European Commission Research & Innovation Initiatives and Programme Opportunities

Return to overview

Horizon Europe Collaborative Programmes – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND

Snapshot overview

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND supports regional, national and international programmes for training and career development. There are 2 types of COFUND: (i) doctoral Programmes that offer research training activities to allow doctoral candidates to develop and broaden their skills and competences, which will lead to the award of a doctoral degree; (ii) Postdoctoral Programmes, which will  fund individual advanced research training and career development fellowships for postdoctoral researchers.

Under the 2023-2024 work programme, a call for proposals is currently open.

Name

Horizon Europe Collaborative Programmes – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND

Institution/ DG/ Agency responsible at EU-level

European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD)

Work programme

Timeframe of programme: 2022-2027

Programme

Depends per programme

Programme budget

Depends per programme

Call budget

Up to EUR 10 million. COFUND funding helps host organisations cover for each supported researcher:

  • A fixed amount (COFUND allowance) equivalent to the minimum salary that researchers should receive
  • A long-term leave allowance and special needs allowance, if applicable
Type of funding

Grant, prizes and procurement, no contribution required

Target participants

Depends per programme

Programme scope
  • Research & Innovation Action (RIA): Activities aiming to establish new knowledge and/or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution.
  • Innovation actions: Activities directly aiming at producing plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services.
  • Coordination & support actions: Accompanying measures such as standardisation, dissemination, awareness-raising and communication, networking, coordination or support services, policy dialogues and mutual learning exercises and studies.
  • Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA): various academic fellowships, training networks, doctorates etc.
  • COFUND actions: cooperation between the EU and national governments, industry or other bodies in support of public-private partnerships and coordinated programmes.
  • Procurement actions: enables the public sector as a technologically demanding buyer to encourage research and development of breakthrough solutions that can bring radical quality and efficiency improvements in areas of public interest, whilst opening market opportunities for industry and researchers as well as reinforces early deployment of innovative solutions that address challenges of public interest.
  • SME instrument: Feasibility studies, innovation projects and support for commercialisation.
Participant criteria

Depends per programme

Project duration

Depends per programme

Average time from submission to project kick-off

Please refer to the ‘Call status’ section.

R&D stage

Depends per programme

Intellectual property

Depends per programme

Call-specific resources

Overview here, call for proposals here

Call Status

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Coordination and Support Actions: Open

  • 23 April 2024: opening of the call for proposals
  • 26 September 2024: deadline to send proposals
  • March 2025: notification of call results to applicants
  • March-May 2025: grant agreement signature for successful projects
  • May 2025: first EU-funded projects start
Contact details & more information
Return to overview

This tool was created by FTI Consulting for GSK and EFPIA.
For all enquiries please contact niro@fticonsulting.com
Privacy policy

This tool was created by FTI Consulting
for GSK and EFPIA.
For all enquiries please contact niro@fticonsulting.com
Privacy policy

What type of funding are you looking for?

  • Grant:
    Grants are direct financial contributions from the European Union budget awarded by way of a donation to third-party beneficiaries (usually non-profit-making organisations) engaged in activities that serve EU policies.
  • Loan:
    Loans are measures of financial support provided on a complementary basis from the budget in order to address specific policy objectives of the European Union. Such instruments are implemented in partnership with public and private institutions such as banks, venture capitalists or angel investors.

What stage of development are you seeking R&I funding for?

  • Basic science: Basic science covers the various exploratory steps even prior to discovery
  • Discovery: Drug discovery aims to find potential disease-altering targets, such as a gene or a protein in humans. Prior to testing candidate compounds for safety
  • Preclinical development: Preclinical development concerns the testing of candidate compounds for safety in specific indications or disease conditions. Introduction of candidate compound in living biological systems (animals)
  • Phase 1 clinical trials: These are the first clinical trials on humans(usually 20-80 volunteers) testing the safety, side effects, best dose, and timing of a new treatment
  • Phase 21/2b clinical trials: This is the follow-up trial with roughly 100 to 500 patients to analyse efficacy and safety
  • Phase 3 clinical trials: These trials usually involve several hundreds to many thousands patients and tests the results of earlier clinical trials on larger populations to generate robust data on safety, efficacy and benefit-risk relationships of the medicine. Comparison to placebo and/or active comparator (best standard treatment)
  • Registration & launch: This concerns post-study, prior to launch, activities related to market launch. That can include, among others, marketing authorisation, regulatory activities, post-study communication or HTA
  • Introduction & delivery: This concerns all post-launch activities

What do you want to develop?

  • Treatment or vaccine:
    Refers to a drug or vaccine
  • Diagnostic or medical device:
    Refers to diagnostics and medical devices
  • Platform:
    Refers to a digital health platform or medical app
  • Knowledge:
    Refers to conducting research to help build our understanding on a topic
  • Standards:
    Refers to creating a benchmark for a specific issue

What type of organisation are you?

  • Small & medium-sized enterprises:
    <250 employees, annual revenue <EUR 50,000,000) or balance sheet < EUR43 million. This applies to individual firms only. If part of larger group, check the User Guide: https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/42921
  • Large enterprises:
    >250 employees or annual revenue > EUR 50,000,000. Non-profit organisation (non-governmental organisations that are recognised with a non-profit status)
  • Non-profit organisations:
    Non-governmental organisations that are recognised with a non-profit status
  • Academic:
    Linked to a university or equivalent
  • Public:
    Local, regional, federal government representative

What stage of diagnostics development does your research aim to cover?

  • Development:
    Product development
  • Validation:
    Lab and clinical validation
  • Evaluation & Authorisation:
    Regulatory approvals
  • Access:
    Monitoring

What stage of medicine or vaccine development does your research aim to cover?

  • Discovery and development:
    Identification of promising compounds for development and initial experiments to gather information
  • Preclinical research:
    Laboratory and animal testing to answer basic questions about safety
  • Phase 0 (clinical):
    Testing on limited number of subjects at subtherapeutic doses
  • Phase I (clinical):
    Testing on <100 healthy subjects with the disease/condition
  • Phase II (clinical):
    Testing on up to several hundred subjects with the disease/condition
  • Phase III (clinical):
    Testing on 300 to 3,000 volunteers with the disease/condition
  • Preregistration / Phase IV (clinical):
    Testing on several thousand volunteers with the disease/condition
  • Clinical (unspecified):
    Clinical phase unknown
  • Evaluation & Authorisation:
    Activities relating to marketing authorisation
  • Access:
    Monitoring

Where are you based?

  • Africa : Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Congo (Republic of the), Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
  • America (non-US & Canada) : Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
  • Asia-Pacific : Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, China (including special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau), Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, North Korea, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Vietnam
  • Europe (non-EU) : Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
  • European Union (EU) : Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
  • Middle East : Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen
  • United States (US) & Canada : United States, Canada

What type of organisation are you?

  • Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME):
    Staff headcount 50 < and turnover ≤ EUR 10 m or balance sheet total ≤ EUR 10 m (small); Staff headcount 250 < and turnover ≤ EUR 50 m or balance sheet total ≤ EUR 43 m (medium)
  • Large enterprise:
    Staff headcount > 250
  • Non-profit organisation:
    Association, foundation, or equivalent
  • Academic:
    University, research institute, or equivalent
  • Individual:
    Private citizen
  • Public sector:
    Local, regional, federal government representative
  • Other:
    None of the above or uncertain