In the last 30 years, the MSCA has supported the careers of excellent researchers from Europe and beyond, enabling them to pursue their ideas across academia and industry. 7 hours ago
More than 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have participated in projects funded by the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) over the past five years, giving companies access to international research networks and highly skilled researchers.
In the last 30 years, the MSCA has supported the careers of excellent researchers from Europe and beyond, enabling them to pursue their ideas across academia and industry.
Collaboration between universities and companies has been a fundamental part of the MSCA since its inception in 1996, and the involvement of Europe’s SMEs has grown ever since. Over the last five years, over 4,300 businesses took part in MSCA projects, and more than half of them were SMEs.
Since 2014 – when the EU’s Horizon 2020 funding programme was launched – more than €1 billion in funding has supported the participation of over 8,500 private companies across more than 3,000 projects.
To help companies get the most out of the doctoral training networks, postdoctoral fellowships and staff exchanges on offer, the MSCA has created a business hub page.
For example, it explains how SMEs can team up with academia to apply for MSCA Staff Exchange funding, which enables research and research support staff to move across countries, sectors, and disciplines, gaining experience and sharing expertise.
SMEs can also reduce R&D costs and administrative effort by applying for an MSCA COFUND grant, which helps cover the cost of selecting, recruiting and training researchers.
The recently launched Choose Europe for Science pilot further expands opportunities for organisations to recruit outstanding researchers into longer-term positions. The action supports projects where both academic and private sector organisations hire postdoctoral researchers with a view to offering employment beyond the project period.
The idea is to also widen adoption of MSCA’s best practice in research, promoting high standards and good working conditions.
The MSCA Doctoral Networks, which support doctoral training, offer SMEs an opportunity to collaborate with universities in seeking MSCA funding. For every three educational establishments participating in the Doctoral Networks, there were almost two private sector organisations, according to data gathered from 2021 to 2023.
MSCA sees the highest engagement in Staff Exchanges and Doctoral Networks, where around half of the organisations involved come from the non-academic sector.
International networks
Doctoral Networks must include members from at least three different countries, showing how a commitment to international mobility runs through the MSCA. Another example is the Postdoctoral Fellowships, where the mobility rules say that applicants should not have lived or worked in the beneficiary country for more than 12 months out of the 36 immediately before the call deadline.
This international focus benefits SME partners because they get to participate in stronger international research networks. This means they get access to advanced technologies and specialised expertise, while at the same time it encourages greater collaboration, enabling SMEs to strengthen the skills of their teams.
International mobility is a core feature of the programme. Many researchers remain in Europe after their fellowship, helping to strengthen the continent’s research and innovation ecosystem.
One example is SERENADE, an MSCA-funded Doctoral Network coordinated by BSH Appliances in Spain. The project brings together universities and companies to train seven doctoral candidates working on technologies to reduce food waste, including sensor-equipped food containers and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered freshness analysis.
The initiative is training doctoral candidates from academic institutions in Belgium, Germany and Italy, who are splitting their time between academic research and industry work with one of the companies partnering in the project.
It aims to produce two innovations to tackle food waste: sustainable containers with sensors to monitor whether the food inside them is still fresh, and a portable food analyser that uses AI to examine the freshness of unpackaged products.
The networked approach of the project is more efficient in addressing the complex challenges required to achieve these goals, compared with solo efforts, according to Sergio Gomez Ortiz, head of product development shared services at BSH Group in Zaragoza, Spain.
Revathy Gurusamy, an MSCA doctoral candidate who is working on SERENADE, says she chose the project partly because of the real-world impact it could have. Working at BSH Appliances, she sees the potential for her team’s smart food-monitoring devices to reach millions of households, directly contributing to reducing food waste on a global scale.
As demand grows for closer collaboration between research and industry, the MSCA continues to provide companies with opportunities to engage with international talent and collaborative research.