This is the edition of 28 October 2026. The announcements below are the ones compiled on that day. Read the current edition.
This digest gathers a selection of notable announcements from European research bodies, each carrying direct relevance for doctoral candidates and early-career researchers navigating funding, career development, and the broader research landscape.
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 accounts from researchers who have benefited from the programme. The publication allows readers to explore stories filtered by country or institution, offering a concrete sense of the range of careers and projects the programme has supported. For doctoral and early-career researchers considering an application, the collection provides a practical window into what participation can look like across disciplines and career stages.
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 in 2026, reflecting on how the programme has grown from supporting around 800 researchers per year at its founding in 1996 to approximately 8,000 annually, with more than 150,000 researchers having participated in total, including 25 Nobel laureates. The piece highlights the programme's role in connecting researchers with industry, noting that companies, including a growing number of small and medium-sized enterprises, account for nearly half of participating organisations. For early-career researchers, this context underlines the breadth of sectors and career paths that engagement with the programme 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, recognised for discoveries related to optogenetics, was an MSCA fellow in the late 1990s, and Francis Halzen, honoured for contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, supervised an MSCA-funded project in neutrino astronomy. The announcement illustrates how early-career funding and training through the programme can form part of a long research trajectory leading to significant scientific contributions. For doctoral and early-career researchers, the cases offer a concrete illustration of the potential long-term value of MSCA participation.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 30 September 2026
The European Commission announced additional funding of more than 210 million euros for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, responding to record application numbers: the 2026 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call attracted 21,627 submissions, the highest figure ever recorded for the programme and for any funding action across more than 40 years of EU research and innovation framework programmes. The top-up 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 foreseen for the programme in 2027, early-career researchers can expect continued and expanded opportunities to pursue internationally mobile research careers in Europe.
Read the full announcement at Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions · 25 September 2026
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions has released a document outlining the programme's engagement with cancer research within its 2021 to 2027 budget of 6.6 billion euros. The programme funds bottom-up research across all fields on the basis of scientific excellence, meaning cancer-related projects compete on equal terms with other disciplines rather than through a dedicated thematic strand. Researchers working in oncology or related biomedical fields can use this resource to understand how their work might fit within the programme's funding logic and eligibility criteria.
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.