Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships: 2025 Inria Hosting Offers & Training Programme

What are the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships?

MSCA Postdoctoral fellowships are European funding that support the career development of researchers, diversifying their core and transversal skills. The MSCA-PF grant provides a competitive salary plus mobility and family allowances if applicable; as well as research, training and networking costs. The Inria training programme concerns both the European Postdoctoral Fellowships (12 to 24 months in Europe + optional placement in private sector in Europe of 6 months) and the Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (12 to 24 months outside of Europe + compulsory 12 months return period in Europe + optional placement in private sector in Europe of 6 months; nationality restrictions apply to this type). More information: MSCA-PF

What are the eligibility criteria? 

• Candidates must hold a PhD at the call deadline (10 September 2025) and have 8 years maximum of full-time research experience after the PhD.
• “Mobility rule”: candidates must NOT have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the main host institution for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the call deadline (exceptions exist for European nationals).
• Candidates can be from any nationality, except for the Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (see above) which is restricted to European nationals or long-term residents (>5 continuous years of residency prior to deadline).
• Although not an eligibility criterion, a good track record is recommended.
• An additional layer is at Inria institutional level regarding security procedures in recruitment, which must be approved by our Defence Security Officer.

What are the hosting offers about? 

In 2025, Inria puts forward more than 90 offers which fall within its main expertise categories (non-ordered): algorithms and quantum computing, high performance computing, digital education, artificial intelligence, internet of things, software, modelling and simulation, digital health, data science, cybersecurity. Many of the hosting offers this year explore the following domains (non-exhaustive): machine learning, distributed systems, data analysis, human machine interaction, control theory, etc.

What is needed to apply? 

The MSCA PF programme requires candidates to write their own research project, in synergy with a supervisor at a European host institution. The proposal is a ten pages document describing the scientific idea, its expected impacts and implementation pathway, with an additional 5 pages for the candidate’s CV. The nominal success rate is around 15%: this is a very competitive call. At Inria, we provide a training programme and extensive support to good quality candidates in the form of preliminary meetings, group training to better understand the programme and the grant proposal requirements, and one-to-one review sessions by specialised staff in the late stage, allowing us to significantly increase your chances of success.  

I’m interested. What should I do? 

1. Check our list of hosting offers, when a domain fits your profile or seems complimentary to your expertise, go to the research team webpage and look for more info. You may also directly check the domains of our 230 Inria research teams if you do not find a research topic within our pre-selected offers.
2. Once you think you have an interesting research project idea that fits the domains described in one of our hosting offers (or research team), write it down in 4-5 lines and email the indicated contact persons (or directly to the researcher). Add your CV or a link to your profile for completeness.
3. Register here for the pre-training online info session (22 April 13:00 to 14:00 CET). This online event will present the offers and Inria’s support schedule.
4. Finally, if you are interested in submitting a project with Inria as host institution, register here for the full training programme.

When should I do that? 

The earliest the better! If we had to give an indication, early March.

What’s the Inria training programme like? 

Selected candidates will have access to privileged grant writing training sessions and one-to-one proposal review sessions in the last phase with our experienced European Officers. The sessions will take place on the following dates (all times CET): 

1. First session: Introduction to MSCA-PF call, general considerations & invitation to discuss projects with supervisors -- Tue 29 April 10:00-12:30, online
2. Second session: Grant proposal writing guide -- Tue 27 May 09:00-16:30, online
3. Third session: Grant writing: fine-tune your proposal & joint writing sessions – 7-10 July: 4 full days, in-person (Paris, France) // online possible for candidates outside of France || day 1: meeting with supervisors || day 2: full review of template || day 3: supervised proposal writing day || day 4: workshops on four difficult sections of the proposal
4. In-person support: full proposal review with your local contact, from ~June 

► Register for the (April, May, July) training sessions here

Browse here our >90 postdoctoral grants hosting offers!