Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND) supports new or existing doctoral programmes and postdoctoral fellowship schemes in EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries, intending to spread the best practices of the MSCA.
Deadline: 26 September 2024
Types of actions
There are two types of COFUND actions: i) Doctoral Programmes: offering research training activities to allow doctoral candidates to develop and broaden their skills and competences, leading to the award of a doctoral degree; ii) Postdoctoral Programmes: funding individual advanced research training and career development fellowships for postdoctoral researchers.
Areas
Proposed programmes can cover any research disciplines (“bottom-up”), but exceptionally, can also focus on specific disciplines. Notably, this focus can apply when the programmes are based on national or regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (“RIS3” strategies). In this case, the range of covered disciplines should allow reasonable flexibility for the researchers to define their topic. Funding synergies with Cohesion policy funds and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) are strongly encouraged.
Duration
COFUND projects should last for up to five years (typically 36 to 60 months) and should recruit at least 3 researchers.
How does it works
COFUND is a mono-beneficiary action, meaning that the application is submitted by a single legal entity and that the third parties that implement the action by recruiting researchers receive financial support from the beneficiary. COFUND funding helps host organisations cover for each supported researcher a fixed amount (COFUND allowance) equivalent to the minimum salary that researchers should receive and a long-term leave allowance and special needs allowance, if applicable.
Researchers involved in COFUND projects
They can be of any nationality (nationals or long-term residents of an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, in case the main part of a Postdoctoral Fellowship is carried out in a non-associated Third Country). They are supported during a minimum of 3 months and should comply with the mobility rules: in general, they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation or implementing partner for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the deadline of the co-funded programme’s call. They can go on short term secondments.
In the specific case of Doctoral Programmes, researchers must not have a doctoral degree and should be enrolled in a doctoral programme during the project.
As for Postdoctoral Programmes, researchers must have a doctoral degree. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but who have not yet formally been awarded the doctoral degree will also be considered as postdoctoral researchers and will be considered eligible to apply. They should not already be permanently employed by the organisation hosting them.
Supporting information
More information and applications can be found in the EU Funding & Tender Portal (topic: HORIZON-MSCA-2024-COFUND-01-01). If you want to apply you should analise the abstracts of awarded applications (in your research area) here. An example is the COFUND project Career development of international talents of the energy research fields in the Iberian Peninsula, which has the participation of UA.
If you are considering to apply, please get in touch with us (cesam-gesciencia@ua.pt).