As you’ve probably already noticed, this year the Individual Doctoral Candidate (DC) research projects heading on Part B1 of the template proposal has moved from Section 3 to Section 1 and the format has changed from table to text, including increasing the font size from 9 to 11.
We’ve received several enquiries about this, including how evaluators will see proposals that circumvent the rules and use a table instead of text in Section 1.
Just to confirm that we contacted the REA seeking guidance on this, and they confirmed that they expect the individual projects to be presented as a narrative description, and not as a table: “This change was clear in the proposal template, in the Q&A session this issue was clarified again, and the answer was posted in the Q&A on the information session webpage. The template is adapted every year, and applicants must adapt their proposal accordingly. Therefore, it is not acceptable to have proposals with the individual project descriptions in a table in font size 9 instead of a text with font size 11.”
This was also covered in the Q&A that were raised during the MSCA DN Information session held on 24 June: Horizon Europe – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks 2025 – Call info day