Horizon Europe 2025: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Research and innovation projects to boost top researchers’ careers through mobility and innovative doctoral and postdoctoral training, including academia-business collaborations.

Opportunity Details

When

Registration Opens

06/05/2025

Registration Closes

03/12/2025

Award

Total 2025 budget of over €1200m; per-project maxima will be confirmed soon.

Organisation

Horizon Europe

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Read the Horizon Europe 2025 work programmes

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) aim to encourage more young women and men to make a career in research, promote its attractiveness for top talents from around the world, retain the EU’s own researchers, and reintegrate those working elsewhere.

The MSCA strongly contribute to excellent research, boosting jobs, growth and investment by equipping researchers with new knowledge and skills, including transferable ones, and providing them with an international as well as inter-sectoral exposure (including through academia-business collaboration), to fill the top positions of tomorrow.

There are five main MSCA intervention areas and all individual Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions contribute to these intervention areas:

  1. Nurturing Excellence through Mobility of Researchers across Borders, Sectors and Disciplines
  2. Fostering new Skills through Excellent Training of Researchers
  3. Strengthening Human Capital and Skills Development across the European Research Area
  4. Improving and Facilitating Synergies
  5. Promoting Public Outreach

These are implemented by five actions within the MSCA: Doctoral Networks, Postdoctoral Fellowships, Staff Exchanges, COFUND, and “MCSA and Citizens”.

UK businesses may be particularly interested in:

  • Industrial Doctorates (part of the Doctoral Networks action), through which doctoral candidates will step outside academia and develop skills in industry and business by being jointly (50/50) supervised by academic and non-academic organisations
  • Postdoctoral Fellowships, which can be hosted by organisations including SMEs, and can also support researchers in a placement at the end of the project to work on R&I projects in an organisation from the non-academic sector
  • MSCA Staff Exchanges, which involve organisations from the academic and non-academic sectors (including SMEs) from across the globe: support is provided for international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary mobility of R&I staff leading to knowledge transfer between participating organisations.

A full list of open 2025 calls within each action is given below.

Potential applicants are invited to sign up for the relevant info days on Thursday 5 June and Tuesday 24 June: see below for details.

  • For Postdoctoral Fellowships, individual interested researchers submit an application together with a host organisation, which can be a university, research institution, business, SME or other organisation based in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country (this includes the UK).

    For other actions within the MCSA, UK organisations and businesses can apply for funding as part of a three-country consortium with at least one member from within the EU. If you are interested in one of the calls and would like to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s European Programmes team.

  • Two information days are available for potential applicants:

  • Closing date 24 Jun 2025:

    • MSCA COFUND 2025 – €105.56m total funding covering Doctoral and Post-Doctoral programmes

    Closing date 16 Sep 2025:

    • MSCA4Ukraine Fellowships 2025 – c.€9.5m-10m for a single project

    Closing date 10 Sep 2025:

    • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 – €343.65m total funding for European fellowships and €60.64m for Global fellowships

    Closing date 8 Oct 2025:

    • MSCA Staff Exchanges 2025 – €97.71m total funding

    Closing date 22 Oct 2025:

    • MCSA and Citizens: European Researchers’ Night and Researchers at Schools 2026-2027 – €16.25m total budget, c.€0.1-0.35m per project, for around 50 projects

    Closing date 25 Nov 2025:

    • MSCA Doctoral Networks 2025 – €597.80m total funding (this includes funding for academia-business Industrial Doctorates, and for Joint Doctorates in two countries)

    Closing date 3 Dec 2025:

    • MSCA Choose Europe 2025 – €22.5m for European talent recruitment programmes for doctoral degree holders
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