Marie Curie fellowship: PhD and postdoc pay and how to apply

A Marie Curie fellowship is EU research funding from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). If you don’t have a PhD yet, you don’t apply for the fellowship itself. Instead, you apply for an advertised PhD post in a network or programme the EU has already funded. If you already hold a PhD, you apply for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship yourself, with a host organisation.

Both routes normally give you a salaried research job with an employment contract. Both also come with a mobility rule that decides which countries you can go to. Which route is yours depends on one thing: whether you hold a doctorate. This guide sets out the Marie Curie routes, who’s eligible, what each pays by country and how to apply.

Marie Curie fellowship or Marie Curie PhD: which route is yours?

As an individual researcher, you have three main Marie Curie routes: two for PhD candidates and one for postdocs. The PhD routes don’t ask you to write a grant proposal; the postdoc route does.

A ‘Marie Curie PhD scholarship’ or ‘Marie Curie PhD fellowship’ means one of the two PhD routes. It isn’t a scholarship you apply to the EU for. It’s a post that a network or programme has already won funding for, and you’re recruited to it.

	MSCA Doctoral Networks	MSCA COFUND doctoral programmes	MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships
Who it’s for	You don’t have a doctorate yet	You don’t have a doctorate yet	You hold a PhD (or have defended one)
How you apply	To an advertised PhD post in a funded network	To an advertised post in a co-funded doctoral programme	You and a host organisation write a proposal together
Length of your post	3 to 36 months (up to 48 for a Joint Doctorate)	Set by the programme (at least 3 months)	12 to 24 months (European Fellowship); 24 to 36 months (Global Fellowship)
How pay is set	EU monthly rates for the host country	A minimum monthly pay set by the EU	EU monthly rates for the host country
Next deadline	None: each network advertises its own posts	Set by each programme	8 September 2027 (to be confirmed)

Source: European Commission, Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026–2027 (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), the MSCA COFUND page and the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2027 page.

Doctoral Networks are partnerships of universities, research institutes, companies and other organisations. Each network has at least three funded partners in different EU or Horizon Europe associated countries, with at least one in an EU Member State. Every funded partner must recruit at least one doctoral candidate. They come in three kinds:

Standard Doctoral Networks: a shared doctoral training programme across the partners.
Industrial Doctorates: you’re jointly supervised by the academic and non-academic partners, and you spend at least half your fellowship outside academia.
Joint Doctorates: you’re enrolled in a joint programme and jointly supervised, leading to a joint, double or multiple degree.

COFUND works differently. The EU co-funds a doctoral programme run by a single organisation, such as a university or a funding agency. The programme then recruits the candidates, or partners named in it do.

Who is eligible for a Marie Curie PhD or postdoc?

You can be of any nationality for a Doctoral Network post or a European Postdoctoral Fellowship. Whichever Marie Curie route you take, check the mobility rule first: it depends on where you’ve lived, not on your degree or passport.

For a Doctoral Network PhD post, you must:

not hold a doctoral degree on the date you’re recruited (a successfully defended thesis counts as holding one, even before the degree is formally awarded)
enrol in a doctoral programme leading to a doctoral degree
meet the mobility rule below

The network sets its own entry requirements on top, such as the degree subject and grade, and the English test. The vacancy will say what it needs.

For a Postdoctoral Fellowship, you must:

hold a PhD by the call deadline. A successful, unconditional thesis defence before the deadline also counts, even before the degree is formally awarded
have no more than eight years’ full-time equivalent research experience since your PhD was awarded. Time outside research and career breaks don’t count
meet the mobility rule

So your thesis defence is where the two routes divide. Once you’ve successfully defended, you can’t take a Doctoral Network post. An unconditional defence before the call deadline lets you apply for a Postdoctoral Fellowship instead.

For each child born during those eight years, 18 months are taken off your experience for maternity. For paternity, it’s the parental leave you can document.

A Global Postdoctoral Fellowship is spent partly in a country outside the EU and the associated countries. It’s open only to nationals or long-term residents (at least five consecutive years) of an EU Member State or associated country. Refugees and people with EU temporary protection there can also apply.

The mobility rule

You mustn’t have lived in the host country for more than 12 of the 36 months before a set date. The same goes for your main activity there, such as work or study. For a Global Fellowship, the country that counts is your outgoing host’s.

The date depends on the route:

Doctoral Network: your recruitment date
COFUND: the deadline of the programme’s own call
Postdoctoral Fellowship: the call deadline

Compulsory national service and short stays such as holidays don’t count. Nor does time spent obtaining refugee status or EU temporary protection. Refugees and people with EU temporary protection are exempt from the rule altogether.

Say you’ve just finished a two-year Master’s in the Netherlands. You’ve spent more than 12 of the last 36 months there, so a Doctoral Network post at a Dutch university is out. A post in Germany, where you haven’t lived, isn’t. And if you’ve spent the last three years outside the EU and the associated countries, the rule doesn’t rule out any host there.

Common mistake: applying for posts in the country you already live in. Check the rule against your own dates before you spend time on a Marie Curie application.

How much does a Marie Curie fellowship pay?

The EU funds each Doctoral Network and Postdoctoral Fellowship post at fixed monthly rates. These are €4,250 for a PhD candidate or €6,350 for a postdoc, adjusted for the host country. On top come €710 for mobility and €660 for family where it applies. The living allowance is a gross amount, so what reaches your bank account is lower.

Monthly EU rate (per person-month)	Doctoral Networks	Postdoctoral Fellowships
Living allowance (before the country adjustment)	€4,250	€6,350
Mobility allowance	€710	€710
Family allowance (if it applies)	€660	€660

Source: European Commission, Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026–2027 (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), pages 70 and 78. These rates apply to the 2026 and 2027 calls.

Four things decide what you’d actually get:

The country correction coefficient. The living allowance is multiplied by a coefficient for the host country, to keep purchasing power roughly equal. It’s 143.5% for the UK, 100% for Belgium and 77.5% for Poland, for example. The mobility and family allowances aren’t adjusted.
Gross, not take-home. The living allowance includes employer and employee social security contributions and direct taxes. Your host must pay you at least the living allowance minus these compulsory deductions. It may also add a top-up.
Your contract. The host must normally employ you on a contract with full social security cover (sickness, parental, unemployment and invalidity benefits, and a pension). If that isn’t possible, a host can offer a ‘fixed-amount fellowship’ instead, and the living allowance is then halved.
Part-time working. The rates assume full-time work. With your supervisor’s and host’s agreement and the EU’s prior approval, you can work part-time, at no less than 50%. For PhD candidates this is for personal or family reasons; postdocs may also go part-time for professional reasons.

Worked example (a UK Doctoral Network PhD, no family allowance): €4,250 × 143.5% = €6,098.75. Add €710 mobility and you get €6,808.75 a month, before deductions. A vacancy has to state the gross salary, but that figure leaves out the employer’s social security contributions. The living allowance has to cover those too, so don’t expect the advert to match this sum.

Here’s how the Marie Curie living allowance for a Doctoral Network post compares across ten host countries.

MSCA Doctoral Network monthly living allowance by host country: highest in the UK at €6,099, lowest of the ten in Poland at €3,294. — Source: European Commission, MSCA Work Programme 2026–2027 (€4,250 x country correction coefficient, rounded)

You get the family allowance if you have, or gain during the fellowship, one of these:

a spouse
a partner in a relationship with equal status to marriage in the country where it was formalised
dependent children you actually support

The EU also contributes to your host’s costs if you take leave of more than 30 consecutive days, such as parental or sick leave. It also helps with extra costs if you have a disability certified by a national authority.

COFUND doctoral programmes pay differently. Each sets its own salary, but if you’re on an employment contract, your monthly gross pay (including mobility costs) must be at least €3,500.

Adverts show the figures for that particular Marie Curie post. Queen’s University Belfast advertised a post in the DIAMOND Doctoral Network in July 2026. Its advert lists the EU contribution over 36 months:

living allowance: €204,558.12
mobility allowance: €25,560
family allowance, where relevant: €17,820

These come from that network’s own grant. The mobility figure works out at €710 a month, but the living and family allowances don’t match the 2026–2027 rates above. Always go by the figures in the advert you’re applying to.

How to apply for a Marie Curie PhD (Doctoral Networks and COFUND)

You apply to an advertised vacancy at the network partner or programme that’s recruiting, not to the EU. There’s no MSCA grant application for you to write.

Find a vacancy. Funded networks and COFUND programmes advertise their PhD posts internationally. The European Commission points candidates to the EU’s EURAXESS jobs portal, whose list of Doctoral Network vacancies is updated daily. Universities also post them on their own pages, as Queen’s University Belfast did for the example below.
Check the mobility rule and the entry requirements in the advert before anything else.
Apply to the recruiting institution by its deadline, with the documents it asks for. Selection must be open, transparent and merit-based.
Prepare for an interview in case you’re shortlisted.

There’s no single deadline for Marie Curie PhD posts. Each network advertises its own posts, and its funding period includes the time it needs to recruit. Posts can appear before a project has formally started: the Queen’s University Belfast post below was advertised ‘subject to the commencement of the project’. In the 2026 call’s indicative timeline, the networks chosen hear in April 2027 and the first ones start in August 2027.

The Queen’s University Belfast DIAMOND post shows what one application involved. It’s a PhD in civil engineering on fatigue in floating solar farms, supervised in Belfast and co-supervised at University College Dublin. It asked for:

at least a strong 2.1 honours degree in a relevant engineering subject
a CV and a covering letter on your motivation and relevant experience, but no research proposal
transcripts and certificates by the closing date
for international applicants, IELTS Academic 6.5 overall with at least 5.5 in each part (or an accepted alternative)

It’s one example, so treat your own vacancy’s list as the one that counts. Our guide on how to apply for a PhD walks through the whole process. Our guide to writing a CV for a PhD application covers the CV.

For the covering letter, see our PhD cover letter guide. For the interview, it’s worth preparing answers to common PhD interview questions.

For the official rules and the link to current vacancies, see the European Commission’s MSCA Doctoral Networks page.

How to apply for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship

For a postdoc, the Marie Curie fellowship is the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship. You and a host organisation in an EU Member State or associated country write a proposal together. The host submits it to the EU’s Funding and Tenders Portal before the call deadline.

Your proposal then competes against other Marie Curie fellowship proposals in your field. (COFUND also funds some postdoctoral programmes, which advertise their own posts.)

Choose the type:

European Postdoctoral Fellowship: 12 to 24 months at a host in an EU Member State or associated country. Open to any nationality.
Global Postdoctoral Fellowship: 12 to 24 months at an organisation in a country that’s neither in the EU nor associated to Horizon Europe. Then comes a compulsory 12-month return phase at your host in an EU Member State or associated country.

You can ask for up to six extra months at a non-academic organisation in an EU Member State or associated country, at the end of either fellowship.

Find a host and supervisor. Start with your own contacts: the European Commission calls your network ‘an invaluable source’. Some institutions also publish hosting offers (expressions of interest), often in a specific field. In many cases, a supervisor there will help you develop the application.

Write to the scoring. The written part of the proposal is limited to 10 pages, not counting annexes. Experts score it on three criteria, each out of 5:

Criterion	Weighting	What it covers (examples)
Excellence	50%	Your research objectives and methods, the supervision and training, and your own experience
Impact	30%	How the fellowship develops your career and skills, and how results will be shared
Implementation	20%	Your work plan, risks, and the host’s capacity and arrangements

Source: European Commission, Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026–2027, pages 84–85.

Your proposal needs at least 3 on each criterion and 70% overall to be considered for funding. Above that, it depends on the budget.

Proposals are ranked within eight panels: chemistry, social sciences and humanities, economics, information science and engineering, environment and geosciences, life sciences, mathematics and physics. A proposal scoring 85% or more that can’t be funded for lack of budget gets a Seal of Excellence. That’s a certificate meant to link it with other EU funds, such as the cohesion policy funds.

You can submit only one Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal per call. If yours scored below 80%, you can’t resubmit it with the same host the following year.

Dates. The 2026 call closed on 9 September 2026. The 2027 Postdoctoral Fellowships call is due to open on 7 April 2027 and close on 8 September 2027. Results are due in February 2028 (all dates still to be confirmed).

Because the mobility rule counts back from the deadline, check it against 8 September 2027 now.

If you’re still weighing up whether a postdoc is right for you, our guide to postdocs explains the role and where it can lead. The full rules for this route are on the European Commission’s Postdoctoral Fellowships page.

Can you do a Marie Curie fellowship in the UK?

Yes. The UK is associated to Horizon Europe, so UK universities and companies can recruit Doctoral Network candidates and host Postdoctoral Fellowships. The UK and the EU signed the association agreement on 4 December 2023. GOV.UK confirms that all successful UK applicants are covered for the rest of the programme.

That affects you in two ways:

Pay. The UK’s country correction coefficient is 143.5%, the highest of the ten countries in the chart above. A UK-hosted post therefore carries a high living allowance in euros.
The mobility rule still applies. If you’ve lived, worked or studied in the UK for more than 12 of the last 36 months, a UK-hosted post is out. Posts elsewhere in Europe are still open to you.

One exception for postdocs covers nuclear research in the Euratom programme. There, the host must be established in an EU Member State or a Euratom-associated country. You must also be a national or long-term resident of one. The UK chose not to associate to Euratom.

What a Marie Curie fellowship involves

A Marie Curie post is a research job with training built in. You’ll work on your own project inside a structured programme. Because of the mobility rule, you’ll be in a country you haven’t lived in recently.

In a Doctoral Network, you’ll have:

A Career Development Plan, agreed with your supervisor when you start and reviewed within 18 months. It covers your research objectives, training, teaching, publication plans and conferences.
Training beyond your project, including transferable skills such as entrepreneurship, intellectual property and communication.
Secondments (spells working at another organisation) anywhere in the world, for up to half of your fellowship. The limit doesn’t apply to Industrial and Joint Doctorates.
A research and training budget, paid to your host. It covers costs such as conferences, courses, language lessons, visa fees and secondment travel. So you’ll have chances to present your work, and our tips on giving a PhD presentation will help.

The downsides are worth weighing too. A Doctoral Network fellowship lasts at most 36 months (48 for a Joint Doctorate), so ask how your university handles a PhD that runs longer. For postdocs, a proposal needs a score of at least 70% even to be considered for funding.

If that sounds daunting, remember that the PhD route asks for an application, not a grant proposal: the network has already won the funding. Your job is to show you’re the right person for the post.

Next steps

If you don’t have a PhD yet, check the Marie Curie mobility rule against your last three years. Then look for Doctoral Network and COFUND vacancies in countries you’re eligible for. If you have a PhD, start talking to potential hosts now: the 2027 Postdoctoral Fellowships call closes on 8 September 2027.

A Marie Curie fellowship is only one way to fund a doctorate. You can also search PhD opportunities on DiscoverPhDs to compare it with other offers in your field.

Sources