Tagged / Horizon Europe

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 Now Open – Key Dates and Support

The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 call opened on 9 April and is now accepting applications. The submission deadline is 9 September 2026.

Further information and all relevant documents are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.

The UK National Contact Point for Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions will host an online webinar for the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 call. The session will provide a comprehensive overview of the call, including eligibility criteria, budget, and key considerations.

Date: 14 May 2026
Time: 10:00–12:00 (UK time)
Registration deadline: 14 May 2026

For your convenience, links to key documents are provided below:

– Guide for Applicants (download page)
– Guidelines on the calculation of 8 years of research experience
– 2026 standard application form (for an editable version, please contact RIS)
– Guidance on the researcher’s CV requirements (available on the RDS SharePoint)

Please note that the internal deadline for submission of ItB forms for this call is 6 July 2026, and all proposals are expected to be ready for submission at least one week before the call deadline.

We strongly recommend submitting an ItB as soon as you decide to apply. In the event of a high volume of support requests, demand management measures may be implemented. Please note that ItB forms submitted after 7 July will not be accepted.

If you have any questions related to EU funding, please feel free to contact me, Ainars Blaudums, Strategic & International Research Facilitator. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, please contact the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or reach out to colleagues supporting UK funder applications.

Horizon Europe Event – April 2026

We have established an annual event dedicated to EU funding, with a particular focus on the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

This year’s event is hosted and supported by MST and will explore the theme: ‘EU Funding: Busting Myths, Building Capacity’. During the session, experienced Horizon bidders from BU will demystify Horizon Europe, sharing their insights alongside practical advice for prospective applicants.

The event is open to colleagues from all faculties. We aim to deliver it in a hybrid format and to record the session; however, this cannot be guaranteed.

While registration is not mandatory, we strongly encourage attendees to sign up, as the online joining link will only be shared with registered participants. Please use the registration link provided.

The event’s primary aim is to broaden the pool of Horizon Europe applicants across MST and BU. Currently, a relatively small, established group of senior academics leads the majority of applications, placing considerable pressure on them, while comparatively few new applicants are entering the process.

The event will last approximately one and a half hours and will take place on 29 April 2026 at 10:30 in PG22, Poole House. A number of BU Professors have kindly agreed to participate as panellists and will be available to answer questions.

The session will begin with a short introductory presentation covering the fundamental principles of Horizon Europe and its current landscape. The rest of the event – at least one hour – will be dedicated to discussion and audience Q&A.

Please share this information with colleagues so they can save the date. Further details, including the event link, will be circulated in due course.

Ainars

BU Leads AI-Driven Work Package in EU Horizon SUSHEAS Project

[SUSHEAS logo]Bournemouth University is proud to be a key partner in the EU-funded research project SUSHEAS (Sustainable Production of High Entropy Alloys from Secondary Metals), which aims to enable more sustainable and efficient production of High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) using secondary metals such as scrap and recycled materials.

HEAs are chemically complex multi-component alloys with strong potential for future high-performance applications. However, most current HEA production relies heavily on virgin raw materials, leading to high energy consumption, cost, and environmental impact. SUSHEAS addresses this challenge by developing new sustainable production methods supported by international academic–industrial collaboration and staff exchanges.

Bournemouth University leads Work Package 2 (WP2), which focuses on advancing the state of the art through computational and AI-driven approaches. WP2 aims to develop new alloy composition options that can better tolerate impurities often found in recycled metals, while still meeting desired performance requirements.

This includes the use of advanced tools such as Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), CALPHAD modelling, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to optimise alloy chemistry and processing conditions, supporting more sustainable and scalable HEA manufacturing.

Dr Paul de Vrieze and Dr Lai Xu, as project leader and co-project leader, bring complementary expertise in AI-driven digital twins, smart manufacturing, and enterprise systems integration. Their research contributes the digital intelligence layer needed for sustainable manufacturing, enabling reasoning-based AI models and digital simulations to optimise manufacturing processes, energy use, and material flows—particularly when incorporating advanced or secondary materials.

Through SUSHEAS, Bournemouth University is helping to shape the future of sustainable advanced materials production and supporting the development of greener manufacturing technologies for Europe.

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MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call

Funding opportunities

The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call is now open for applications. The submission deadline is 10 September 2025.

Documents and further information are available on the EU Portal.

For your convenience, here are links to specific documents:

I would like to remind you that the internal deadline for submission of ItB forms for this call is 7 July 2025 and we expect all proposals to be ready for submission at least two days before the call deadline. We strongly recommend that you submit an ItB as soon as you have decided to apply for this year’s call. Please note that any ItB forms submitted after 7 July will not be accepted.

If you have any questions related to EU funding, please feel free to contact me, Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, kindly email the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or get in touch with my colleagues who support applications to UK funders.

 

ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar

Funding opportunities

This information, with some edits, is reposted from recent UKRO news.

The UK Research Office (UKRO), in its capacity as UK National Contact Point for the European Research Council (ERC), is organising a webinar for researchers who are interested in applying for the 2025 or any of the future ERC Advanced Grant calls. Attendance is free of charge, however, registration for the webinar is required. The session will last 2 hours.

The webinar will provide information on the submission process, how proposals are evaluated and other elements you’ll need to consider when designing a project for your research excellence idea ahead of the ERC Advanced Grant deadline of 28th August 2025.

Antonino Puglisi, UK National Contact Point, and Professor Rachel Gibson will be joining the webinar. Professor Rachel Gibson will share details of her journey towards getting an ERC Advanced grant.

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published

Funding opportunities

The European Commission has published the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025.

Parts of the Work Programme are available for download:

In addition to the Info Days announced earlier, there is an info day dedicated to Cluster 3 ‘Civil Security for Society’ to be held on 11 June at 9:00 (UK time), followed by a brokerage event on 12 June. All Info Days are recorded and can be accessed at any time directly from the event website.

UKRO has published guidance materials and explainers in the run-up to the adoption of the 2025 Work Programme. Those interested in these materials may be required to log in to the UKRO portal with their credentials.

If you have any EU funding-related questions, feel free to get in touch with me – Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, please email the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or contact my colleagues who support UK applications. There is a lot of useful information on our RDS pre-award SharePoint site.

Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published

Funding opportunities

The main Horizon Europe work programme 2025 has been pre-published.

The usual caveat is that these drafts have not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission and any views expressed are the preliminary views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. However, it is a solid basis to plan this year’s applications.

You can find all parts of the pre-published work programmes following this link: Horizon Europe work programmes – European Commission

The adoption (official release) of the Horizon Europe main work programme 2025 and the amended Horizon Europe work programme 2023-2025, as announced earlier, is planned for May 2025.

Let me remind you that in May, there are several information days hosted remotely by the Commission. You can find more information about information days on my previous blog, following this link: BU Research Blog | Horizon Europe info days 2025 | Bournemouth University

Those interested in applying for Horizon Europe grants, please read the appropriate parts of the work programme and attend the information days if you can. You can also find a summary of most important dates and useful links in the presentation I have recently updated and uploaded to RKE SharePoint site.

As usual, if you have any EU funding-related questions, feel free to get in touch with me – Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, please email the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or contact my colleagues who support UK applications. There is a lot of useful information on our RDS pre-award SharePoint site.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025

Funding opportunities

This week, there have been a few news updates related to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships.

MSCA PF 2025 Call opening

The first news reported by UKRO is that the EC has a delay in the launch date for the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call, moving it from 9 April to 8 May 2025. However, this delay will not affect the closing date, which remains as planned – 10 September 2025.

UKRO also states that, to minimise the impact of the shortened application period, the Guide for Applicants and the Application Form will be uploaded in advance to the Funding & Tenders Portal call page.

MSCA PF Information session

CONNECTS-UK is organising an online informative session/workshop on MSCA Individual Fellowships on 27th March 2025, from 15:30 to 17:00 UK time. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage directly with successful MSCA fellows from various research fields.

This session will provide a comprehensive overview of the MSCA programme and Individual Fellowships, offering insights into the application process, eligibility, funding, and featuring successful MSCA fellows from different fields sharing their experiences. Full details and the agenda can be found via this link.

Those new to the MSCA PF scheme are encouraged to join this event or any other MSCA PF-specific event, as there will not be specific workshops organised at BU.

Although the information session is free of charge, participants must register in advance to attend.

Internal processes

Please note that, given that almost all Horizon Europe 2025 collaborative calls will have deadlines in September and October, the internal deadline for submission of MSCA PF ItBs will be in late June or early July.

We kindly ask that supervisors submit the CVs of their potential fellows in the funder’s defined format, along with the ItB, as this is required to assess their eligibility and competitiveness. A document outlining the requirements for the researcher’s CV is available on the RDS SharePoint site.

If you have any EU funding-related questions, feel free to get in touch with me – Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, please email the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or contact my colleagues who assist with applications to UK funders.

Horizon Europe info days 2025

Funding opportunities

This information has been updated in April 2025.

I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who attended the Horizon Europe event in February, particularly those who participated on the panel and shared valuable insights with other colleagues. BU staff can access the presentation on the RKE SharePoint site here.

We are currently awaiting the publication of the 2025 Work Programme, expected in about a month. While the official publication date is not set, some work programmes may be made available through pre-publication a couple of weeks in advance, although this is not guaranteed. According to the latest available information, around 7 April, the European Commission is planning to pre-publish at least the 2025 Horizon Europe Missions Programme with the call topics under the Cancer Mission and around 30 April, the calls and topics on the EU’s Funding and Tenders Portal.

In preparation for this, the European Commission has announced the first Horizon Europe 2025 information days, scheduled to take place in May. These events will be held online, with live streaming available. For more details, please click on the link for each event.

Below is a summary of what we know so far.

Tuesday 6 May 2025, 09:00 – 15:30 (CEST) Horizon Europe info days – Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility. This Info Day will take place both onsite in the Charlemagne building (Brussels) and online. Please note that onsite participation is limited. Registration for onsite participation closes on 31 March 2025 (or earlier if the capacity of the venue has been reached).

Tuesday 13 May 2025, 09:30 – Wednesday 14 May 2025, 17:00 (CEST) Horizon Europe info days – Cluster 4: Digital, Industry and Space. Speakers from the European Commission will provide detailed insights into the call topics, evaluation and award processes. The 6 destinations under this cluster are:

  • Climate neutral, circular and digitised production
  • Increased autonomy in key strategic value chains for resilient industry
  • World leading data and computing technologies
  • Digital and emerging technologies for competitiveness and fit for the Green Deal
  • Open strategic autonomy in developing, deploying and using global space-based infrastructures, services, applications and data
  • A human-centred and ethical development of digital and industrial technologies

Thursday 15 May 2025, 09:30 (GMT+02:00) Horizon Europe info days – Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Societies. This cluster aims to aims to meet EU goals and priorities on enhancing democratic governance and citizens participation, on the safeguarding and promotion of cultural heritage, and to respond to and shape multifaceted social, economic, technological and cultural transformations.

The event will provide prospective applicants with an opportunity to learn more about the funding options under the new work programme. The event will be livestreamed, register here.

Thursday 16 May 2025, 09:30 (GMT+02:00) Horizon Europe Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Societies online Brokerage Event.

The brokerage event is organised by the network of National Contact Points for Cluster 2, the Net4Society project.

Tuesday 20 May 2025, 09:00 – 17:00 (CEST) Horizon Europe info days – WIDERA Work Programme 2025. Speakers from the European Commission will present the new call topics.

Tuesday 20 May 2025, 09:00 – Wednesday 21 May 2025, 18:00 (CEST) Horizon Europe info days – Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment. The event will cover:

  • Insights into the policy context
  • A ‘key-to-success’ session focused on guidance and tips for quality proposals
  • Pitches for each of the topics from the Work Programme 2025
  • A dedicated session on co-funded partnerships

You can also sign up to the Info Days and receive updates on the latest news related to the event.

Thursday 22 May 2025, 09:00 – 17:00 (CEST) Horizon Europe info days – Cluster 1: Health. This cluster aims to deliver on the following six destinations:

  • Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society
  • Living and working in a health-promoting environment
  • Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden
  • Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care
  • Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society
  • Maintaining an innovative, sustainable and globally competitive health-related industry

As usual, if you have any EU funding-related questions, feel free to get in touch with me – Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. For general pre-award or non-EU queries, please email the Pre-award Enquiries mailbox or contact my colleagues who support UK applications. There is a lot of useful information on our RDS pre-award SharePoint site.

Update on UKRO services

Funding opportunities, international

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend our Horizon Europe event on 12 February. For those who missed it, the presentation is available on the RDS SharePoint site.

We briefly touched on a question regarding UKRO services, and here are further details on this matter, as recently communicated by UKRO.

UKRO has made changes to its service provision for subscribers in the current financial year. They are in the process of moving towards the UKRO future state and expect to communicate to subscribers in March what we can expect from April 2025 onwards.

The subscriber round-tables held in September 2024 have contributed to these plans, as well as ongoing discussions with the UKRO Steering Group. UKRO is extremely grateful for the feedback received and for the patience and understanding of subscribers during this time.

At present, UKRO is unable to allocate a named European Advisor to all subscribers and is instead focusing resources on responding to enquiries and producing portal content.

For those with more specific questions related to the Pillar II call topics, as mentioned during yesterday’s presentation, I would suggest getting in touch with the UK National Contact Points, who provide support for each specific area.

Just a quick reminder about UKRO: The UK Research Office (UKRO) supports the UK research and innovation community and works with partners across government and stakeholders to maximise UK engagement in the Horizon Europe programme. UKRO provides subscription-based advisory services for research organisations, and BU is one of UKRO’s subscribing organisations.

UKRO also offers free UK National Contact Point services for those interested in Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the European Research Council, Widening Participation, and COST. However, some sections of the UKRO website are only available to staff at subscribing organisations. Any BU employee can access UKRO services by creating their own profile.

We encourage all BU academic staff to register – it’s a quick and simple process that only requires an institutional email address. Registered users receive tailored news articles on the latest EU funding and policy developments, as well as factsheets on various strands and aspects of EU research, innovation, and higher education activities.

In the meantime, I will continue to keep an eye on the 2025 work programmes and inform you of any updates we receive.

Horizon Europe event – Weds 12th Feb – extra spaces

Having fully sold out, I’m pleased to announce further spaces have been made available for this popular event……

In addition, the panel has been confirmed as

  • Prof Hamid Bouchachia, BU’s Horizon expert
  • Prof Melanie Klinkner, the only current European Research Council grant winner at BU
  • Prof Jeff Bray, the winner of the most recent Marie Skłodowska-Curie Staff Exchange grant coordinated by BU

Please see this blog post for further details and book in quick HERE before those extra spaces are taken…….

Contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk if you have any queries

Horizon Europe funding – Weds 12th Feb

Funding opportunities, Training

Looking to secure European funding?

Horizon Europe event – in person, Wednesday 12th Feb, Talbot Campus 13:00-14:30.  Hosted by RDS Horizon expert, Ainars Blaudums and BU’s very own successful Horizon Europe academic, Prof Hamid Bouchachia.

This session will cover:

  • Introduction to Horizon Europe
  • Where and how to find EU funding opportunities
  • Panel discussion – What are the most effective ways of building international partnerships and getting involved with peers across Europe?
  • Q&A session

For further information on this event please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk

Book your place HERE

MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline

Funding opportunities

As you may already know, BU has been a successfully applying for the Horizon Europe MSCA Staff Exchanges (MSCA SE, previously Horizon 2020 MSCA RISE). The 2024 call of the MSCE SE action is open for applications until 5 February 2025.

We would appreciate it if all academics considering applying for this call submit their ItB by 9 December 2024.

This is not a formal deadline, however, given the number of bids we support and the extended Christmas break, we may not be able to support your application if your intention to bid comes in too late.

This is the Horizon Europe 2024 call, so all eligible UK institutions can apply as beneficiaries and lead a consortium. Please note that competition for Horizon Europe grants is significantly increasing this year and you must ensure the highest quality of your proposal to be successful.

Here are some useful links for those who are less familiar with MSCA Staff Exchanges call or willing to explore more about this funding scheme:

All necessary documents and guidance may be found on the call page. With any questions related to Horizon Europe funding opportunities feel free to get in touch with me and we can discuss your ideas and specific questions individually.

Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars

Funding opportunities

A couple of useful free webinars have been announced recently. Please take a look and see if you are interested in participating.

ERC 2025 Consolidator Grant Call Information Webinar

17 October 2024 10:00 to 12:30 UK time

The webinar will provide participants with a detailed practical overview of the ERC Consolidator Grant scheme. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the proposal format and the key issues they are required to address in planning, writing and costing a proposal. The session will be delivered using the Zoom webinar facility.

The session will be recorded and a copy of the recording alongside the presentation slides will be posted on this event page afterwards. Click on this link to register.

Networking and Brokerage Event – MSCA Staff Exchanges Call 2024

17 October 2024 10:00 to 13:30 UK time

The European Union and India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have launched a new co-funding initiative for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges. Through this scheme, CSIR will top up selected MSCA Staff Exchanges projects, enabling its institutes to engage in joint research projects with European and international partners and second their scientific and technical staff to European research organisations for knowledge sharing and research activities.

The webinar is open for European academic and non-academic stakeholders who want to enhance their organisation’s innovation capacity through interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration with Indian partners.

The event is virtual and free of charge, but registration is required.

ERC grants – series of webinars

Funding opportunities

Since the UK joined the Horizon Europe programme this year, many academics have shown interest in applying to different streams of ERC grants. I am always happy to speak with you individually, however, I would also encourage those interested in applying to participate in events organised by UKRI/UKRO. UKRO as the ERC UK National Contact Point is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology.

UKRO has announced a series of webinars to cover the following topics:

Webinars are free of charge, to access more details by following the above links, you may be required to provide login details to access the UKRO portal.

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. More information about funder may be found on ERC webpage.

The ERC offers 4 core highly competitive grant schemes:

For more information regarding ERC grants feel free to get in touch with Research Facilitator International.

Last reminder – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 internal deadline next week

Funding opportunities

Dear colleagues,

This is a kind reminder that next Monday, 15 July 2024 is the deadline for submission of ItB if you plan to submit an application to MSCA PF 2024 call.

We have already received a large number of ItBs which is close to the capacity RDS can handle, so any late ItBs submitted after Monday will be rejected.

This year we have planned that all proposals are completed and submitted to the funder on 10 September, a day before the call deadline.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 – internal deadline approaching

Funding opportunities

A while ago I posted a blog about preparations for MSCA PF 2024 call. The deadline date is  11 September 2024 17:00:00 Brussels time, you can find more information by visiting the EU Funding and Tenders Portal call page.

The ItB submission deadline this year is Monday 15 July, although we encourage you to submit the ItB as soon as you are ready.

With queries related to MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 Call please contact Research Facilitator International. Please note that I have already contacted those on my list of potential applicants. If I have missed any academics considering applying, accept my apologies and remind me about your intention to submit an application this year to send you more details regarding application support.

Horizon Europe – EuroHPC and MSCA PF webinars

Funding opportunities

EuroHPC

According to UKRO, on May 13 the UK has joined the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) bringing together supercomputing resources from 35 countries.

This world-class European supercomputing eco-system has an enhanced share of the Horizon funded portion, worth £770 million from 2021-2027. Membership means UK’s brightest minds can now work in partnership with European colleagues, and access EuroHPC Horizon Europe-funded projects.

For more information you can read UK Government’s press release.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 Call Information Webinars

The 2024 MSCA PF call is open and will close on 11 September 2024 (17:00 Brussels time). As advertised earlier, two events organised by UKRO were held on 14th and 15th May, 2024.

The presentation slides and video recordings from information webinars on how to apply to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) 2024 call are now available on UKRO event pages:

Session 1: Overview and Eligibility
Session 2: Submission and Evaluation

To access slides you may need your UKRO login details, more information about registration is here. Please note that some UKRO services have been suspended at the moment, for example, UKRO will pause accepting new requests for subscribers to use UKRO meeting rooms and pause new training events.