European Commission awards 9,847 MSCA certificates of excellence to postdoctoral applicants

The European Commission has awarded a certificate of excellence to 9,847 applicants from a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) call.

The European Commission announced on 17/02/2026 that it had awarded 9,847 MSCA Seal of Excellence certificates under the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call. This recognition means that the applicants submitted outstanding proposals but were not funded due to limited budget availability. The certificate will allow them to seek alternative funding for their research projects from national and regional programmes, as well as other funding bodies.

The proposals that received the certificate had host organisations in 38 countries. The United Kingdom is home to the highest number (2,173) of Seal of Excellence projects, followed by Spain (1,128).

The results of the Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call were announced on 09/02/2026. A total of 1,610 postdoctoral researchers, selected from 17,066 international applicants, saw their projects funded by the Commission to the tune of €404.3 million. This initiative enables postdoctoral researchers to develop…