CO-FUNDing of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND)

Transnational mobility opens up new horizons for researchers.

To encourage their movement across borders, Marie Curie Actions offer additional funding to existing or new regional and national fellowship programmes for research training and career development. This COFUND scheme can also support and strengthen existing and new international programmes.

Who can apply?

Applicants for COFUND should be public or private bodies that are responsible for funding and managing fellowships or research training programmes. They may be ministries, research academies or agencies, international organisations but also other similar bodies with a public mission, such as universities.

Which topics can be co-funded?

All fields of research and research training are eligible for COFUND, provided that an element of mobility across borders is involved. COFUND programmes can cover several or all research fields or can be restricted to a specific domain. But there is one exception: research areas covered by the EURATOM Treaty cannot be funded.

What does the funding cover?

COFUND participants submit multi-annual proposals for specific fellowships/research training programmes for co-funding. These programmes should be open to experienced researchers and must include at least one form of transnational mobility, such as incoming or outgoing mobility of researchers or an action to reintegrate them into research employment in Europe. Eligible programmes are co-funded for 40 % of their fellowship costs with a maximum EU contribution of €10 million for any organisation per call. Selected programmes will be co-funded for 24 to 60 months.

Who decides?

COFUND proposals are selected through transparent and independent peer review. Criteria examined during the evaluation include: focus on the quality of the evaluation process for selecting the fellows in terms of transparency and equal treatment of applicants, quality of the peer review, management capacity, user-friendliness of the application process and benefit of the programme in terms of career development for the participating researchers.

How do we apply?

Proposals are submitted in reply to a call for proposals. Calls can be found on the “When to apply page” of the Marie Curie Actions website, which also contains all useful information about the actions: http://ec.europa.eu/mariecurieactions