Programme: Horizon Europe
Priority: Excellent Science
Objective: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Budget: 593,03 M€
Opening Date: 28/05/2026
Deadline: 24/11/2026
Call documents: Work Programmes, Forms
Link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/HORIZON-MSCA-2026-DN-01-01
The objective of the MSCA actions is to support excellence and innovative scientific training and research, as an opportunity for researchers to acquire new skills and expertise, improving talent and knowledge circulation through international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary mobility, within doctoral programmes, post-doctoral training and collaborative research projects, thus enhancing the quality of R&I and contributing to Europe’s sustainable competitiveness.
The actions MSCA Doctoral Networks 2026, in particular, aim to increase the attractiveness and excellence of doctoral training in Europe; to train highly-skilled, creative, entrepreneurial, innovative and resilient doctoral candidates, able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit; to equip them with the right combination of research-related and transferable competences; to increase their employability and career perspectives in the academic and non-academic sectors.
The Doctoral Networks are addressed to doctoral candidates, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of the recruitment, who are involved in research projects realized by international partnerships composed of at least three independent legal entities (universities, research institutions and infrastructures, SMEs), each one established in a different Member State or Associated Country, with at least one of them established in a Member State.
In identifying candidates to be recruited, the mobility rule must also be respected, i.e. the researchers, of any nationality, must not have resided or carried out their main work and training activities in the country of the host organization, for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date.
The duration of the employment contractcan vary from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 36 months.
Proposals will be evaluated by international experts according to the following criteria:
– excellence (50%): quality and pertinence of the objectives and research methodology proposed; quality of the planned training and supervision programme;
– impact (30%): credibility of the measures provided to improve the career perspectives and employability of the researcher and to maximise the expected scientific, societal and economic impacts;
– quality and efficiency of the implementation (20%): quality and effectiveness of the work plan; quality and capacity of the institutions participating in the project.
The EU contribution for MSCA actions is based on unit costs expressed in person-months.
It covers the cost of the employment contract for the researcher, the research, training and networking activities and an allowance for the management and the indirect costs declared by the host institution.
A country correction coefficient will be applied to the Living allowance, based on the cost of life in the country of the host institution. For Italy the coefficient to apply is of 93,8%.
The maximum duration of the action is expected to be 48 months, including the recruitment phase.
The budget made available by the European Commission for this call amounts to 593,03 M€.
Besides standard Doctoral Networks, two specific types of doctorates, to which particular conditions apply, are encouraged:
– Industrial Doctorates: training of PhD candidates who wish to develop their skills and step outside academia, in particular in industry and business.
– Joint Doctorates: providing a highly integrated type of international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration in doctoral training, leading to joint, double or multiple, doctoral degrees, awarded by the participating institutions.
As a novelty in 2026 WP, the pilot RAISE Doctoral Networks for AI in Science provides specific and additional (30 M€) support to networks with primary focus on the use of AI in science.
Doctoral candidates are required to develop innovative AI systems, models, tools or methodologies for their scientific domain and these new techniques must be an integral and indispensable part of the research work and clearly delineated in the research work package.