The European Commission has opened the 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships call, making just over €399 million available for researchers holding a PhD and signalling a continued push to retain and attract research talent through international mobility.
The European Commission has opened the 2026 call for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships, with a budget of €399.05 million for researchers holding a PhD. In its 9 April announcement, the Commission said the programme is intended to help researchers acquire new skills, develop their careers and gain international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral experience by working in another country. The same-day MSCA programme updateconfirmed that the call opened on 9 April 2026.
The scheme is one of the EU’s flagship research mobility instruments under Horizon Europe. According to the official Postdoctoral Fellowships page, the 2026 call covers two main tracks: European Postdoctoral Fellowships, which are open to researchers of any nationality carrying out projects in the EU or countries associated with Horizon Europe for up to 24 months, and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships, which are open to nationals or long-term residents of the EU or associated countries who want to work in a third country before returning to Europe for 12 months. The programme page also states that the deadline for submitting proposals is 9 September 2026 at 17:00 CEST.
The Commission’s framing of the call is straightforward. It presents the fellowships as a tool to strengthen research careers and deepen international cooperation by enabling postdoctoral researchers to join leading scientific teams and develop new expertise. The Commission press release and the MSCA call page both describe the grants as open across scientific fields, including Euratom research, and as part of the wider Horizon Europe effort to support excellence, mobility and skills development in European research.
The eligibility conditions are also defined with some precision. The official MSCA programme material states that the fellowships are open to postdoctoral researchers from anywhere in the world, of any nationality, with a maximum of eight years of research experience after the PhD, subject to specific exceptions and additional conditions in some cases, including Global Fellowships and Euratom-related work. That means the call is aimed at researchers who are already beyond doctoral training but still at a stage where international mobility can materially shape long-term career direction.
The Commission has also indicated the likely scale of the programme. The Commission release says the call is expected to fund around 1,600 projects. That figure matters because it gives a sense of the programme’s practical reach: while the budget is substantial, the fellowships remain competitive and targeted rather than universal. For Brussels, the political value of the scheme lies not only in the number of awards but in the signal it sends about Europe’s willingness to compete for research talent through structured mobility, career development and international collaboration.
There is also a broader policy context behind the call. The Research Executive Agency’s Horizon Europe MSCA pagelists the fellowship call among the current 9 April research news items, underlining that the opening of the scheme is part of the EU’s continuing use of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions as a central pillar of research training and mobility. In practical terms, the fellowships combine research funding with a labour-market and competitiveness objective: they are designed to help researchers move between countries and sectors while strengthening the institutions that host them.
The 9 April opening does not in itself announce a policy change in the structure of the scheme. What it does provide is a current and publishable Brussels funding line: a major annual call has gone live, the budget has been set, the categories are defined, and the application window is open until September. That makes it a useful same-day research and innovation story for an EU policy audience, especially because the details are clear, official and immediately relevant to universities, research institutes and eligible postdoctoral applicants across Europe and beyond.
In that sense, the significance of the announcement is less about a single headline figure than about continuity in EU research policy. Brussels is again using one of its best-known research instruments to back mobility, attract talent and support career progression for early-stage postdoctoral researchers. The Commission announcement and the MSCA programme pages show that the 2026 cycle is now under way, with the next key milestone set for 9 September, when applications close.
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