Research & Innovation Services

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA Fellowships) foster excellence in research by supporting researchers to carry out innovative research activities abroad.

Any applications that wish to include the University of Glasgow as the host organisation are subject to a quality management process, which is jointly overseen by the Strategic Research Initiatives team and the Overseas Team. This scheme is incredibly competitive and this process is designed to provide useful feedback for all interested applicants and ensure that only those applications assessed as competitive are submitted to the funder.

Please note: This information provides an overview based on how we approached the 2026 call. We are currently undergoing a lessons learned exercise and will update this page for the 2027 call when the approach for 2027 is agreed.

Our selection process is based on a distributed review model. Each UofG sponsor for an applicant must participate in this review process in order for their sponsored candidate to be eligible for submission to the call.

Interested applicants must complete an application that is designed to align with the MSCA Fellowship application. Sponsors will be provided with review guidance materials and will be required to provide scores and feedback on applications based on the three core MSCA Fellowship criteria of Excellence, Impact and Implementation.

All scores and reviews are collated by the Overseas Team and Strategic Research Initiatives with two independent checks conducted for outlier scores (based on standard deviations) or unjustified scores (based on comparison between reviewer scores and comments).

Decisions on progression are collectively taken by a panel comprised of the Deans of Research and the VP for Research and Knowledge Exchange who take into consideration outlier scores, scores that do not align with reviewer comments, and whether the application was previously submitted and awarded a Seal of Excellence.

Applications will receive notification of one of the follow three outcomes:

1. The application is assessed as competitive and will be permitted to progress. Reviewer feedback will be provided to support strengthening the proposal prior to submission.
2. The application is assessed as potentially competitive subject to significant revision and will be required to address reviewer feedback followed by a second assessment check before a final decision on progression is made.
3. The application is assessed as unlikely to be competitive for the current funding round and will not be permitted to progress at this time. The reviewer feedback will be provided and the applicant encouraged to consider re-applying in a subsequent round.

All outcome decisions are final and are not subject to appeal.

Indicative Timelines

We aim for an internal application deadline approximately 4 months before the call deadline and completion of quality management decisions by 3 months before the call deadline.

These are indicative timelines only and interested candidates should check back to this page for definitive timelines for future rounds. Late applications will not be permitted.

Applications submitted to internal demand management and quality management processes at the University of Glasgow are expected to comply with the University of Glasgow's Generative AI Guidance for Researchers and the Funders joint statement: use of generative AI tools in funding applications and assessment. 

All applicants should review these documents and are responsible for ensuring any application they submit complies with the guidance and parameters provided. Key points we would like to highlight from these resources include:

• Any use of generative AI tools must be accompanied by critical analysis and oversight on the part of the user
• Work that is not your own effort or is without appropriately transparent acknowledgement of sources or tools used (e.g. work submitted that is the product of Generative AI) does not meet crucial requirements for assessment or academic/research integrity
• Applicants must not use generative AI tools to generate an entire application, or sections of an application, without human involvement
• Reviewers must not input our confidential funding applications into generative AI tools to develop their reviews