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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCAs) represent one of the main tools used under the Horizon 2020 programme - “Excellent Science” pillar to promote career and training opportunities for researchers. These actions provide funding for researchers at all career levels - whether they are PhD students or already experienced researchers - by encouraging transnational, cross-sector and interdisciplinary mobility and by encouraging organizations that carry out research activities (universities, research centers and enterprises) to host researchers of excellence. The programme therefore responds to the need to provide researchers with the opportunity to increase their skills and to access satisfactory conditions of employment in both the academic and non-academic sectors.

The MSCAs are open to proposals in all scientific sectors and include four financing schemes:

It is a network of European bodies (universities, research centers, enterprises, etc.) that offer a shared initial training path for early stage researchers (i.e. researchers in the first four years after graduation and not yet in possession of a doctoral qualification). Such projects usually translate into doctoral networks. These networks can take the form of:

  • European Training Networks
  • European Industrial Doctorates
  • European Joint Doctorates

These are individual scholarships aimed at experienced researchers (i.e. researchers in possession of a PhD or able to demonstrate four years of full-time experience in postgraduate research).This action aims to support researchers of any nationality to carry out research activities through intra-European (European Fellowship) or international (Global Fellowship) mobility paths.
Researchers submit their application in collaboration with a European host institution (and a non-European partner organization in the case of global fellowships).

It is a partnership of entities that propose to carry out of a common research project through international and / or cross-sector mobility. The proposed activities will be carried out through periods of staff exchange (early stage or experienced researchers) within the entities of the network with mobility periods that can vary between 1 and 12 months.

This action is intended for organizations that fund doctoral programmes or scholarship programmes for researchers. Each Co-Fund proposal includes a single participant, for example a ministry, a regional body, a funding agency, a university, a scientific organization, a research institute or an enterprise. The selected programmes obtain co-financing to support the training and professional development of both PhD students and expert researchers.

Projects

The University of Florence, with 21 Marie Skłodowska winning projects, ranks among the best performing Italian institutions participating in the Horizon 2020 programme. These include:

  • Cyano4REST - Cyanobacteria for restoration of degraded soils
  • ENDOCAM – Targeting Endothelial cell and cancer Amoeboid movement to overcome resistance to anti-VEGF and anti-protease therapies
  • HALO - Understanding Halophytes for an Agriculture Worth its Salt
  • MesoBrainMicr - Novel high speed and high resolution microscopy setup for cytoarchitectonic studies of mesoscale sized human brain tissues, healthy and affected by Focal Cortical Dysplasia
  • REGINTRAN - Regions in transition: institutions and mechanisms inducing the breaking out of economic backwardness through advanced manufacturing. The case of Apulia and Lower Silesia.
    ROAR - Role of endocycle in Acute Kidney Injury Response and Chronic Kidney Disease development
    SUNDROPS - Self-DRiving hydrOPonic System - Develop automated hydroponic systems that use high frequency pulsing-light and intermittent/alternate nutrient supply to optimize resources and plant adaptation
  • US-ANTIRACISM - Catholicism and the “Negro Question”: Religion, Racism, and Antiracism in a Transnational Perspective (United States and Europe, 1934-1968)
  • ETHNOHERBS - Conservation of European Biodiversity through Exploitation of Traditional Herbal Knowledge for the Development of Innovative Products
  • GLOBAL ANSWER - Global social work and humAN mobility: comparative studies on local government and good Social Work practices in the EuRo-mediterranean region
  • RECYCLES - Recovering carbon from contaminated matrices by exploiting the nitrogen and sulphur cycles
  • REMIND - The use of computational techniques to Improve compliance to reminders within smart environments
  • ROVER - Reliable Technologies and models for verified wireless body centric transmission and localization