MSCA at 30: Research mobility & bridging gaps across Europe. SAVE-THE-DATE

Thirty years of MSCA Programme is more than an anniversary. It’s a chance to look honestly at what mobility has enabled across Europe, what still blocks talent circulation, and how MSCA can better help close gaps between research and innovation ecosystems as the FP10 debate approaches. This event is designed as a working conversation participatory, practical, and built around real experience rather than ceremony. Join us on 21 May in Brussels!

This event is designed for people who want to move beyond talking about “success stories” and get into the practicalities: mobility, institutional barriers, pathways for returning home, building capacity in Central European countries, and how MSCA instruments can do even more to help shape a more coherent European Research Area.

Programme highlights

Arrival & structured networking: Wall of opportunities
The day starts with a facilitated, colour-coded networking wall where participants post and browse concrete offers and needs: hosting and secondments, postdoc opportunities, consortium partners, institutional priorities, mentoring, and implementation support. To extend the impact beyond the event, the wall is captured and shared with participants as a searchable digital catalogue for follow-up collaborations.

Welcome & opening remarks
A short framing of why the MSCA 30-year milestone matters now and why this is a conversation focused on what works (and what doesn’t) in practice.

Keynote address
“30 Years of MSCA: What built Europe’s talent programme and what’s next for FP10”
A forward-looking keynote connecting three decades of MSCA experience with the upcoming strategic choices around FP10.

Panel discussion
“Making MSCA work: career paths, institutions, and cross-border reality”
A candid discussion grounded in experience across different European research ecosystems, including widening contexts. The focus is on the decisions and conditions that shape MSCA journeys: recruitment and employment realities, supervision and mentoring, institutional support (from grant offices to reintegration schemes), intersectoral mobility, and long-term career prospects. The panel aims to extract transferable lessons for researchers planning MSCA steps and institutions building sustainable support ecosystems.

Interactive fishbowl: join the discussion
“Talent circulation, capacity building, research bridges: closing gaps with MSCA portfolio”
A participatory format designed to avoid one-way talking. The discussion explores how MSCA instruments can strengthen research capacity across Europe without reinforcing one-way brain drain including return pathways, conditions that encourage circulation, and practices that translate mobility into long-term institutional and regional impact. Participants can step in by taking the open seat and bringing their experience into the conversation.

MSCA Deep Dives: moderated roundtables
Focused, moderated table discussions where everyone contributes not just listens. Participants choose a theme such as PhD/postdoc careers & brain circulation, secondments and non-academic partners, mobility & work-life balance, or research management & HR for smooth and compliant MSCA implementation. Insights and practical recommendations are captured by rapporteurs.

Showcase session
“NAWA–MSCA Network: a practical model for return, reintegration and career support”
A concrete demonstration of Poland’s support infrastructure for MSCA researchers: who provides which services, how access works, and where gaps remain. The session maps the researcher journey from idea and host identification to proposal development, mobility implementation and post-return reintegration presented as a diagnostic tool with real cases, not as promotional material.

MSCA Matchmaking Zone. Find your Partner!
Structured networking zones aligned with MSCA instruments and partnership needs, co-facilitated by researchers and research managers to keep it purposeful and effective. Examples include:

• PhD & Postdocs marketplace (researchers seeking hosts, institutions offering positions)
• Institutional partnerships (building consortia and cross-border collaborations)
• Implementation support (connecting researchers with RMAs and EURAXESS advisors)

Lightning talks
“MSCA stories that teach: practical lessons from the field”
Short, experience-based talks, each focused on one transferable lesson and its broader institutional or systemic impact from talent circulation and intersectoral mobility to institutional learning and capacity building, with attention to widening contexts and FP10-relevant perspectives.

Reflections & forward look: From practice to policy
The day closes with a synthesis of key insights and recommendations from panels, roundtables and networking followed by live community voting on priorities for strengthening MSCA’s contribution to ERA and reducing R&I disparities. A high-level response reflects on what the community surfaced and what it implies for MSCA’s future direction under FP10.

Networking reception
A final space to turn conversations into next steps, contacts and concrete follow-ups.

Draft event agenda (subject to change) HERE

Organisers

Event organised in collaboration with the Polish Academy of Sciences (PolSCA PAS Office in Brussels and Excellence in Science Department of the PAS in Warsaw) and the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) Chapters Benelux, Hungary and Poland. Local partners of the event in Brussels include the liaison offices: KOWI (Germany), Neth-ER (Netherlands) and NRDIO (Hungary).

Registration and full details will be published soon. Save the date and follow this page for updates.

Programme will be published soon. For now, save the date 21 May 2026 and join us in Brussels!