Charles Betz, Senior Advisor, European R&D and Innovation Support;
Credit: Marion Dessard / Luxinnovation
The European Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation Support team at Luxinnovation has offered support for the various stages of the next call for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF).
The MSCA-PF is a prestigious and highly competitive funding fellowship (salary, research costs and training) for postdoctoral scientists and researchers from anywhere in the world to do a two year research project in companies, research groups, non-governmental organisations or public administrations. The successful research projects are selected and awarded by the European Commission.
To support and engage in research activities, any legal entity based in Luxembourg (public or private) and willing to host a postdoctoral researcher in Luxembourg for up to two years can put forward an expression of interest.
"This approach allows interested organisations to outline the type of research and innovation project they would be interested in initiating or developing with a researcher", explained Charles Betz, Senior Advisor at European R&D and Innovation Support. "This makes it possible to look for researchers that could bring them real added value".
As the national contact point, Luxinnovation provides support and expertise in the selection of researchers worldwide and in proposal writing. “MSCA-PF funding is highly competitive and the average success rate in the European Union (EU) is about 15%”, said Mr Betz.
In order to increase the chances of success, Luxinnovation offers (remote) training sessions and support material to applicants and host organisations to help with the proposal writing process.
The next deadline for the final proposal submission is in September 2022, which means that successful projects can start around May 2023.
“However, finding appropriate applicants takes a lot of time, and so does training and proposal writing. Luxinnovation therefore invites interested parties to submit their expression of interest by 17 December 2021”, added Mr Betz.
