COFUND gives organizations a unique opportunity to attract talent through their own doctoral and postdoctoral fellowship programmes.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND) 2024 call is open as of today. The deadline for submission of proposals is 24 June 2025.
Under this call, the European Commission will award €101.8 million to support institutional, regional, national and international training and career development programmes for researchers.
COFUND allows organizations to create new or strengthen existing doctoral and postdoctoral programmes, with the goal of recruiting researchers and attracting international talent, by co-funding a significant part of their cost.
Organisations benefitting from such funding need to top it up with their own sources. Synergies with Cohesion policy funds and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) are strongly encouraged.
Forms of COFUND projects
Doctoral Programmes
- offering doctoral candidates research training activities to develop and broaden their skills and competences
- leading to the award of a doctoral degree
Postdoctoral Programmes
- funding individual advanced research training and career development fellowships for postdoctoral researchers
Proposed programmes can cover any research disciplines (“bottom-up”), but can also focus on specific disciplines, notably when they are based on national or regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3 strategies).
Who can apply?
A single organisation in an EU member state or a Horizon Europe associated country is eligible to apply.
As of January 2025, Switzerland benefits from transitional measures pending association. Full association is required by the time of grant agreement signature for beneficiaries.
Additional project partners such as
- government entities
- regional authorities
- funding agencies
- universities
- research organisations
- enterprises
can be included in the project to recruit researchers (implementing partners), as well as host secondments and provide training (associated partners).
At the time of recruitment, implementing partners must be established in an EU MS, the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States, HE Associated Country, or low- and middle-income third countries included in the list of countries eligible for funding provided in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. Associated Partners can come from any other country.
Spreading best practices
COFUND spreads the MSCA’s best practices by promoting high standards in the selection and recruitment process and excellent working and employment conditions for researchers.
It promotes sustainable training and international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility to
- train researchers and innovators in academia and beyond
- allow them to enlarge their networks and share knowledge to carry out cutting-edge research
- provide them with new knowledge, skills, career development perspectives and increased employability
- boost their creativity and entrepreneurship
Organisations can use the programmes to attract international talent, increase their research and innovation capacities and contribute to the local, regional and/or national socio-economic ecosystems. This will also enhance their overall attractiveness.
Funded programmes will have to consider important aspects such as
- open science
- communication and dissemination of results
- community engagement
- entrepreneurship
- gender equality
- ethics
- high-quality supervision
