Even higher cut-offs and lower success rates in the 2024 MSCA Doctoral Networks call
4th April 2025 at 2:29 pm
The European Commission completed the evaluation of the 2024 MSCA Doctoral Networks (DNs) call, and applicants received the evaluation results on 2 April 2025.
On 27 November 2024, the European Research Executive Agency received 1,417 proposals. Out of this pool of proposals, the European Commission invited 149 proposals for grant preparation, resulting in an overall success rate of 10.5%. This success rate is 1.5 and 5.3 percentage points lower than in 2023 (12%) and 2022 (15.8%), respectively. In an earlier blog post, we anticipated this important drop in the success rate as the number of applications significantly increased compared to previous years, most likely because of the many resubmissions of previously unsuccessful proposals.
The European Commission will award a foreseen total of 608 million euros for 133 standard DNs (536.9 million euros), eight Industrial Doctorates (IDs; 26 million euros), and eight Joint Doctorates (JDs; 33 million euros). The success rates across DN types follow the same trend as last year, with the DNs and IDs having higher success rates (10.7% and 10.0%) than the JDs (9.1%), though the gap has narrowed.
The distribution along the scientific panels remains largely the same. Engineering and ICT (37%), Life Sciences (23.4%) and Chemistry (11.8%) are still the most popular panels. Interestingly, some panels were even more competitive than last year, with an increase of the cut-off score of 0.8 in Chemistry (CHEM, 97), 0.6 in Engineering (ENG, 96.6), and 1.2 in Mathematics (MAT, 98.8), while in the other panels, the cut-off score decreased 0.8 points in Economics (ECO, 94.2), 0.4 in the Life Sciences (LIF, 95.6), a significant 1.6 in Physics (PHY, 95.6) and 0.8 in Social Sciences (SOC, 95.4). However, all panels remain highly competitive. The average funding threshold remains high, if slightly lower than last year, at 96.3. Consequently, many proposals scoring over 95 did not even make it to the reserve list.
On the reserve list?
The data presented does not incorporate proposals placed on the reserve list. Every year, we observe the top-ranked proposals from this reserve list advancing to the primary list for funding. Those fortunate enough should receive the notification during the summer following the conclusion of EU Grant Agreements with initially selected proposals. For more information about your ranking position, you can contact your local MSCA National Contact Point who should have access to the ranking list.
Next deadline
Has your proposal been rejected? Or did you miss the last deadline? The 2025 MSCA Work Programme is expected to be published soon. The next call will open on 28 May 2025, with a deadline of 25 November 2025. If you intend to resubmit your proposal, please note that if the rules remain unchanged, applications that received a score below 80 the previous year are not eligible for resubmission. This may only be clarified upon the publication of the final Work Programme and the Guide for Applicants.
How can accelopment support your DN project?
Building on our success from Horizon 2020, we are pleased to be involved in three newly funded and seven ongoing Horizon Europe DNs: MobiliTraIN, DarChemDN, CONcISE, BREAKthrough, MIRELAI, MITGEST, and SYNSENSO. Part of this achievement results from our long-standing experience of over 15 years in supporting and partnering with many more ITNs since FP7. In DNs, we provide professional assistance with Project Management, communication activities and dissemination measures. Additionally, we contribute to their training programmes with our transferable skills courses on research project management, science communication, data management, gender equality, funding opportunities and grant writing.
If you are interested in our support for your newly funded DN project, contact our DN experts, Jacqueline Strehler and Jeanette Müller.
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