Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes (COFUND)
Co-funding of existing or planned mobility programmes for doctoral students and Postdocs.
Adobe Stock / MDörr & M.Frommherz
Co-funding of existing or planned mobility programmes for doctoral students and Postdocs.
Adobe Stock / MDörr & M.Frommherz
COFUND supports existing or new regional, national or international mobility programmes for postdoctoral researchers (Fellowship Programme Panel) and for doctoral candidates (Doctoral Programme Panel). The scheme aims to foster and improve excellence in the training, mobility and career development of researchers in Europe. Support is provided not to individual researchers but to European organisations offering mobility programmes.
Organisations from Member States and Associated States that offer programmes to enhance transnational mobility and career development for postdoctoral researchers and doctoral candidates may apply.
Organisations can apply for funding with both existing and new mobility programmes which enable or promote transnational mobility and the career development of researchers.
The Doctoral Programme Panel is dedicated to programmes for researchers after graduation who have not yet been awarded a PhD degree. It aims to promote the development and broadening of research competences. Collaborations with different partner organisations, including from the non-academic sector, are taken into account favourably during the evaluation. Attention is being paid to the quality of supervision and mentoring arrangements as well as career guidance.
The Fellowship Programme Panel is dedicated to postdoctoral researchers who have already been awarded a PhD degree. The objective is to increase the researchers' skill sets to improve their employability and career prospects. The selection of researchers should be based on open competition and on fair, transparent peer-review procedures. Funded programmes should impose as few limitations as possible on the research areas and the host organisations or host countries.
COFUND supports programmes with a maximum duration of 60 months.
EU funding is provided in the form of a fixed contribution to the researcher’s subsistence costs and / or to the researcher’s research, training and networking costs and to the administrative costs of the mobility programme. It may be combined with funding from the European Structural & Investment Funds (ESIF) or other external funding, but not with any other grant from Horizon Europe. An organisation can apply for a maximum of 10 million euros in a COFUND call. Where co-funding for an existing mobility programme is sought, the applicant must demonstrate how the co-financing would be used to enhance the quality and extent of the existing measure. The co-financing shall not replace existing funds, but contribute to expanding and enhancing the measure.
Project proposals are submitted by the organisations. Researchers apply directly to the selected organisations.