The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship is the EU's flagship grant for early-career researchers, and it funds AI and machine learning work like any other field. It pays you to do research at a host institution for roughly one to two years (the European stream) or two to three years including a return phase (the Global stream), through a competitive living allowance plus mobility and family top-ups routed via the host that employs you. You do not apply alone: you apply together with a host supervisor and institution. And you should know going in that it is very competitive, with a recent success rate of roughly 10 to 17 percent.
What the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship actually funds
The fellowship is a salary package, not a lump sum handed to you. The money goes to your host organization, which employs you and pays you through its payroll, and it has three parts a fellow sees directly:
- Living allowance: a monthly gross figure set by the Work Programme, roughly 6,000 euro a month before adjustments as of the 2026 to 2027 programme, then multiplied by a country correction coefficient so it buys a similar life everywhere.
- Mobility allowance: a flat monthly top-up (recently around 700 euro) toward the costs of relocating.
- Family allowance: an extra monthly amount (recently around 660 euro) if you have a spouse or dependents when the fellowship starts.
The country correction coefficient matters a lot. A host in Switzerland is adjusted well above the base while a host in southern or eastern Europe is adjusted below it, so the same grant funds very different lifestyles. Your actual take-home also depends on the host country's tax and social contributions. The official Postdoctoral Fellowships page is where the current Work Programme figures live, and they change between calls, so treat any number here as illustrative.
European vs Global: which stream fits you
There are two streams, and which one you can use depends on your nationality and where you want to be based.
- European Postdoctoral Fellowships: 12 to 24 months at a host in an EU member state or a Horizon Europe associated country, open to researchers of any nationality. This is the stream most people picture, and the one a non-European AI researcher uses to move into a European lab.
- Global Postdoctoral Fellowships: two to three years in total, but only for nationals or long-term residents of the EU or associated countries. You spend one to two years at a host in a non-associated country (say the US or Canada) and then a mandatory one-year return phase back at a European host.
So the rule is simple: coming into Europe from outside, use the European stream; already European and wanting a stint abroad before returning, use the Global stream. The official Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions site spells out the eligibility for each.
How you actually apply, with a host
The most important thing to understand is that the researcher does not submit the application. The host organization does, on your behalf. So the real first step is finding a lab. The rough sequence:
- Find a host and supervisor whose AI research matches yours, and confirm they will host you. Portals like EURAXESS list positions and hosts across Europe.
- Co-write the proposal with your supervisor. The science matters, but so do the sections on training, career development, and impact, which many strong researchers under-prepare.
- The host submits the proposal before the annual deadline, which typically falls in autumn.
- Wait for evaluation, then results several months later, usually the following winter.
- Start the fellowship on the agreed date if it is funded.
The odds, and how to improve them
Be realistic about the competition. The 2024 call funded about 17 percent of applications, while the 2025 call drew a record of more than 17,000 applications and funded under 10 percent. In other words the success rate roughly halved in a year as more researchers applied. You improve your odds by choosing a host whose group has won MSCA grants before, by pairing with a supervisor who has mentored fellows through the process, and by treating the non-science sections of the proposal as seriously as the research plan. If you narrowly miss, you can usually refine and resubmit with the reviewers' feedback. The European Commission publishes the call results on the official MSCA site. Because the odds are long, do not make the MSCA your only plan: line up a national fellowship, a host-funded postdoc, or another EU scheme in parallel.
The honest takeaway
Apply for the MSCA if you want a portable, well-paid, and genuinely prestigious postdoc in Europe and you can line up a strong host early, but never let it be your single plan given the success rate. Coming into Europe from abroad, the European stream is your route; already European and wanting time overseas before returning, the Global stream fits. And remember that the headline living allowance is adjusted by country, so a fellowship in Zurich and one in Lisbon are worth very different amounts in practice even though the grant looks the same on paper.
MSCA figures, allowances, and deadlines are set per call and change between years, so confirm the current Work Programme numbers on the official site before you plan around them. This is informational, not legal, tax, or immigration advice.
Treat the MSCA as the best-case outcome of a wider postdoc search, not the search itself: strong host, strong proposal, and always a plan B.
The MSCA family allowance is only one piece of the dual-career puzzle. Whether your spouse can work during a postdoc in Europe covers the rest, and an AI PhD stipend by country comparison shows how funded research pay stacks up more broadly. For the bigger decision of where to base your research career, the AI Relocation Guide compares labs, visas, and funding so you can compare all 21 countries side by side.
