The 2025 MSCA COFUND call for projects which funds doctoral and postdoctoral programmes is open on the European Commission portal. With a deadline set for 24 June 2025, now is the time to prepare your projects!
MSCA COFUND in a nutshell
The COFUND action (Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes) belongs to the Pillar 1 “Excellent science” of the Horizon Europe Programme, and more specifically the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). The COFUND action aims to finance the mobility of researchers between countries, sectors and disciplines on research projects and training programmes. The aim is to spread MSCA best practices and foster the careers of researchers through the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
The MSCA COFUND is the only instrument of the Horizon Europe programme that co-funds doctoral and postdoctoral programmes.
The co-funding principle
The European Commission (EC) funds part of the eligible costs of the proposed training and career development programme in the form of monthly lump sums for each researcher recruited. These amounts may cover the salary of researchers recruited under the programme, their mobility and family costs or institutional costs (research, training and networking costs / management costs and indirect costs).
It is up to the beneficiary to decide which funding to make available to the recruited researchers and in what form (payment of salary, direct defrayal of certain expenses or free access to training and services), while offering an attractive level of remuneration.
EC funding amounts to a maximum of 10 million euros per beneficiary per call for projects (i.e. the same beneficiary may receive funding for several COFUND projects within the same call and up to a maximum of 10M€). Co-financing may be provided by the beneficiary or by partners and may come from different sources: European programmes (excluding Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020), national, regional and private funding, and the institutions’ own resources. It should be noted that there is no minimum amount imposed for the co-financing. However, the total budget will need to provide attractive conditions for researchers to be recruited under the programme.
The specificities of the MSCA COFUND
The COFUND action is a mono-beneficiary action: only one beneficiary submits the application and receives the grant, which it then redistributes to the implementing partners of the project.
The beneficiary and implementing partners must recruit at least three researchers (PhD students or postdoctoral fellows depending on the type of programme chosen) and supervise them on their premises. It is also recommended to involve associated academic and non-academic partners who can either host researchers recruited on supervised traineeships for a few months (called ‘secondments’) or participate in their training programme.
A COFUND action can co-finance two types of programmes: doctoral and postdoctoral studies. In both cases, these are programmes offering research-based training activities to enable recruited researchers to develop and expand their knowledge and skills, always targeting the 3 ‘i’ (intersectorality, interdisciplinarity and international mobility).
Like all MSCA, a COFUND action is a bottom-up scheme programme: candidates can freely choose their field of R&I and the type of research they want to conduct. Projects can therefore cover all areas of research and innovation, from basic research to the commercialisation phases.
How to apply
To obtain this funding, the organisation managing or funding a doctoral or postdoctoral programme must submit a proposal in response to the COFUND call for projects on the Funding & Tenders Portal of the European Commission.
For more information, you can consult the international network of MSCA National Contact Points (MSCA-NET) page.
Do you want to maximise your chances of success? Euronovia offers personalised support at all stages of the application process, from the conception to the review of your project, in order to give it the best chance of success: contact us!