The approach recommended by the Commission in case of “double residency / double activity” is the following: the country where the researcher has spent the highest cumulative number of months over the reference period should be considered as main residency / main activity country.
If their main residency and main activity is in country A, short stays in country B for private purposes such as weekends should not be taken into account.
MSCA rules allow this. On p. 31 of the MSCA Financial Guide it is stated that:
“The mobility and family allowances are due to the researchers for each month worked.
Mobility and family allowances can be paid to the researcher in various ways, for example as:
− part of their salary
− flight tickets for private travels, directly purchased or reimbursed by the beneficiary (work-related travels must be paid under category B.1 ’Research, training and networking contribution’)
− rental costs, directly paid or reimbursed by the beneficiary.
Any form is acceptable, provided that:
− both sides agree
− it is allowed under national law and
− there is no underpayment.”
Yet, the Host Institution should ensure that this method of payment is autorised by national rules and by the internal rules of the organisation.
Yes, they are both eligible if their status has been officially recognised as “equivalent to marriage” in the country where it was registered.
Work Packages should be numbered WP1, WP2, etc. They cannot be numbered 1.1 and 1.2 as the system will not allow them to be encoded like that during the Grant Agreement Preparation phase. Moreover, the titles of the Work Packages are already given in the call documents.
Applicants should be careful to duplicate each Work Package for both editions - WP1, WP2, etc. for YEAR 1, and WP3, WP4, etc. for YEAR 2.
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.
It is difficult to change the categories of seconded personnel during implementation. The Project Officer should be consulted.
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.
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)”.
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.
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.
