Grant Writing — European Funding (Horizon Europe family)

When to use

Drafting a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) application.
Drafting a Horizon Europe research and innovation action (RIA, IA, CSA) proposal.
Reviewing or strengthening drafts against the EU evaluation rubric.
Adapting a Spanish/national project description to EU format.

Process

Phase 1 — Identify the call and its specifics

Before writing anything, extract:

| Item | Where | Why | |---|---|---| | Topic ID and call text | Funding & Tenders Portal | The exact wording of the topic ID determines what the evaluators look for | | Type of action | Topic page | RIA, IA, CSA, MSCA-PF, MSCA-DN, ERC StG/CoG/AdG/SyG, EIC Pathfinder/Transition | | TRL range expected | Topic text | Mismatch is automatic deselection | | Eligibility | Call text | Country requirements, mobility rules for MSCA, PI seniority for ERC | | Page limits | Call text + template | Hard limits, especially Part B (proposal) | | Evaluation thresholds | Work Programme | Usually 4/5 per criterion, 12/15 total | | Specific scoring weights | Work Programme | E.g., MSCA-PF: 50% Excellence, 30% Impact, 20% Implementation |

Phase 2 — The Excellence / Impact / Implementation triad

EU proposals are scored on three criteria. Understand each before drafting.

1. Excellence (the science)

What evaluators look for:

Clear research objectives with measurable outcomes.
Beyond state-of-the-art: explicit positioning vs current literature.
Methodology: detailed, feasible, with risk mitigation.
Interdisciplinarity: mention if applicable.
Sex/gender dimension: required where relevant; cite Vademecum if applicable.

Common pitfalls:

Writing as a national grant (over-detailed methods, under-developed positioning).
Not citing recent EU-funded projects in the area.
Vague hypothesis or objectives.

2. Impact (why it matters)

This is the section that distinguishes EU proposals from national ones. Evaluators want:

Pathway to impact: a clear narrative from research output → societal/scientific impact.
Target groups: who benefits, when, how.
Communication, dissemination, exploitation (CDE): separate plans.
- Communication: general public, media, policy.
- Dissemination: scientific community, peer-reviewed journals, conferences.
- Exploitation: industry partners, commercialization, patents (if relevant).
Open science: FAIR data, open access publishing, preprints, code/data sharing.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): quantifiable targets per impact pathway.

For MSCA-PF specifically:

Career development plan for the fellow: this is half of "Impact".
Transferable skills: list them.
Two-way knowledge transfer: between fellow and host.

3. Implementation (the plan)

Work plan with WPs, deliverables, milestones, GANTT chart.
Resources: justification for personnel, equipment, travel.
Consortium description (for collaborative actions): expertise of each partner, complementarity.
Risk assessment: critical risks with likelihood/severity matrix and mitigation.
Project management structure.

Phase 3 — Mandatory cross-cutting items

EU proposals must address (somewhere in the document):

Gender dimension

For research content: state whether sex/gender is relevant to the research question. If yes, integrate analysis. If no, justify briefly.
Reference: "Gendered Innovations" (https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu).
For team composition: GEP (Gender Equality Plan) of the host institution is often a requirement.

Open science and FAIR

Plan for open access publication (Diamond/Gold/Green).
Data Management Plan (DMP) commitment, with first version typically due at month 6.
FAIR principles: Findable (DOIs, metadata), Accessible (repositories, licenses), Interoperable (standards: DICOM, OMOP, BIDS for neuroimaging), Reusable (clear licenses, provenance).
Code: open source license (MIT, GPL), GitHub/Zenodo deposit, version DOI.
For medical imaging research specifically: state whether de-identified data will be deposited (e.g., TCIA, IDC, Zenodo for derived features).

Ethics and security

Ethics self-assessment (each call has a checklist).
For human data: IRB/ethics committee approvals, GDPR compliance (Data Protection Officer, DPIA), informed consent procedures.
For dual-use technology or AI Act considerations (for medical AI, the AI Act and MDR overlap matters).

Sustainability

"Do No Significant Harm" (DNSH) principle if applicable.
Climate / environment relevance.

Phase 4 — Stylistic conventions

Tone

Academic English, less formal than Spanish system but more structured than US grants.
Active voice preferred; "the consortium will..." rather than "it will be done by...".
First person plural ("we") acceptable in narrative sections; avoid in standard descriptions.

Visual elements

EU proposals expect figures, especially:
- Concept figure in Section 1 (Excellence).
- Pert chart or Gantt for the work plan.
- PERT chart of WP interdependencies.
- Impact pathway diagram showing research → outputs → outcomes → impact.
Tables for: WP descriptions, deliverables, milestones, KPIs, risks.

Page budget (typical for MSCA-PF, Part B-1)

Excellence: ~4-5 pages.
Impact: ~3 pages.
Implementation: ~2-3 pages.
Total Part B-1: 10 pages strict.
Part B-2 (CV, host info, ethics): no page limit but be concise.

Phase 5 — Specific calls — quick notes

MSCA-PF (Postdoctoral Fellowship)

Strict mobility rule: applicant must NOT have resided in the host country >12 months in the last 36 (Standard) or 60 (Global, Reintegration variants).
Two-way knowledge transfer is heavily evaluated.
Career development is essentially weighted equally to research.
Secondments and host institution facilities matter — name them concretely.
For your case (relocating to Italy): MSCA-PF Standard with a host in Italy is well-aligned, mobility rule satisfied if you've been in Spain.

Horizon Europe RIA / IA

Larger consortia (3+ countries usually).
TRL relevance: RIAs typically TRL 2-5, IAs TRL 5-7.
Industry partners often required for IA.

ERC (StG, CoG, AdG)

Single PI grants. Excellence is dominant, Impact is secondary.
"High-risk, high-gain" framing is encouraged.
ERC has its own template; rules differ from collaborative actions.

Phase 6 — Self-review checklist

[ ] Each section maps to an evaluation criterion.
[ ] Beyond state-of-the-art positioning explicit.
[ ] Sex/gender dimension addressed (or justified absence).
[ ] Open science / FAIR / DMP committed to.
[ ] CDE plan with KPIs.
[ ] Risk register present (table format).
[ ] Gantt chart with WPs, deliverables, milestones.
[ ] Page limits respected.
[ ] Ethics self-assessment completed.
[ ] References pointing to EU-funded projects in the area where relevant.
[ ] Career development section (for MSCA) substantive.

Anti-patterns

| Pattern | Why it fails | Correction | |---|---|---| | Treating Impact as an afterthought | Impact is 30-50% of the score | Develop CDE plan in detail with KPIs | | Open science as one paragraph | Reviewers want a real plan | Concrete repositories, licenses, FAIR mapping | | No gender dimension treatment | Mandatory cross-cutting | Address explicitly (relevant or justified absence) | | Generic risk register ("technical challenges") | Suggests no real planning | Specific risks with likelihood/severity/mitigation | | Citing only own group's papers | Suggests narrow positioning | Cite competing approaches and recent EU projects | | Methods over-detailed (national style) | Wastes pages | Compress methods; expand impact and implementation | | Vague KPIs ("publish papers") | Not measurable | Quantify: "≥3 peer-reviewed publications, ≥2 in Q1 journals, ≥1 conference per year" |

Output format when invoked

When invoked, produce:

Drafted text for the section requested.
Comments in [brackets] flagging where to strengthen.
Suggestions for tables/figures to include.
List of mandatory cross-cutting items not yet addressed.