Our question today comes from Timo in Helsinki:
“I am a young researcher in Gender Studies from the University of Helsinki and am looking for funding for my new project. Does the EU support individual research projects?”
The answer is brought to us by Vessela Stoyanova, Europe Direct Communications Officer:
The EU’s Seventh Framework Programme, FP7, provides support for individual researcher mobility and career development, both for researchers inside the European Union and internationally.
It is implemented via a set of ‘Marie Curie’ actions, providing fellowships and other measures to help researchers build their skills and competences throughout their careers.
The ‘Marie Curie’ actions set no priorities, so all areas of research are eligible, including the humanities.
Funding schemes for young or early stage researchers – i.e. with less than four years of full-time research experience – are available only through research organisations, such as research groups in universities, industry or any organisation involved in research.
These organisations apply for funding under the FP7 programme, and then propose to host a number of young researchers within a research area.
Researchers apply directly to the selected host organisations.
Therefore, it is possible to get funding for a young researcher preparing a PhD, but the duration of the appointment at the host institution is limited to three years.
At any one time, the vacancies arising out of these networked actions are visible under the Euraxess Jobs web site.
If you are a researcher with a PhD and more than four years of full-time research experience, you may participate in calls together with a potential host organisation, published by the European Commission or its agencies which solicit proposals.
The Research Executive Agency (REA) will evaluate the eligibility of your proposal in order to identify whether it qualifies for possible funding.
For further information on application details you may contact the Network of National Contact Points which provides help on all aspects of FP7 in each national language.
For more information about the EU, call 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 or check out the website:
ec.europa.eu/research/enquiries
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