18 Feb 2025
Croatia and French region of Brittany launch new MSCA Seal of Excellence schemes
Croatia has announced that Croatia's Ministry of Science, Education and Youth has set up a new funding scheme to support projects awarded a Seal of Excellence under the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship calls with a budget of €2.5 million. The Seal of Excellence is awarded to project proposers who applied to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships calls under Horizon Europe with a score of 85% or higher, but failed to receive EU funding due to budget constraints, but received a Seal of Excellence certificate and have a host organisation based in Croatia.
The Seal of Excellence underlines the value of these projects and aims to support applicants in securing alternative funding. It allows other funding bodies such as national, regional, and local authorities, public and private institutions to support MSCA proposals that have been awarded the Seal of Excellence and to take advantage of the Horizon Europe evaluation process.
The Croatian initiative is part of the Digital, Innovation, and Green Technology (DIGIT) project, financed through a World Bank loan. The budget for this call is €2,5 million. The grant will be awarded in the form of a lump sum. The total amount will correspond to the amount sought by applicants from the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call for proposals.
In a similar vein, the French region of Brittany has recently launched the Bienvenüe Seal of Excellence funding scheme to support researchers with projects that have been awarded the MSCA Seal of Excellence under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 2024 Postdoctoral Fellowships call and whose proposals have been evaluated with a score of at least 90% but failed to be funded due to budget constraints. The scheme is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is an example of synergies with cohesion funding. Seal of Excellence support schemes have previously been successfully set up with funding from the ERDF in Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia and in another French region (Hauts de France).
For more infromation:
The Croatian Ministry has published full details and eligibility conditions on its website (in English and Croatian).
The full details and eligibility conditions are available on the Brittany Region website in both English and French.