MSCA Staff Exchanges 2027

MSCA Staff Exchanges promote innovative international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration in research and innovation through exchanging staff and sharing knowledge and ideas at all stages of the innovation chain. The scheme fosters a shared culture of research and innovation that welcomes and rewards creativity and entrepreneurship and helps turn ideas into innovative products, services or processes. It is open to research, technical, administrative and managerial staff supporting R&I activities.

Expected impact

Proposals under this Action should contribute to the following expected impacts:

• Increase international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary mobility of research staff within Europe and beyond through collaborative research networks and activities;
• Strengthen the R&I human capital base in Europe and beyond;
• Increase Europe's attractiveness as a leading destination for R&I;
• Contribute to Europe's competitiveness and growth through high-quality R&I;
• Foster the culture of open science, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

For staff members

• Increased set of research and transferable skills and competences, leading to improved employability and career prospects within and outside academia;
• More knowledge and innovative ideas converted into products, processes and services;
• More entrepreneurial mind-sets, testing new and innovative ideas;
• Increased international exposure leading to extended networks and opportunities;
• Enhanced networking and communication capacities with scientific peers, as well as with the general public that will increase and broaden the research and innovation impact.

For participating organisations

• Innovative ways of cooperation and transfer of knowledge between sectors and disciplines;
• Strengthened and broader international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaborative networks;
• Boosted R&I capacity.

Scope:

MSCA Staff Exchanges involve organisations from the academic and non-academic sectors (including SMEs) from across the globe. International cooperation through the participation of organisations from non-associated third countries is strongly encouraged.

Support is provided for international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary mobility of R&I staff leading to knowledge transfer between participating organisations.

Mobility through secondments

The organisations constituting the partnership contribute directly to the implementation of a joint R&I project by seconding and/or hosting eligible staff members. Such a project must explore activities that can be based on previous work but should go beyond and generate or strengthen long-term collaborations. Secondments must involve physical mobility^[1] of the eligible staff members and must always take place between legal entities independent from each other.

MSCA Staff Exchanges can address different dimensions of mobility: international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary^[2]. Exchanges between organisations within EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries should mainly be inter-sectoral, but same-sector exchanges are also possible. Interdisciplinarity is particularly encouraged for secondments between academic organisations.

The collaborative approach of MSCA Staff Exchanges should exploit complementary competences of the participating organisations and create synergies between them. The secondments should be essential to achieve the joint project’s R&I activities. The project should inter alia enable networking activities and the organisation of workshops and conferences, to facilitate sharing of knowledge and testing of innovative approaches for specific R&I topics.

Skills’ development

For participating staff members, the project should offer new skills acquisition and career development perspectives. Participating organisations must ensure that the seconded staff are adequately mentored. Proposals should clearly describe how planned international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary secondments will expose seconded staff to different skills, working cultures or career trajectories.

[1] Virtual mobility is not allowed for secondments.

[2] Interdisciplinarity means the integration of information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts or theories from two or more scientific disciplines (see definitions at the end of this Work Programme part).