About Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

Investing in innovative research is investing in the future. As one of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Actions (MSCA), the Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships are Europe’s investment in researchers and their development. Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships support researchers at all stages of their careers, regardless of age and nationality. The research fellowships help to fund career development opportunities for researchers working across all disciplines.

Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

If you are a researcher of any nationality looking to work in a dynamic learning environment and one of Europe’s leading institutes in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) research and innovation, an MSCA Fellowship at Tyndall may be for you. 

If you are an experienced European national or long term resident and Tyndall graduate looking to energise your career further, an MSCA Global Fellowship will offer you exciting new learning opportunities.

If you are a Tyndall Principal Investigator (PI) looking to add new expertise to your area, an MSCA Fellow can be recruited to your team from the EU and other parts of the world.

The core activity of a Postdoctoral Fellowship is a research development and training project, developed by the researcher in collaboration with their supervisor at their host organisation, and designed to provide training through research.

Benefits of Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships
  1. Opportunity to enhance your creative and innovative potential
  2. Develop additional core research skills and knowledge
  3. Experience other research environments and develop skills for other scientific disciplines through worldwide international and intersectoral mobility
  4. Access to advanced and innovative research training, career coaching, mentoring and guidance
  5. Participate in collaborative opportunities in the academic and non-academic sectors
  6. Grow transferable skills such as – entrepreneurship, management and financing of research activities and programmes, management of intellectual property rights, building collaborations, inter-sectoral or interdisciplinary knowledge transfer
  7. Enhanced success in future funding application as fellows are more successful in applying for European Research Council (ERC)’s competitive grants for high-quality research
  8. Career advancement as fellows achieve professorship titles more frequently than others and are more likely to hold principal investigator position
  9. Increased profile as Marie Curie Fellows’ publications are more-often cited than equivalent peers and are more frequently published on influential scientific journals
  10. The scheme particularly supports the return and (re)integration of European researchers from outside Europe and those who have previously worked here, as well as researchers displaced by conflict outside the EU and Horizon Europe 2020 Associated Countries. It also promotes the researchers who show great potential and may have taken a recent break from their career.
How to apply?

You will find all information necessary to prepare and submit a proposal for a Marie-Curie Fellowship on the call page of the Participant Portal.

The Participant Portal contains the essential guidelines to help you through the process of preparing and submitting a proposal. Proposals are submitted electronically via the Commission’s Participants Portal – Electronic Proposal Submission Service (EPSS) before a strictly-enforced deadline.

Please contact the relevant EU Programmes Manager as early as possible to ensure you receive information about the supports available (budgeting, review services, tailored guidance). 

•    For Micro & Nano Systems PI’s and applicants contact Louise Burgoyne (louise.burgoyne@tyndall.ie). 

•    For Photonics PI’s and applicants contact Martin O’Connell (martin.oconnell@tyndall.ie). 

Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships Deadline

The deadline for Postdoctoral Fellowship applications for this year is Tuesday October 12th, 2021 – 5pm CEST.

 

Who can apply? Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship Eligibility

Experienced Researchers:  Researchers must have a PhD at the call deadline and have max. years’ research experience post-PhD.  Years of experience outside research and career breaks (e.g. due to parental leave) can extend the timeline. For nationals or long-term residents of EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries who wish to reintegrate to pursue their research career in EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries, years of experience in research in third countries will not be considered in the above maximum. 

Nationality: Any

Mobility Rule: Applicants cannot apply for a fellowship in a country where they have lived or carried out their main activity for >12 months (>365 days) in the 3 years before the call deadline (15/09/2021).

How much is a Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship?

Fellowships are to the value of €5,080 per month gross (depending on the host country), plus €600 mobility allowance and (if applicable) a €660 family allowance, as well as management and indirect costs (overheads).

How to prepare?

Review the following documents to support you with your application –

•    Work Programme

•    Guidelines for Applicants

•    IUA MSCA Office

Guides for Applicants are revised each year, so please ensure you refer to the latest version before preparing your proposal.

Please note that anyone applying with Tyndall as host institution will need to identify a Supervisor to work with them on the proposal.

Types of Individual Felowship

European Fellowships (12 – 24 months) provide an opportunity for researchers to work at a research organisation in Europe, with a view to acquiring new skills or working in new sectors. European Fellowships are open to researchers moving within Europe, as well as those coming in from other parts of the world. These are open to Experienced Researchers wishing to carry out a fellowship at a European host organisation (Mobility Rule);

Global Fellowships (24 – 36 months) fund positions outside Europe for nationals or long-term residents of EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries. The researcher has to come back for one year to an organisation based in the EU or associated countries (Mobility Rule in Third Country).

Researchers who are refugees in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country according to the Geneva Convention may also apply to both European and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships, irrespective of whether they are long-term residents or not, if they fulfil the other eligibility conditions.

 

Secondments:

Applicants are strongly encouraged to incorporate a secondment to another organisation into their fellowship plans. Ideally this secondment should be to an organisation in another sector. For example, a researcher carrying out a fellowship at a university might consider a secondment in the public or private sector, a NGO, a museum or other appropriate organisation.

Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Results

The Research Executive Agency (REA) evaluates all eligible proposals in order to identify those whose quality is sufficiently high for possible funding. The basis for this evaluation is a peer-review carried out by independent experts. The results will be made available on the call page of the Participant Portal.

REA then negotiates with some or all of those applicants whose proposals have successfully passed the evaluation stage, depending on the budget available. If negotiations are successfully concluded, grant agreements providing for an EU financial contribution are established with the participants.