Aurora co-signs joint statement on the future of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

Aurora has co-signed the joint statement MSCA: Research Talent is Europe’s Strategic Advantage, together with 16 other organisations from the European research community. As negotiations progress on the next Horizon Europe programme (FP10) and the European Union’s long-term budget, the signatories urge European leaders to preserve MSCA as a bottom-up research initiative and to increase its funding considerably, rather than impose a redesign.

The rationale is rooted in MSCA’s 30-year history as a programme that supports researchers at all stages, from doctoral candidates to emerging research leaders. It stays open to every discipline, and because it follows the ideas of researchers themselves, it has been able to respond to questions long before they become political priorities. The statement urges leaders to maintain this openness. There is concern that MSCA may be repurposed to address short-term labour market needs or predefined thematic priorities, objectives that are more appropriately pursued through distinct programmes.

A further issue concerns scale: demand for MSCA significantly exceeds its current budget, resulting in thousands of highly evaluated projects remaining unfunded each year and considerable research talent migrating elsewhere. Retaining MSCA within Pillar I of FP10, ensuring its openness to all fields, and increasing its budget would enable more researchers to remain and advance their careers in Europe.

Read the full joint statement here.