UKRO would like to provide subscribers with an overview of novelties in the call documents for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks (DN) 2023 call.
MSCA DN 2023 Guide for Applicants
- Associated partners are no longer required to provide a letter of commitment.
- All associated partners must be added in part A of the proposal, and their role should also be clear from parts B1 and B2.
- Applicants having received a score below 80% in the DN 2022 call are not eligible to resubmit a similar proposal in the DN 2023 call. A ‘similar’ proposal is one that differs from the current one in minor ways, and in which some of the present consortium members are involved.
- The Research Executive Agency (REA) has a new system in place to flag any similarities with previous proposals. If the system flags the project, but the applicants did not disclose that it was a resubmission and they did not reach the resubmission threshold, REA may contact the applicants to ask them to explain how different their proposal(s) are, compared to the previous submission(s). This may require that external experts double-check critical cases. The final eligibility decision will then be taken by the REA Admissibility and Eligibility Committee appointed for the call.
- The full list of changes is available in the ‘History of Changes’ section of the guide.
Part B of the 2023 MSCA DN proposal
- The tags cannot be deleted as they are needed for internal processing of information.
- The boxes at the beginning of each section outlining expectations for that section have been removed.
- Challenges and risks included under section 1.2 will also need to be included in risk-mitigation measures in the ‘Implementation Risk’ table 3.1g
- It has been clarified that a fully detailed data management plan (DMP) is not required at the proposal stage.
- Additional sub criteria have been added under section 1.2 for projects that will use, develop and/or deploy artificial intelligence (AI) based systems and/or techniques.
- Role of the non-academic sector in the training programme has been removed as sub-criteria under section 1.3.
- Additional guidance and clarification have been included under section 2.1 ‘Developing sustainable (= lasting) elements of doctoral programmes after the end of the DN funding.’
- Under section 2.2 applicants will now need to “explain how the project and the training will give technical and transferable skills to the fellows, which will improve their employability in academia and/or the industry.”
- It has been clarified that a detailed Intellectual Property (IP) management plan is not expected at the proposal stage, however applicants do need to provide an outline of the strategy for the management of IP under section 2.3.
- The supervisory board has been removed as a subheading under section 3.1.
- Under section 3.1 applicants will need to refer to the code of conduct for the recruitment of researchers.
- The full list of changes is available in ‘History of Changes’ section of the template.