European Commission praises CIVIS3i for bridging gap between education and research

CIVIS3i is our international MSCA-COFUND postdoctoral programme, supported by the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions under the Horizon 2020 budget. This ambitious project will impact the CIVIS Alliance and its member universities for many years to come. CIVIS3i will eventually support 32 excellent researchers as they work on research related to the CIVIS Hubs, and an initial call received nearly 300 applications. The researchers hired will be linked to the four CIVIS3i universities: Aix-Marseille Université, Université libre de Bruxelles, Sapienza Università di Roma, and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. They will also work with partners in business, administration and collaborating research institutions within CIVIS and beyond. Learn more about CIVIS3i...

Since 2020 the European Commisson has been active trying to maximise synergies and complementarity between the two budget lines which mainly target the university sector: Erasmus+ for education and Horizon Europe for research. A recent report from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture highlighted CIVIS3i because our Horizon 2020-funded programme leverages the Erasmus+ funded CIVIS Alliance through shared membership in order to offer a convenient framework for implementing the international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral principles of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).

In practical terms, the synergies between CIVIS and CIVIS3i offer researchers exciting opportunities for mobility, training and career development, while also establishing new collaborations. Researchers can attend integrated courses in several countries and different languages and can move freely between institutions, according to the needs of their research projects. In order to promote interdisciplinary work, postdocs must have an advisor at one CIVIS3i university, and a co-advisor at another CIVIS university. To complement their research experience, researchers are encouraged to do secondments in academic and non-academic institutions in the other universities of the CIVIS Alliance, or at non-academic partner institutions. CIVIS3i therefore fosters cooperation between research institutions, but also reaches beyond academia into the socio-economic world.

CIVIS3i is currently finalising the evaluation of proposals submitted to the first call, and our international experts will select the best proposals before the summer. Laureates will be able to start their research by the end of the year. A second call will open in July 2022. CIVIS3i will offer postdoctoral researchers attractive working conditions while funding excellent research.

This project receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 10103324.