This is the edition of 23 October 2026. The announcements below are the ones compiled on that day. Read the current edition.
The following digest brings together a selection of notable announcements from European research bodies, each carrying direct relevance for doctoral candidates and early-career researchers navigating funding, careers, and international collaboration.
These summaries are written by Clau and each links to its original announcement. Clau is independent and not affiliated with the European Union or its research bodies.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 21 October 2026
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions has published an interactive collection featuring more than 100 researcher success stories and testimonials, allowing readers to explore outcomes by country or institution. For doctoral and early-career researchers, the publication offers a concrete sense of the range of careers and projects the programme has supported. It can serve as a practical reference when considering whether and how to apply for MSCA funding.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 20 October 2026
An article in Horizon Magazine marks the 30th anniversary of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, reflecting on three decades during which more than 150,000 researchers participated in the programme, including 25 Nobel laureates. The piece highlights how the programme has grown from supporting roughly 800 researchers per year at its founding to around 8,000 annually, with companies including small and medium-sized enterprises making up close to half of participating organisations. For early-career researchers, this context underscores the breadth of sectors and career paths that MSCA funding can open.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 6 October 2026
The 2026 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine and in Physics were awarded to researchers with direct connections to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: Georg Nagel was an MSCA fellow in the late 1990s, and Francis Halzen served as a supervisor on an MSCA-funded project in neutrino astronomy. The prize in Medicine recognised discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, while the Physics prize honoured contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the detection of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. For doctoral and early-career researchers, these cases illustrate how early-career fellowship funding can contribute to research trajectories that achieve significant long-term recognition.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 30 September 2026
An additional allocation of more than 210 million euros has been announced for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, responding to record application volumes: the 2026 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call attracted 21,627 applications, the highest figure ever recorded across more than 40 years of EU research framework programmes. The extra funding will increase budgets for both Postdoctoral Fellowships and Doctoral Networks under the amended Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026 to 2027, which covers the final MSCA calls under the current framework. With more than 1.3 billion euros projected for MSCA in 2027, early-career researchers can expect continued and expanded opportunities as the programme moves toward the next framework period.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 25 September 2026
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions has published a document outlining the programme's engagement with cancer research, set within its overall 6.6 billion euro budget for the 2021 to 2027 period. The programme funds researcher-led, bottom-up projects across all disciplines on the basis of scientific excellence, meaning cancer-focused proposals compete on equal terms with work in other fields. Doctoral and early-career researchers working in oncology or related biomedical areas may find this document a useful starting point for understanding how MSCA funding applies to their field.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Each item summarises an announcement published by the named European research body and links to the original source; the summaries are written by Clau and the announcements belong to their respective sources. Clau is a free companion for doctoral candidates and early-career researchers.