Competition for Innovative Training Networks funding set high

The REA services have received 1 164 project proposals requesting €3.7 billion in total EU funding by the deadline of Innovative Training Networks (ITN) call on 9 April. With a budget of over €405 million, this is the largest call currently managed by the REA. It is expected to support some 1 600 young researchers in about 125 projects as of December 2014. Evaluation of project proposals will start in May.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) aim to train a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early-stage researchers. The call budget is €405.18 million, of which roughly €350 million will support European Training Networks (ETN), €30 million the new European Joint Doctorates (EJD) and €25.5 million European Industrial Doctorates (EID).

The call for ITN proposals was launched on 11 December 2013 and closed on 9 April. This year's submission figures are comparable to the previous ITN call in 2013. The breakdown of all applications shows that ETN has been the most popular scheme (1 004 project proposals, 86%), followed by EID (107 proposals, 9%) and EJD (53 proposals, 5%).

Evaluation of the research proposals will start on 2 May; all Grant Agreements are expected to be signed by December 2014.

Evaluators of project proposals are drawn from the European Commission's independent expert database. The Commission is looking to expand the database through a call for experts covering a very broad range of fields. If you fit the profile and would like to be considered for evaluations, sign up in the Participant Portal.