Summary
Two days before the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11, 2026), the European Commission announced the results of the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call, including success rates and selected projects. This post provides a concise analysis of the newly released data, focusing on the number of funded proposals.
Introduction: What are the MSCA PFs?
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships (PFs) are a key funding scheme supporting research and innovation across the European Union, currently part of Horizon Europe. The programme targets early- to mid-career researchers holding a PhD “who wish to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and develop their careers” (MSCA Website 2025). Applications are jointly submitted by a researcher and a host institution (the “coordinator”) and are open to all fields of research and innovation.
There are two types of MSCA PFs. The first and by far most common, the European Postdoctoral Fellowship, takes place exclusively in Europe (i.e., for 2025, in one of the 27 EU Member States or one of the 13 Associated Countries)1. These fellowships last between one and two years and are open to researchers of any nationality. The second type, the Global Postdoctoral Fellowship, funds the mobility of researchers from EU Member States or Associated Countries outside Europe (one to two years in a non-Associated Country, followed by a mandatory one‑year return phase in Europe).
The MSCA PFs are widely regarded as a “prestigious and high-value scheme”. Many universities offer dedicated seminars, training sessions, and support staff to help applicants navigate the process. Guidance materials and literature on how to strengthen applications are also expanding (Baumert, Cenni, and Antonkine 2022), reflecting a broader trend towards the professionalisation of grant writing. This trend is likely to grow in the coming years. Nevertheless, this broader context lies beyond the scope of this post; the information provided above offers sufficient background for the analysis of the published data.
Data
Submission
The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (PFs) call closed on 10 September 2025 and was highly successful:
The European Research Executive Agency received 17,066 proposals. This is the highest number of proposals ever for any funding action in the 40 years of EU research and innovation framework programme. By comparison, 10,360 proposals were submitted in 2024. This represents an increase of 64.6% (MSCA News 2025).
The Agency received 15,828 proposals for European Fellowships and 1,238 proposals for Global Fellowships. After the call closed, it released two datasets: one indicating the country of the coordinating institution (i.e., where European Postdoctoral Fellowships would be hosted), and another listing the non‑Associated Countries to which Global Fellows had applied.
Selection
Exactly six months later, in February 2026, the Agency announced that the selected applicants represented nearly 80 nationalities and would be working across 45 countries in Europe and worldwide (MSCA News 2026). In total, 17,066 proposals were submitted, of which 16,836 were eligible, and 1,610 were selected. This corresponds to a 9.6% success rate among eligible proposals. The selection consists of 1,446 European Postdoctoral Fellowships (with a total budget of €343.7 million) and 164 Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (totalling €60.6 million in funding).
Analysis
The EU provides aggregated data on three aspects of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships (PFs):
Countries of the coordinating institutions (all PFs): The data include information on the countries hosting the coordinating institutions for all Postdoctoral Fellowships. When applying for an MSCA PF, researchers must work closely with both a host institution and a supervisor. The alignment between the applicant’s proposal and the expertise of the host institution is a key element of the evaluation process. Although each coordinating institution operates independently, they may receive support from National Contact Points (NCPs), which “are national structures; the type and level of services offered may differ from country to country”. Therefore, comparing the countries’ success can provide insights into their attractiveness (number of applications) and the overall level of support and experience that a country available nationally (as reflected in success rates).
Disciplines represented in the selected proposals: The data offer a view of the different disciplines applying for external funding.
Destination countries for Global Fellowships: the dataset indicates the non‑Associated Countries to which applicants intend to carry out their research period outside Europe. Total number of proposals by country reveals which countries are attractive for European researchers. The total number of proposals targeting each country reveals which destinations are most attractive to European researchers. The success rate suggests that certain countries may offer stronger institutional support or better alignment with the programme’s expectations.
Postdoctoral Fellowships (European and Global)
The diagram below presents a set of bar charts showing the number of proposals submitted and selected by country for the 2025 call. The United Kingdom dominates largely the picture: UK institutions managed more than 3500 applications, representing one fifth of all submissions. This high volume of proposals is mirrored by a correspondingly high number of successful applications. With 347 selected proposals, the UK is the most successful country in this call, accounting for 21 % of all the successful applications, and will therefore receive a substantial share of the €404.3 million of the total budget allocated.
While a high volume of submissions corresponds to a high number of selected applications, it may not be the most sustainable approach in the long term. The fact that the fair evaluation process was carried out on schedule, despite the strong increase of applications (+64%), demonstrates a well-functioning system that appears to be thoroughly tested and proven as the MSCA celebrates its 30th anniversary. Congratulations to all the reviewers and panel committee members!
Analysing success rates by country offers insight into the effectiveness of national support systems. Here, the success rate is defined as the percentage of selected applications relative to the total number of submissions.
This bar chart shows the deviation from the overall success rate (9.4%, including ineligible proposals). Switzerland, Austria and Belgium (on the left) perform significantly better in terms of pre‑selection and application support, achieving success rates above 12%. By contrast, Ireland (second from the right) displays a notably low success rate of 6%, less than half that of the top‑performing countries. Among the countries with a high number of submissions, Italy performed relatively well in 2025, whereas the UK, Germany, Spain and France maintained success rates close to the average. For prospective postdoctoral fellows, it may therefore be advantageous to choose a host institution in a country positioned on the left side of the chart rather than the right. Given the level of competition, where every 0.1 point in the evaluation makes a difference, even marginal improvements matter.
When examining the distribution of selected proposals by discipline, one might initially conclude that Social Sciences and Humanities represent the largest group. However, this category is likely far more heterogeneous than fields such as Chemistry, Physics or Mathematics. More surprising, given Europe’s long‑standing focus on economic development and the historical importance of economic cooperation in the formation of the European Union, is the small number of successful applications in the Economic Sciences. It would be interesting to check if the geographical distribution of disciplines is also uneven.
Outgoing Countries (Global Fellowships)
While we do not yet have separate data for the European Fellowships, we do have information on the outgoing countries for the Global Fellowships. These can be analysed in a similar way by ranking countries according to the number of applications they receive and their corresponding success rates.
The United States is by far the most popular destination for postdoctoral researchers from Europe (Horizon), accounting for nearly 50% of Global Fellowship destinations. This proportion is even higher after the selection process: approximately 60% of Global fellows will spend one or two years in the USA. Canada, Australia, and Japan follow as the next most popular countries by proposal numbers, after which a group of Central and South American countries appears (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina).
Although the role of outgoing country is less central in the formal application process than that of the coordinating institution (always based in Europe), differences between destinations may indicate how effectively their “unique selling points” can be articulated and demonstrated within proposals.
While comparisons with the United States may be somewhat skewed due to the uneven distribution of proposals across outgoing countries, Japan emerges as a particularly challenging destination for Global Fellowships, with a success rate of around 6% (63 proposals submitted, 4 selected).
Conclusion
The year 2025 proved exceptionally competitive, setting a record number of applications. Coincidentally, 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of the Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Actions (MSCA), a milestone celebrated as “a moment to reflect on what has been achieved and to look ahead to what comes next” (MSCA News 2026). While the budget allocated to the MSCA PFs for the 2026 call will be higher (€400 million for European PFs and €60 million for Global PFs), it is set to decrease in 2027 (€330 million for European PFs and €60 million for Global PFs), according to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027. Given the continued growth in application numbers, I would not be surprised if measures were introduced to prevent an excessive volume of submissions (and the resulting decline in success rates), including possible restrictions at the institutional or national level, or changes to reapplication rules. For instance, the Swiss National Science Foundation is introducing new regulations for its own research programmes from February this year to curb the steadily rising number of proposals, while facing budget reductions in the coming year, in order to maintain a fair evaluation process (see the SNSF recent new rules).
NoteNotes on the data
The published data are aggregated and differ between the submission and selection stages. At the submission stage (proposals), only percentages by country are provided, whereas at the selection stage (selected proposals), only total numbers are available. Consequently, I calculated the number of submitted proposals from the reported percentages. As this method does not produce exact whole numbers, the resulting figures were rounded.
The information on ineligible proposals (230 in total) was not available. As a result, the success rate calculated here uses the total number of submissions, not the number of eligible proposals. This leads to a slightly lower success rate: Calculated rate: 1610/17066 (i.e., 9.4%); Official rate: 1610/16836 (i.e., 9.6%)
The submission‑stage data are less detailed, with several countries grouped together under “Others”. To ensure a consistent comparison between the submission and selection stages, I applied the same country grouping to both datasets.
References
Baumert, Philipp, Francesco Cenni, and Mikhail L. Antonkine. 2022. “Ten Simple Rules for a Successful EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral (MSCA) Fellowship Application.” PLOS Computational Biology 18 (8): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010371.
MSCA News. 2025. “MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Receives Record Number of 17,066 Proposals Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.” European Commission. https://web.archive.org/web/20250911152156/https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-postdoctoral-fellowships-2025-proposals.
———. 2026. “MSCA Awards €404.3 Million to Postdoctoral Researchers Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.” European Commission. https://web.archive.org/web/20260210211226/https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-awards-eu4043-million-to-postdoctoral-researchers.
MSCA Website. 2025. “Postdoctoral Fellowships - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.” European Commission. https://web.archive.org/web/20260209204032/https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/postdoctoral-fellowships.
Footnotes
Also for this call the EU Members (in protocol order): Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden; the 13 Associated countries: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.↩︎