do not know any successful MSCA applicants personally, look up past successful applicants in your research field or from your current or future host university, and ask them for help. You will not believe how many researchers will come back to you and share their knowledge together with their former proposals. Successful candidates have often been supported by previous successful candidates, and they are willing to repay the kindness to the next generation (“pay it forward” principle).

There are 3 funding award criteria in EU’s research and innovation framework programme Horizon Europe: “Excellence,” “Impact,” and “Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation.” The “Excellence” section is the core of your project, where you explain the state of the art in your domain of science, your vision, the specific objectives of your project, and the methodology you will employ to achieve them. In “Impact,” you need to show what benefits your project can bring to the scientific and not-scientific communities, as well as how it will decisively advance your scientific career. In “Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation,” you should provide a convincing work plan for your project and explain how you can mitigate risks arising during the project implementation.

“Excellence” is the most exciting section and, quite naturally, researchers tend to focus on this section. Often it is truly outstanding—at the expense of other 2 sections of the application. However, you will not be successful if you have not spent enough time and effort on the other 2 sections. This can make the difference between great project idea and a funded project. Many researchers tend to forget this. Plan to invest a significant proportion of your time into the development of the dissemination part of “Impact” and how your research might influence other stakeholders, as well as working out details of the implementation strategy of your proposal.

The applicant is free to choose the allocation of the maximum of 10 pages between these 3 sections. However, it makes sense to approximately align the section lengths to the weighting of evaluation criteria of MSCA applications. The section “Excellence” is weighted 50%, “Impact” is 30%, and “Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation” is 20%. The rule of thumb is not to exceed 6 pages with the “Excellence” section. You need to get the maximal or near the maximal score for each of the 3 evaluation criteria in order to be successful.

Reviewers are busy people and reviewing is something that they do in addition to their everyday work. Therefore, you want to make their life as easy as possible. In additional to Rule 6, you have to structure your proposal as best as you can. Having a clear and comprehensive structure makes your proposal appealing, easy to read, and clearly understandable. Nobody will fund a project that they do not fully understand. Your application should be well written. It does not have to be perfect, but it is painful to have simple grammar mistakes and gives reviewer an impression that you did not care about the proposal.

How can you best convince reviewer that your project is well thought through? Each project has to have a comprehensive work plan. Divide your work into logical parts; these would be your work packages. For each work package formulate goals, tasks, and deliverables. Make sure that you understand the difference between a milestone, which is a decision-making point, and a deliverable, which is a tangible result of your work. A milestone is a control point for the entire project and could be connected to one or several work packages. A deliverable belongs to specific work package and usually corresponds to a specific task. Make sure that all your milestones and deliverables are formulated according to the above principles. Do not forget that administrative, i.e., project management, dissemination, and teaching tasks should also be reflected in one or several work packages and should have their own milestones and deliverables. A well-developed Gantt chart, which displays the proposed timeline of all work packages and tasks as well as the timing of milestones and deliverables, is absolutely essential. Think about how your work packages interact with and depend upon each other. For this, you can include a small diagram (PERT chart) illustrating these interactions. Make sure that you have identified real risks of implementation for your project, evaluated their likelihood and potential impact, as well as described convincing mitigation measures. Have in mind: If the proposed MSCA project has no risks, it is not a front-line research project and it will not be funded.

Have you written your first draft? Great! Your first and most important goal is that the reviewers understand and appreciate your application. The best way to achieve this is to get other people to read your proposal and to creatively process their feedback. When it is ready, get advice from supervisors and colleagues on different parts as well as on the whole of your application. The “Excellence” section can be adequately reviewed by your research colleagues. However, not all of your “test readers” should be familiar with your research. We recommend that someone who is specialised in another field of science should also read the “Excellence” section of your application. If your idea is well described, they will be able to understand key points and the overall concept, and they will be excited about it. If not, then you should rewrite this section. Note that among the reviewers, there will almost certainly be a person who is not specialised in your research field.

There are usually experts for the sections “Impact” and “Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation” within your university or research institute who can help you improve their quality. Although not always applicable, an efficient solution is to prepare different parts of your proposal at different time points. This way you can send 1 section to your chosen person and, in the meantime, you can carry on with preparation of the other sections. Give realistic deadlines to each “test reader” and make sure to plan enough extra time to work on their feedback. Critiques from others are extremely valuable for you during preparation of your application, but you have to learn to be a selective listener. In the end, it is your idea and your application, so you have to make a final call on which suggestions you will implement in the proposal. Do not waste your time on unproductive generic advice. Talk to your mentor and to someone independent who frequently acts as reviewer. Ask them, what they usually look for, like, and dislike in funding applications. What are typical weak spots, which you also can look for in your application?

Each project idea develops according to its own dynamic and specifics of your research field. For example, your research partners might have specific wishes as well as other priorities in the project design. You have to consider these and other, sometimes unforeseen, circumstances, while developing your own research idea. With our 10 simple rules, we aim to give young researchers “food for thought” and a “push in the right direction” in the development of their project idea.

We would like to thank the Science in the Break team and guests for sharing insightful experiences during the MSCA writing process. We are also grateful to Martin Reichel and Marcus Kratschke (BayFOR) for the critical reading of the manuscript and their helpful comments. We are indebted to Fiona Rumohr (WKS, BayFOR) for the English corrections and proofreading.