Recommendations for MCAs
Named in honour of the eminent scientist, the Marie Curie Actions (MCA) were first introduced in 1996 and over the last 17 years an estimated 60,000 researchers have received training as part of the programme. The MCAs formed a key share of the ‘People’ programme under FP7 and this will be replicated under Horizon 2020 under the new title of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) in honour of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist’s Polish heritage.
The European Commission has consulted with numerous European academic institutions on the development of Horizon 2020. Led by Imperial College London, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) has contributed their comments on the future of the MSCAs.
James Lloyd, contracts administrator (Europe) at Imperial, outlined the university’s contribution to the development of Horizon 2020 and the findings of LERU’s ‘The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: recommendations for Horizon 2020’ report.
As EU funding is of increasing strategic importance to the College, Imperial has been very keen to feed into the development process of Horizon 2020. We took the opportunity to respond to the Commission’s Green Paper on the ‘Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation’, both with a College paper and a response to the Commission questionnaire.
At European level, we in Imperial’s EU team, have been fortunate to be a part of LERU and its European research project managers group, which has been very active from the earliest stages of Horizon 2020’s development, and has proved influential.
Report background
The decision to prepare a paper on the Marie Curie Actions was taken following a LERU European research project managers group meeting in Brussels in September 2012. One of the speakers at the meeting was Alessandra Luchetti (head of unit, Marie Curie Actions in EC Directorate General Education and Culture), who presented on the achievements of the MCAs in FP7 and the unit’s objectives and initial outlines for Horizon 2020’s MSCAs.
She was receptive to our points and encouraged us to put together a paper summarising our views that could be used in DG Education and Culture’s policy discussions. After consulting the group, a paper was drafted and this was forwarded to Luchetti in early 2013. Following stakeholder meetings on the MSCAs and additional information we received, LERU published a final report on our recommendations.
Recommendations and conclusions
The Commission has suggested that the Initial Training Networks (ITNs) will continue in largely the same form as in FP7, which we welcome; this is a well understood action and its popularity shows that there is a real need for PhD training to be funded by the Commission. Innovative Doctoral Programmes, a single-site PhD training action introduced within the final two ITN calls, will be moved to the COFUND action, which LERU does not oppose as long as the eligibility conditions for applicant institutions are made as flexible as possible to allow all interested parties the chance to be involved.
Under the COFUND action, we would like to see fixed funding amounts employed to bring this in line with the rest of the MSCAs. We would also like to ensure that no cap is put on the number of concurrent COFUND participations per institution. We feel this would be to the detriment of multidisciplinary universities, which are the highest quality providers of this level of training in Europe and have the capacity to host many of these projects at once.
Individual Fellowships have been very successful under FP7, so LERU is pleased to see the action continue. The Commission plan to group what are currently different fellowship types in FP7 into one single action in Horizon 2020. This could make assessment difficult however, so we encourage the Commission keeps international and intersectoral mobility for the fellows optional and ensures that evaluators score each proposal on its own merits, based on its scientific and training goals.
Another pair of actions likely to be combined in Horizon 2020: the Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) and International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) will be replaced by RISE: Research and Innovation Staff Exchange. The Commission wants to fund this action with fixed-amount contributions per person month, which we support on the condition that the funding in question is realistic; under the IRSES programme we have found that travel and short-term accommodation can sometimes cost more than is available from the grant.
Across the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the Commission has proposed to change its definition of ‘intersectoral’ mobility. In FP7, institutions were either referred to as ‘commercial’ or ‘non-commercial’, but under Horizon 2020 this will change to ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’. This change should allow a greater breadth of organisations to be involved in the scheme and LERU strongly supports it for the variety of extra training opportunities it should open up.
The report was prepared by James Lloyd, Imperial College London, England, with the support of Stijn Delauré (University of Leuven, Belgium); Angela Noble (University of Edinburgh, Scotland); and other members of the LERU Community of European Research Project managers. You can view the full report here.
James Lloyd
