A jolly good call for Marie Curie Fellows

A new funding opportunity to train young researchers has just been announced by the European Commission. One of the calls within FP7 Marie Curie Actions requests proposals for Initial Training Network (ITN) projects, with a deadline of 22 December 2009. Project proposals are strongly encouraged at CERN and authors can receive support and guidance from the Marie Curie Steering Group.




Winnie Wong: "I wouldn’t have considered a PhD if I hadn’t been a Marie Curie fellow"


Dan Savu: "It’s the best of both worlds: training plus working in an international organisation"

ITN projects have one key aim: training. Academic and industrial partners work together to form a network to recruit and train Marie Curie Fellows. Fellows are young researchers (typically PhD-level) from any country who combine project-based research with tailor-made training programmes, gaining an unprecedented boost to their careers.

Winnie Wong, a Canadian doctoral student of microelectronics, arrived at CERN in 2006 as a Marie Curie Fellow on the ELACCO project. "The fellowship funding gave me training opportunities and access to resources that researchers don’t normally have" says Wong. "I wouldn’t have considered a PhD if I hadn’t been a Marie Curie Fellow."

"It’s the best of both worlds: training plus working in an international organisation", enthuses Dan Savu, a Romanian Marie Curie Fellow in the ATLAS data acquisition team. "I’ll shortly be going on secondment to an American industrial partner of the AC E project, as part of my training programme."

CERN has had great success with Marie Curie Actions (see box).

In addition to ITNs, there are individual Marie Curie Fellowships, and through the COFUND-CERN project CERN’s fellowship programme receives EU funding for 40 CERN fellows. A recent proposal looks set to get the go-ahead for funding within the International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) and decisions are expected soon for proposals within Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP).

Project proposals are overseen by the Marie Curie Steering Group, comprising representatives from HR, the CERN-EU Office and the CERN Departments, and chaired by David Plane. "Participation in Marie Curie Actions is really win-win" says Plane. "A tremendous opportunity for young researchers and for CERN itself".

More details of CERN Marie Curie projects and the current ITN call, or contact mailto:eu.projects@cern.ch.

Did you know?

Within EU Framework Programme 6 (2002 to 2006), CERN secured funding for 99 Marie Curie Fellowship contracts ranging from 3 months to 3 years – a total of 166 Fellow-years of additional resources. Since Framework Programme 7 began (2007), 74 Marie Curie Fellows have benefitted from partial or full EU funding, representing 133 Fellow-years.