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Published:  16 Mar 2023

MSCA awards €429.4 million for doctoral programmes

Funding will support the training and skills development of 1650 doctoral candidates.

The European Commission has announced the results of the 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) call for Doctoral Networks.

The Commission will fund a total of 149 excellent doctoral programmes with €429.4 million to train over 1650 doctoral candidates in and outside academia.

Funding includes €47.5 million for 14 Industrial Doctoral programmes to train PhD candidates and develop their skills outside academia, including in industry and business. Doctoral candidates will also benefit from joint industry-academia supervision.

It also includes €43.6 million for 12 Joint Doctoral programmes, which promote joint selection, training and supervision leading to joint or multiple doctoral degrees.

The European Research Executive Agency (REA) received 946 applications for this call, the second under the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation. This means a success rate of 15.8%.

Close collaboration beyond academia

These doctoral programmes are implemented by international partnerships, covering over 1199 organisations in 62 countries in the EU, countries associated to Horizon Europe and beyond, including 796 from the public sector and 403 from the private sector, 124 of which are small and medium-sized enterprises.

Selected projects are coordinated by organisations in 17 countries

  • Italy: 20 projects
  • Germany: 19 projects
  • Belgium: 18 projects
  • The Netherlands: 17 projects
  • Spain: 15 projects
  • France: 13 projects
  • Denmark and Ireland: 8 projects each
  • United Kingdom and Norway: 7 projects each
  • Austria: 6 projects
  • Greece and Sweden: 3 projects each
  • Poland: 2 projects
  • Cyprus, Czech Republic and Finland: 1 project each

Frontier research in all fields

Selected projects will promote research in fields such as the development of new therapies against stem cell-driven cancer relapse and metastasis, the improvement of wine production’s sustainability and winemaking-associated ecosystems, and the study of the relations between the European Union and the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Industrial Doctorates will train doctoral candidates in areas such as the integration of artificial intelligence in road safety research or the development of advanced materials and components for novel energy storage systems.

Joint Doctorates will develop programmes aiming for example to design and assess novel biomass production systems and bio-product value-chains or to carry out multidisciplinary research to improve policy and guidelines to prevent future harms to sportspersons and organisations.

The projects selected are in the broad fields of

  • Engineering and ICT: 33.6%
  • Life Sciences: 26.2%
  • Chemistry: 12.8%
  • Environment and Geosciences: 9.4%
  • Social sciences and Humanities: 8.7%
  • Physics: 7.4%
  • Mathematics: 1.3%
  • Economics: 0.7%

An overview of the evaluation results, cut-off scores and statistics has been published on the page of the call MSCA Doctoral Networks 2022.

Once the grant agreements are finalised, the complete list of funded projects will be published on the same page and on CORDIS.

Next steps for successful applicants

The European Research Executive Agency sent out letters on the results of the evaluation to inform applicants of the outcome of the selection.

Applicants should be able to access the results of the evaluation on their personal space of the Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal.

The letter sent out to the successful applicants contains all the instructions about the next steps to prepare the grant agreement with the agency.

The first projects will start at the earliest in summer 2023. Projects on the reserve list will be contacted once all the grants have been signed.

Next funding round coming soon

The next call for MSCA Doctoral Networks 2023 will open on 30 May 2023. You will find more information under how to apply.

About the MSCA Doctoral Networks programme

MSCA Doctoral Networks implement doctoral programmes by partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe and beyond.

They train highly skilled doctoral candidates, stimulate their creativity, enhance their innovation capacities and boost their employability in the long-term.

Since 2014 the MSCA have funded more than 1330 doctoral programmes, including the latest call.

Published:  16 Mar 2023