Each proposal funded under the COFUND scheme shall have a sole beneficiary that will be responsible for the availability of the necessary matching funds to execute the proposal.

Applicants submit multi-annual proposals for new or existing doctoral programmes or fellowship programmes which are expected to have an impact on enhancing research- and innovation related human resources on regional, national or international level.

Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application.

1. List of countries and applicable rules for funding: described in part A of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.
   Note also that a number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects (follow the links to China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan). 
    
2. Eligibility and admissibility conditions: described in part B and C of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme. IMPORTANT: The conditions specific to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are described in the MSCA part of the H2020 Work Programme.
3. Evaluation 
   
   3.1  Evaluation criteria and procedure, scoring and threshold: described in part H of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme. IMPORTANT: The award criteria and evaluation procedure specific to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) is described in the MSCA section of the General Work Programme.
   
   3.2 Submission and evaluation process: Guide to the submission and evaluation process
    
4. Proposal page limits and layout: The maximum length of a proposal is 30 pages, excluding the annexes. Please refer to Part B of the standard proposal template.
    
5. Indicative timetable for evaluation and grant agreement:
   
   Maximum 5 months from the deadline for submission.
   Signature of grant agreements: maximum 8 months from the deadline for submission.

COFUND takes the form of:

A) Doctoral programmes

Doctoral programmes address the development and broadening of the research competencies of early-stage researchers. The training follows the EU Principles on Innovative Doctoral Training. Collaboration with a wider set of partner organisations, including from the non-academic sector, which may provide hosting or secondment opportunities or training in research or transferable skills, as well as innovative elements of the proposed programme, will be positively taken into account during the evaluations.

B) Fellowship programmes

Fellowship programmes fund individual research training and career development fellowships for experienced researchers. The programmes supported should have regular selection rounds following fixed deadlines or regular cut-off dates, allowing fair competition between the researchers applying. The selections should be based on open, widely advertised competition, with transparent international peer review and the selection of candidates on merit. Mobility types supported by fellowship programmes may be similar to the ones supported under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships.

The planned opening date is 14 April 2016.