DN: Should all awarded doctoral degrees in a Joint Doctorates project be joint degrees?

In Joint Doctorates, each recruited researcher must be enrolled in a joint, double or multiple degree awarded by two different organisations in two different countries, among which at least one from a Member State or an Associated Country (p.10 of the Guide for Applicants). All degrees delivered in a Joint Doctorates project must be either joint, double or multiple.

It is possible to have a regular Doctoral Networks project and award joint degrees, but it is not possible to have a Joint Doctorates project and award a single degree.

PF: Is it possible to terminate a Postdoctoral Fellowship before the planned end date?

Early termination of the Grant Agreement is possible. You can check here (p. 18, #37).

The host institution needs to put in place an amendment to terminate the grant. The amounts corresponding to unspent person months will have to be returned to the European Commission. The funding corresponding to person months already implemented does not have to be returned.

Link to IT How To (step 2).

SE: Is it possible that the allowance for a seconded staff is paid aside from the salary and not taxed?

This depends on the national taxation law and on the institutional regulations.

PF: When calculating the research experience for re-integration can time spent in the UK during the period of non-association (1 February 2020 to 1 January 2024) be deducted?

Yes, time spent in the UK during the non-association period counts as “time spent in a non-associated Third Country” for the research experience and this time can be deducted from the 8 years only for those researchers wishing to reintegrate to a EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country.  

By definition: “Researchers reintegrating to Europe from a non-associated Third Country must be based in the Third Country at the call deadline or have directly moved to Europe (i.e. any EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country) within the 12-month period immediately prior to the call deadline.”

PF: Given that the UK has associated to Horizon Europe, how will time spent in the UK during the non-association be treated for the purpose of establishing long-term residence for the 2024 MSCA Global Fellowship call?

According to the MSCA Work Programme 2023-2025 “Long-term residence means a period of legal and continuous residence within EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries of at least five consecutive years. Periods of absence from the territory of the EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country will be taken into account for the calculation of this period where they are shorter than six consecutive months and do not exceed in total ten months within this period.”

As long as these conditions are met, the researcher could be considered eligible, provided that all the other eligibility conditions are also met.

Due to the entry into force of the UK withdrawal agreement as of 1 February 2020, periods from this date until the effective Horizon Europe association of the UK as of 1 January 2024 cannot be considered as valid to acquire the long-term residence within the meaning of the MSCA Work Programme.

 

PF: What kind of documentation can be used by beneficiaries to verify long-term residency?

As a very general principle, whatever supporting document is able to demonstrate with a reasonable level of certainty that someone is continuously legally residing in a EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country in a 5 years’ period, would be acceptable. To this purpose, a good advice for a beneficiary could be to request and verify the consistency between documents of different nature, for example registration in the national registry of the population, records of the police registration, utilities bills, etc.

PF: An applicant has a dual citizenship - of a EU Member State but also of a Third Country. Is there a distinction between ‘nationals’ and ‘citizens’?

Please note that applicants who have dual nationality are eligible to apply for the MSCA Global Fellowship, as long as one of the nationalities they hold is that of a EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country. A passport could be sufficient proof that they are nationals of a EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country.

The MSCA Work Programme 2023-2025 does not refer to the term ‘citizenship’, but to ‘nationals’. In particular, in the Work Programme 2023-2025 it is stated that “Global Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries.”

Furthermore, on p. 122 it states that “researchers going to a Third Country (Global Postdoctoral Fellowship) or researchers who wish to reintegrate to Europe (i.e. in a EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country), must be nationals or long-term residents of EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries.”

In the EU context the terms “EU nationality” and “EU citizenship” are considered to be interchangeable.

DN: Application questions and answers

The Research Executive Agency held a MSCA Doctoral Networks 2024 call information event which took place on 7 June 2024. You can find the answers to most of the questions submitted in Slido during this event here ("Show details" tab next to "Watch replay").

PF: Is it possible for an applicant to put together their application using LaTex programming language and then to submit it as a pdf file?

Yes, it is possible. The applicant has the full responsibility of making sure that the LaTex template complies with ALL the formatting rules and follows the original template, with no headings and/ or tags deleted from the official standard application form.

It is however strongly advised that applicants use the proposal template provided by the European Commission on the submission system on the call page.

DN: Can coordinators ask a percentage of indirect costs from beneficiaries for project management and if yes, how much can they ask for?

It is common practice for consortia to reallocate some of the Management costs of the beneficiaries to the coordinator. This has to be agreed during the proposal-writing phase to avoid misunderstandings, and fixed in the Consortium Agreement. There are different situations and the percentage of reallocation may vary. The money can be used to hire a Project Manager for example. Some consortia also reallocate a percentage of the Research, Training and Networking costs, to cover for the centrally organised joint activities of the network.