SE: Within an ongoing MSCA Staff Exchanges project there is a meeting planned in a non-associated third country. How can the costs associated with this event be paid?

If it is a country automatically eligible for funding, the project Coordinator will receive funds for staff secondments to the EU Member States and Associated Countries (contributions for seconded staff members + institutional contributions).

The “Research, training and networking contribution”, which includes, e.g., organising meetings, conferences, etc., is divided among all the project partners based on the Consortium Agreement (to be negotiated before the Grant Agreement is signed). The Consortium Agreement also defines how the funds are transferred to third countries. In addition, if there are associated partners in the consortium, it is recommended to sign a Partnership Agreement – p. 139 in the MSCA Work Programme 2023-2025:

“When associated partners are involved, beneficiaries are encouraged to sign a partnership agreement with them to regulate the internal relationship between all participating organisations. The partnership agreement(s) must comply with the grant agreement”.

 

So, the third country partner can organise any project activities (presented in Annex 1 of the Grant Agreement), and the way it will receive money from the coordinator should be regulated in the Consortium Agreement. More information can be seen on p. 24 of the MSCA Financial Guide:

“5.1 Limitations on transfers of units

Unit transfers between beneficiaries

In MSCA-DN and MSCA-SE, beneficiaries may transfer units between themselves, provided that such transfer does not imply any substantive or important change to the action description as set out in Annex 1 of the GA (see Article 5.5 HE Unit MGA).

This means that they may in principle redistribute person-months between them, compared to the original planning set out in Annex 2 of the GA, without an amendment if there is no substantial change. But to note that redistributions of person-months will also have an impact on the institutional unit contributions (since those are directly linked to the person-months declared for recruited researchers/seconded staff members; see details below).

Redistributions of institutional unit contributions within the consortium should be done via an internal agreement.”

DN: Can an organisation from a low-income third country eligible for funding be funded under the MSCA Doctoral Networks call as a full beneficiary, i.e. award PhDs on their own?

Doctoral candidates recruited by organisations in low-income third countries eligible for funding need to be enrolled in a doctoral programme leading to the award of doctoral degree in at least one EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. This means that these Doctoral Candidates have to be enrolled in the third country and in a European Union Member State/ Associated Country partner.

SE: Should the number of secondments from entities from high-income third countries which are not automatically eligible for funding be included in the budget table?

Normally, no. However, if the consortium would like to apply for exceptional funding for these entities, they would have to encode a certain number of seconded researchers and person months. If this request is declined, the consortium will not have the possibility to redistribute these person-months. The request for exceptional funding should be well explained in Part B1. It is quite rare for the requests for exceptional funding to be granted.

PF: A researcher has worked in Canada for many years and is looking to return to their home country. Is Canada considered a third country?

As outlined in the 2023-2025 MSCA Work Programme (p.140), for the purpose of MSCA Canada falls under the classification of a third country, signifying its status outside the EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries, despite being associated to Pillar II of Horizon Europe. Therefore, research conducted in Canada would not count towards the maximum years of experience for nationals and long-term residents of EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries seeking reintegration in research within the EU or Associated Countries.

According to the Work Programme (p. 121) “researchers wishing to reintegrate from a third country must either be based in a third country at the call deadline or have moved directly from a third country to an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country within the last 12 months before the call deadline”.

DN: How rare are requests for exceptional funding e.g. have there been any successful requests in the 2022 Doctoral Networks Call?

Regarding exceptional funding requests, there have been no successful requests for the US in Horizon Europe, but there have been two successful requests in 2021 for Switzerland, and a few successful cases for US, Canada, Japan and Australia in Horizon 2020.

DN: Is it possible to make a case for exceptional funding on the basis of a person who is a world leader in the field and what they and their organisation can provide rather than access to particular research infrastructure, or access to data or geographical expertise?

It is possible to make a case for any reason, but it might be harder to make such case as being a world leader is by essence more subjective than having access to specific and unique data or infrastructure.

DN: If a proposal is selected for funding, but the exceptional funding request for a Third Country beneficiary is not accepted, is their involvement disregarded and the network is awarded funding for less doctoral candidates or are person-months for their doctoral candidates redistributed among the consortium?

If the project is funded but the exceptional funding denied, then the maximum grant amount would be reduced by the amount of the requested amount for the third country, and funding available for less doctoral candidates. The third country can still participate but with their own funds, as associated partners. Please note that in the very rare event that they are funded and the exceptional funding granted, the doctoral candidates hosted in the third country would still need to be enrolled in a PhD programme in a MS/ AC.  

Please note that in case the exceptional funding is not granted/ positively assessed by the experts, the proposal is still assessed as it is and the third country participation is NOT disregarded but assessed as if they were participating with their own funds.

Switzerland has national funding to complement Doctoral Networks funding and to recruit PhD candidates (not official MSCA fellows, but Swiss funded PhD candidates joining the Network). Swiss organisations are advised to join as ‘Associated Partner’ and not to take the risk of trying to be an exceptional beneficiary and to be ‘essential to implement the project’. There have been cases where Swiss partners were recognised as essential to implement a Doctoral Networks project and got the status of a beneficiary. It can happen, but it is always risky.