In the past, the Marie Curie Actions programme was one of the big success stories of Irish participation in FP7 funding programme, representing almost €100 million of the €600 million drawn-down by Ireland from FP7. The Actions have funded researchers from industry, community and academia to build their research capacity, with a strong focus on international mobility and strengthening careers for researchers.
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| Figure 1 Guest Speaker: Alessandra Luchetti, Head of Unit, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, European Commission: – you are lucky that I do not have to talk in Italian, I’m talkative, so I am genetically modified |
More than 25 years ago, it was only the EU mobility scheme; it is the oldest and the most famous. Today, the cutoff for a successful application is 92%. The focus of the fellowship is on career development. UK and USA are the most preferred countries for the European and for the Global schemes, respectively. Ireland has funded identical twins in the FP7 programme (one of them through reserved list).
The fellowship has many benefits. Researchers have the opportunity to go to a centre that is top of their field. The social capital increases, you meet politicians, high-level academics. The fellowship gives leverage to link in with community. The label of MC fellow at the end of the email opens many doors. The postdoctoral researchers, who are normally stuck in Limbo – because they can’t apply for solo-funding – can use this first individual fellowship grant to demonstrate capability of attaining further funding. For the principal investigators, the fellowship offers to do more research with bigger teams. For example, an Irish-EU funding stream – Inspire – funded 21 experienced researchers in 2 calls at the UCD Energy Institute.