The Commission has awarded Seal of Excellence certificates to 2,136 researchers who applied for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in 2019. Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, said: “I am very happy to grant Seals of Excellence to more than 2,000 brilliant Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship applicants. Even though the available budget does not allow us to finance their proposals, we can recognise their valuable work and the knowledge created with a quality label. Through the Seal of Excellence, alternative funding bodies can take advantage of the Horizon 2020 evaluation process and financially support these excellent research proposals.” Calls for proposals under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are extremely competitive: the budget for the 2019 call only allowed a grant to be awarded to 15% of applicants. The Seal of Excellence is a quality label awarded to MSCA applicants whose proposals scored 85% or more, but could not be funded due to budget limits. This endorsement aims to help researchers in finding alternative funding for their project from regional, national or institutional sources.
