Researchers Frustrated by MSCA Grant Odds
The latest round of the EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral grants has generated frustration among researchers due to intense competition and low success rates. The sentiment reflects a common pain point for academics navigating highly competitive public funding systems, where demand for grants significantly outstrips supply.
- In the MSCA 2023 call, 8,039 proposals were submitted, with 1,249 researchers receiving funding from a €260 million budget, resulting in a 15.8% success rate. - A more recent round saw applications jump to over 17,000, causing the success rate to plummet to 9.6% and leaving proposals that scored as high as 97 out of 100 unfunded. - The fellowships are divided into European Postdoctoral Fellowships for research within the EU and associated countries, and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships for work outside Europe with a mandatory return phase. - The distribution of funded projects in the 2023 call was highest in social sciences and humanities (25.2%) and life sciences (21.7%). - To address the high number of quality proposals that go unfunded, the European Commission awards a "Seal of Excellence". This quality label is intended to help researchers secure alternative funding from national or regional sources. - Some countries, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, have established national funding programs that specifically target MSCA proposals that were highly rated but not funded by the EU budget. - The overall success rate for the broader Horizon Europe funding program, of which MSCA is a part, averages around 16%. However, success rates vary widely, with some other instruments like the EIC Accelerator dropping as low as 3-7%.
