MSCA Doctoral Networks 2026: Consortium Rules, Thresholds and the 24 November Deadline

A Doctoral Network is the consortium side of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. A group of universities, research organisations and companies designs a joint doctoral training programme, recruits doctoral candidates across the network and moves them between sectors through secondments. The Commission pays for it with fixed unit contributions per person-month rather than reimbursing costs. If you are a single researcher looking for your own fellowship, the action you want is the Postdoctoral Fellowship, covered in the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship strategy guide. This page is for coordinators, supervisors asked to join a network, and the research offices that support them before the 24 November 2026 deadline.

The competition in numbers

Demand keeps rising faster than the budget. The 2025 call drew 1,616 proposals, 14 percent more than the 1,417 of 2024, and funded 141, down from 149. The 2026 call has a slightly smaller indicative budget than the EUR 617 million awarded in 2025 and expects to fund more than 130 networks.

Dividing the 2025 award by the number of networks gives an average of about EUR 4.4 million per network, which is what a near-maximum 540 person-month consortium costs once country coefficients and family allowances are applied. The worked budget below lands in the same place.

The 2026 call at a glance

DN, Industrial Doctorate or Joint Doctorate

All three implementation modes share the same eligibility floor, the 540 person-month cap and the 40 percent country rule, and all are ranked in the same eight scientific panels. They differ in how much time candidates spend outside academia, how supervision and degrees work, and how long fellowships can last.

Consortium rules that make a proposal ineligible

Three countries and at least one Member State

The floor is three independent legal entities in three different EU Member States or Horizon Europe associated countries, at least one of them in a Member State. Beyond that there is no restriction on the mix of academic and non-academic beneficiaries, and associated partners can host secondments and training without recruiting. Chinese universities linked to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are not eligible as beneficiaries or associated partners.

The 40 percent rule is about money, not person-months

No more than 40 percent of the total EU contribution may go to beneficiaries in the same country, or to any one international organisation. The guide stresses that this is measured on the budget, not the person-month count, and that the country correction coefficient on the living allowance matters: a consortium can be under 40 percent of person-months in the Netherlands or Denmark and still over 40 percent of the money. The check is made at submission on the maximum grant amount, and a proposal that fails it is ineligible.

Every candidate is a doctoral candidate, enrolled, and mobile

Each candidate must not already hold a doctorate on the recruitment date, and must be enrolled in a doctoral programme in at least one Member State or associated country. New in 2026, candidates recruited by a beneficiary in a non-associated third country may be enrolled solely in that country’s programme, except in Joint Doctorates. The mobility rule applies to the recruiting beneficiary: the candidate must not have lived or had their main activity in that country for more than 12 of the 36 months before recruitment.

Resubmissions below 80 percent are barred

A proposal that scored below 80 percent in the 2025 call cannot resubmit a similar proposal in 2026. Any proposal that shares 70 percent or more of its recruiting organisations with such a proposal is checked for similarity by external experts, whatever the applicants declare in Part A.

The budget: 540 person-months and what one costs

Doctoral Networks are funded with unit contributions fixed in the Work Programme. Two are paid for the candidate, two for the institution, and three only when they apply. The living allowance is multiplied by the country correction coefficient of the recruiting beneficiary.

The 540 person-month cap applies to all three modes. The guide gives the typical shapes: 15 candidates for 36 months each in a standard DN or DN-ID, 11 candidates for 48 months (528 person-months) in a DN-JD, or 6 candidates for 48 months plus 7 for 36 months (540). Without the coefficient and family allowances, one person-month of a 36-month candidate costs €7,760, so a full 540 person-month network comes to €4,190,400 before adjustments.

Worked example: a fictional 15-candidate network

The network below has eight beneficiaries in five countries, two of them companies, and recruits 15 candidates for 36 months. Five candidates receive the family allowance. Country coefficients are left at 1.0 so the arithmetic stays visible; in a real proposal the Part A budget table applies them automatically, and you should recheck the 40 percent rule after it does.

Secondments under the new half rule

In standard DNs secondments may now last up to half of the candidate’s actual recruitment period, up to 18 months of a 36-month contract; the earlier ceiling was a third. Industrial and Joint Doctorates have no ceiling, but DN-ID candidates must spend at least half their fellowship in the non-academic sector. Secondments must involve physical mobility with supervision arrangements, virtual mobility does not count, and secondments of six months or less that require moving are financed from the research, training and networking contribution. Changes to the secondment plan during the project need prior approval from REA.

Evaluation: 50/30/20 and a floor on every criterion

Experts score Excellence, Impact and Quality and efficiency of the implementation out of 5, to one decimal place, and the scores are weighted 50, 30 and 20 percent. Proposals at or above 70 percent overall are considered for funding within the budget. New in 2026, each criterion also has a threshold of 3: a proposal scoring below 3 on any one is rejected regardless of its total. In practice the funding line in most panels sits far above 70 percent, so the threshold rules out weak criteria rather than deciding who is funded.

Each proposal goes to one of eight panels: Chemistry, Social Sciences and Humanities, Economic Sciences, Information Science and Engineering, Environment and Geosciences, Life Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics. Each panel produces its own ranked list, and the call budget is split between panels in proportion to the number of eligible proposals they receive. You pick the panel in section 1 of the submission forms, then three to five descriptors; the first descriptor must come from the chosen panel and guides the choice of evaluators. The general mechanics of consensus and the Evaluation Summary Report are explained in how Horizon Europe proposals are scored.

RAISE Doctoral Networks for AI in Science

RAISE is a pilot worth about EUR 30 million, funded from Cluster 4, for networks that put the development of AI at the core of scientific research. It is not a separate call. You opt in by completing section 11 of Part B2, the only place in the proposal that should mention RAISE, with a justification of how the network fits the RAISE scope. The proposal is evaluated in the normal DN panels under the same criteria; fundable RAISE proposals are then placed on a cross-panel list that combines the MSCA score with an assessment of relevance to the RAISE topic. Researchers in funded RAISE networks count as RAISE fellows, not MSCA fellows.

What goes in Part B1 and Part B2

Part B is two separate PDF files. Part B1 is limited to 34 A4 pages: one start page, one table of contents, up to two pages listing the participating organisations, and at most 30 pages for sections 1 to 3, Excellence, Impact and Implementation, with section 1 starting on page 5. Tables, figures and references inside those sections count toward the 30 pages, and excess pages are blanked after the deadline. Part B1 also carries the recruitment table, and its person-months must match the Part A budget table, where each beneficiary enters its total person-months rather than months per candidate. Part B2 has no overall page limit and holds the recruitment strategy, network organisation, supervisory board, environmental aspects under the MSCA Green Charter, one page per beneficiary and half a page per associated partner, the Joint Doctorate pre-agreement letters, and the RAISE opt-in in section 11. The minimum font size is 11 points for text and tables; only footnoted literature references may go down to 8 points.

A coordinator’s plan back from 24 November

1. By early July: lock the beneficiaries, choose the mode, and run the 40 percent check on money with country coefficients applied, not on candidate counts.
2. By end of August: design the joint training programme and supervision model, since together they carry much of the 50 percent Excellence weight.
3. By end of September: fix the recruitment table and secondment plan, checking the half rule per candidate and that every beneficiary recruits at least one candidate.
4. By end of October: complete a full Part B1 draft and have it read by someone outside the consortium against the criteria table above.
5. Early November: reconcile Part A and Part B1 person-months, check page limits and fonts, and collect Joint Doctorate pre-agreement letters.
6. By 22 November: submit, then reopen and resubmit if needed; only the last version before the deadline is evaluated.

Merging sections written by eight partners into one coherent Part B1 is where most coordinators lose the last two weeks. Consortium Merge is built for that step, and the consortium survival guide covers choosing and managing partners. Candidates’ supervisors who want to understand fit and matching can read the MSCA supervisor match strategy, and the terms used throughout are defined in the EU funding glossary.