Over the past three decades, companies have increasingly partnered with the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) doctoral and post-doctoral training programmes to gain access to cutting-edge science.
Through MSCA Doctoral Networks, businesses become full partners within international research consortia, working alongside leading universities and research organisations while helping train the next generation of researchers. At the same time, researchers have the chance to work in industry and form new contacts and partnerships.
Between 2021-2023, almost two out of every five participants in MSCA doctoral networks were private-sector organisations.
For companies, participation goes beyond hosting a researcher. Businesses co-design research projects with academic partners, contribute to training programmes and become part of international networks that often last well beyond the duration of a project. This creates partnerships, facilitates knowledge transfer and helps companies remain at the forefront of innovation.
The focus of the MSCA is supporting research excellence through a bottom-up, collaborative approach, giving researchers the opportunity to work across academia, governments, not-for-profit organisations and within industry.
The SERENADE project, coordinated by the Spanish division of BSH Appliances, a European home appliance manufacturer and subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH, shows how this model works in practice: companies gain access to doctoral researchers while helping shape research directly addressing industrial challenges.
This project trains seven doctoral candidates from academic institutions in Belgium, Germany and Italy, who split their time between academic research and industry work with partner companies.
By combining diverse expertise and perspectives, the collaboration is developing a sensor-based container which can monitor food freshness, as well as a way to use artificial intelligence to assess the freshness of unpackaged products. According to Sergio Gomez Ortiz, head of product development shared services at BSH Group, this networked approach is more efficient when tackling complex problems compared to solo efforts.
Revathy Gurusamy, an MSCA doctoral candidate who is working on SERENADE, says she chose the project partly because of the real-world impact it could have.
Working at BSH Appliances, she sees the potential for her team’s food-monitoring devices to reach millions of households, directly contributing to reducing food waste on a global scale.
Collaboration between universities and private sector companies has been a fundamental part of the MSCA since its inception in 1996 and the involvement of industrial partners has kept growing since. In 2025, under Horizon Europe, over 4,300 companies took part in MSCA projects, including over 2,200 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The opportunities are growing for high-tech SMEs to collaborate with the MSCA. One example is the Choose Europe for Science program.
The opportunities for companies to engage with top international researchers are continuing to grow. Through the MSCA Choose Europe for Science pilot, organisations can recruit postdoctoral researchers with MSCA covering part of the employment costs. The initiative helps companies attract global talent while offering researchers long-term career prospects in Europe.
The programme gives SMEs access to top science talent from around the world, while also giving the best international researchers the job opportunities they need to stay in Europe after their studies.
Supporting women innovators
Ensuring strong participation of women in research is fundamental to the MSCA’s goal of creating inclusive communities of researchers. Within MSCA projects, women and men are represented in near-equal proportions, with female researchers making up around 45% of the programme.
The MSCA’s commitment to championing women came into the spotlight in 2019, when Michela Puddu became the first MSCA alumna to win the European Prize for Women Innovators, which recognises the most talented women entrepreneurs across the EU and Horizon Europe associated countries.
As cofounder and CEO of ETH Zurich spin-off Haelixa, Puddu was awarded the ‘rising innovator’ prize for her company’s intelligent DNA-based tracing solutions, which ensures ethical and transparent industry practices for products such as organic cotton.
Since then, two more MSCA alumni have also been awarded the prize. Maria Fátima Lucas, cofounder and CEO of Barcelona-based biotech company Zymvol, was honoured in 2020 for her work using molecular modelling to design industrial molecules.
In 2024, Rana Sanyal, cofounder of biotech company RS Research, won the award for her work on smart nanomedicines for targeted chemotherapy. She received MSCA support through a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant project at Boğaziçi University in Turkey.
Under the MSCA programme, key provisions include equal pay for all fellows regardless of gender, gender balance in research teams and the promotion of inclusive and diverse collaboration.
The programme also supports work-life balance, including maternity and paternity leave and flexible working arrangements such as part-time options to accommodate caring responsibilities. This ensures that there is no disruption to career progression for those who choose to start a family.
As the MSCA celebrates 30 years of achievements this year, the programme is also focused on the future and developments to come. The MSCA will continue to play an important role in supporting, attracting and retaining talented researchers to work across academia and the private sector, and strengthening Europe’s research and innovation landscape.
Learn more about 30 years of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
