How to Write a Successful Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Proposal
I recently published a short guide about my experience with the MSCA European grant.
I prepared my successful proposal between September 2021 and August 2022, and I submitted it in September 2022. The results came on the 13th of February 2023.
My funded project was about the ethical re-use of health data in the public sector (DataCom), SOC panel, but I initially wrote a completely different project, focused on Trustworthy AI. In fact, with the help of my supervisor and colleagues, we decided to focus on another topic, and the decision was the right one. It took a lot of time to select the right project, I first had to write eight potential topics.
The writing process was long, stressful and time-consuming, especially because during the first five months of writing I was employed full-time by a different university and I had to write during my spare time and on weekends. In addition, I had a toddler and a kid that required a lot of attention, so I really had to find a balance.
Writing a good proposal takes a lot of time and you will need a lot of revisions and rewriting, especially if you hire an external company specialized in EU projects, that will surely spot errors, inconsistencies, and points that need to be clarified. You will need to work closely with your Research Support officer, who will help you with the writing project.
The peculiar feature of EU projects is that you need to learn the “projectese” language and understand the small details that will make a difference for reviewers.
I decided to write this guide to help other people like me.
You can find the guide on SSRN here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4440025
