MSCA Success Stories from the Western Balkans: Regional Awareness Raising Event

7 November 2024

Did you know that there have been 150 participations spread over more than 80 organisations from the Western Balkans funded under Horizon 2020 and the participation of Western Balkans organisations has further increased in Horizon Europe? This online event aims to highlight these existing good practices and success stories from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) from the region.

The event is organised by the MSCAdvocacy project (in cooperation with the Western Balkans Info Hub) and takes place on 7 November 2024 14.00-15.30. Register here to participate: https://zsigmbh.my.webex.com/weblink/register/r2889fa7eff8f39009460d6390ce16977

Speakers are successful applicants and participants in MSCA schemes (Postdoctoral Fellowships, Doctoral Networks, Staff Exchanges, COFUND, projects under ‘MSCA and Citizens’). They have been identified with the help of the National Contact Points, several cooperation partners and desk research as well as an open call by the MSCAdvocacy project: if would like to participate as a speaker and meet the criteria above, apply here: https://survey3.zsi.at/index.php/649438?lang=en.

The success story presenters are asked to limit their presentation to 5 minutes and focus on either one or both of the following aspects:

  1. What enabled this success? Which conditions were conducive to empowering and enabling you to create a successful proposal or participate successfully in a running MSCA project, e.g. how did information reach you or your mentors, which networks were relevant, which knowledge had you acquired before preparing the successful proposal, what do you think was necessary to be successful, etc.?
  2. What effects and impacts did the MSCA involvement have? Which experiences and lessons learnt did you have? Which transferable skills did you acquire, did you deepen or widen your networks, which key results have you achieved, etc.?

The audience thus meets e.g. incoming or outgoing fellows to/from a Western Balkan economy with MSCA funding or connected to the Western Balkans region, participants of MSCA training or exchange activities, etc. Presenters could also be members who circulated through a Staff Exchange project or participants in an MSCA Doctoral Network as doctoral students. Partners and organisers of MSCA Researcher’s Night events are also warmly welcome to share their experiences as are industry partners who profited of hosting MSCA fellows (from or in the region). The common denominator is be the geographical connection (i.e. being hosted in the region, being from the region, etc.) and that MSCA funding enabled the success story, e.g. to learn, develop the career, expand the networks, etc. The projects referred to can be ongoing or already concluded.

The organisers aim to discuss and show a broad variety of success stories which we aim to promote as inspirational examples to future applicants, representatives of interested organisations and stakeholders from the Western Balkans, e.g. Higher Education and Research Performing Organisations was well as non-academic stakeholders.

Date: 7 November 2024

Time: 14.00-15.30 CET (90 minutes max.)

Registration: https://zsigmbh.my.webex.com/weblink/register/r2889fa7eff8f39009460d6390ce16977

Format: online event using Webex: https://zsigmbh.my.webex.com/zsigmbh.my/j.php?MTID=m265a710fd2ee2baa35f3d5a74e8b8932

Please find attached also a factsheet related to the participation of the Western Balkans in MSCA by the MSCAdvocacy project.

Event type

Geographical focus:

Thematic domains: