SE: Does a seconded person need to physically be at the secondment organisation for a full month for it to be eligible? Can they go to a conference in another country during this time?

A secondment needs the physical presence of the secondee for at least 1 month to be eligible. Time spent away from the host organisation at a conference has to be deducted from the secondment time.

SE: Can the categories of seconded personnel be changed during the implementation of the project without an amendment?

It is difficult to change the categories of seconded personnel during implementation. The Project Officer should be consulted.

SE: Are all fields mandatory in the table “Researchers involved in the proposal“ in Part A of the MSCA Staff Exchanges application?

Applicants can leave some fields blank when completing the “Researchers involved in the proposal” table such as nationality, reference identifier, type of identifier, etc., but there are other fields such as email that are mandatory. It will show an error when validating the form if they are not filled in.

DN: Who should sign the joint/double/multiple degree – letter of pre-agreement – the beneficiary or the degree-awarding institution?

As the letter of pre-agreement states the commitment to deliver the joint/double/multiple doctoral degree, it should be signed by the degree-awarding institution.

It is stated in the Work Programme that “Applicants must provide, at the time of the submission of the proposal, a pre-agreement to award a joint, double or multiple degree to the doctoral candidate(s). The proposal should indicate from which institutions a researcher is expected to receive the degree(s)”.

In the Doctoral Networks 2025 Application Form, it is stated: “For DN-JD, letters of pre-agreement must also be included from those academic beneficiaries/associated partners that will award the doctoral degrees, in part B (document 2) of the proposal. These letters should be signed by an authorised legal representative of the organisation in question so as to offer reasonable assurance regarding the commitment to award the joint, double or multiple doctoral degree(s)”.

DN: How should individual research projects be presented in Part B?

During the 2025 Doctoral Networks Call information event organised by the Research Executive Agency it was specified that the individual research projects should be presented in a text format, i.e. as a narrative description, and not as a table.

COFUND: Are Country Correction Coefficients (CCCs) applied in MSCA COFUND projects with an outgoing global fellowship element?

CCCs are not applicable in the COFUND action.

However, when preparing their proposals, beneficiaries are allowed to put in place different levels of co-funding for salaries to adapt them to the living standards of the countries involved in the programme.

DN: A beneficiary in a Doctoral Networks proposal wants to enroll their PhD candidate in a PhD programme at another organisation which will not be a beneficiary in the consortium or participate in this project in any way. Is that possible?

A PhD candidate can be recruited by the beneficiary but enrolled in a PhD programme at another institution that provides PhD degrees, but that institution needs to be a beneficiary or at least an associated partner in the consortium. See also the Doctoral Networks Guide for applicants, page 7.

PF: What Country Correction Coefficient (CCC) is used for a non-academic placement?

The Funding and Tenders Opportunities portal automatically uses the CCC of the beneficiary also for the non-academic placement.

PF: Which page number should applicants enter in the Ethics explanation box in Part A to refer to Ethics in the proposal?

Page indication is to help the evaluators to navigate to the specific parts of the proposal where they can find relevant information, to speed up their assessment. In that sense it refers to any page of the proposal, where this information could be found. Information in Part B2 is easiest to find because it has a dedicated Section 6 Additional ethics information, so the page indication comes particularly handy while screening Part B1.

PF: A proposal is of potential Euratom-relevace. What should the applicant indicate in form A?

The process of assessing if a proposal is Euratom-relevant will be performed by suitable experts during the evaluation. In case the applicant considers the proposal being only of limited pertinence to Euratom, it is highly recommend selecting the option “No” in the “Other Questions” section of the application form.