Funding, Mobility and Other Resources

EPICUR Seed Funding
The EPICUR Alliance aims to transform education, research, and knowledge transfer across its member universities by fostering innovative solutions and training future European change-makers. As a strategic investment, the alliance launched a 2024 pilot Seed Funding Scheme—funded by institutional resources—to stimulate joint research and teaching collaborations among its nine partner universities. A 2025 Seed Funding call is scheduled to be published in early May. Check back soon for updates!

EUCOR Funding
The EUCOR university alliance, as an associate partner of EPICUR, provides several funding opportunities, such as EUCOR Seed Money.

Cross Border Education Grant
The Cross-Border Education Grant supports innovative bi- and multinational Master’s and Doctoral courses within Eucor – The European Campus, with applications open from early March to mid-April for University of Basel lecturers collaborating with Eucor or EPICUR partners. Since 2022, EPICUR university lecturers may also join as co-applicants, and matchmaking support is available upon request.

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan offers its students, doctoral students, and staff international exchange programmes, where they can go abroad or to other academic centres in the country to broaden their skills and acquire knowledge. The different schemes are advertised on their website.

Erasmus+ Framework

Researchers of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki can benefit from the Erasmus+ mobility scheme, based on the category they belong to. More specifically:

The above-mentioned opportunities apply also to incoming staff members and PhD students.

Marie Curie Framework

AUTh is actively participating in researchers’ mobility, through the framework of H2020 – Excellence Science – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. These researchers' secondments are a period of training at the premises of another partner. The secondment always requires the movement of the researcher since his physical presence in the other partner's premises is required. RISE programs related to the mobility of the staff of the Institutions (Faculty Members, and supportive Teaching Staff) also exist.

Other Frameworks

AUTh researchers (that are only Faculty members) can participate on research mobilities to every University that has an official agreement with the University. This type of mobilities is financially supported by AUTh University upon the request of the Faculty member. A specific central committee is reviewing the applications and approving the mobility or not.

The Karlsruhe House of Young Scientists (KHYS) coordinates mobility schemes for ECRs working at KIT. PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers may benefit from the following internal funding schemes:

Additionally, there are multiple agreements with third parties (both public and private, domestic and international) to finance mobility schemes for KIT ECRs. The current lists contain more than 40 opportunities for outgoing travel programs for postdocs and more than 30 opportunities for PhD candidates. Both teaching and research staff may benefit from other international mobility schemes at KIT, including DAAD, euraxess, Erasmus+, Marie Curie, Fulbright, and others.10 Finally, they may also benefit from Eucor – European Campus mobility schemes.

The opportunities at a university-wide level are organised within UvA’s engagement in European and global networks, most notably LERU and U21.

Examples of mobility for UvA researchers in this context include the annual LERU Doctoral Summer School, and the following schemes through U21: Early Career Researcher Workshops, U21 Researcher Resilience projects, and UNICA Staff mobility.

In addition, UvA supports a large number of joint PhD projects with international partner universities. In this context, PhD candidates undertake part of their research project on-site at the partner university. The frequency and duration of these research stays vary per project, but should always constitute a significant proportion (approximately 30-40%) of the overall duration of the PhD project. 

The University of Freiburg’s International Office advises teaching and research staff on obtaining mobility funds and can also provide direct financial support for certain projects with international partners.

Funding opportunities include the Internationalisation Fund of the University of Freiburg, the Visiting Lecturer Programme of the University of Freiburg, as well as other funding sources.

The International Office also advises and assists teaching and research staff in the application process for programmes of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), in particular the coordination of DAAD applications between the institutions and the university management.

Programmes are offered through the German-French Hochschule. Finally, Freiburg staff may also benefit from Eucor – European Campus mobility schemes.

The University of Haute-Alsace advertises mobility opportunities on their website.

Although no specific section exists for teaching and research staff yet, several programmes exist to promote research and teaching staff mobility. The relevant Erasmus+ schemes (KA 131 STA and STT) are open to all UHA staff. Teachers and researchers may apply to both, according to their goals. Mobility campaigns are initiated at the beginning of each academic year, and after a temporary suspension due to COVID-19, they are expected to begin in September 2022.

Doctoral candidates have diverse mobility schemes available to them, including co-supervision and Eucor mobility opportunities.

Teaching and research staff, as well as administrative staff, have mobility schemes available to them within Eucor – European Campus, namely the job-shadowing scheme Vis-ma-Vie (“Live my Life”) scheme, whereby staff can apply for a staff exchange of several days at the German or Swiss members of Eucor (EPICUR partners KIT and Freiburg, as well as the University of Basel).

There is also an Invited Faculty scheme in place for outgoing and incoming research and teaching staff. 

BOKU lists its mobility possibilities on its website.

These are divided into “students” and “staff” sections, though doctoral candidates will find information relevant to them on both.

Here is a selection of these mobility schemes:

The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) lists mobility options for outgoing staff on their Intranet. ECRs (PhD candidates, post-docs) are considered staff at SDU and are thus eligible for these mobility formats, although they are not “research” based and are very short in duration.

Staff Mobility under the Erasmus+ Programme

Staff mobility for teaching:

Staff mobility for training:

For more information interested parties are advised to contact Didde Marie Bielefeldt Petersen at SDU International.

The University of Strasbourg advertises all mobility opportunities on its website. There are different possibilities for students, PhD candidates, teaching and research staff and administrative staff.

All teaching and research staff (up to 60 days) as well as PhD candidates (up to 12 months) can apply for their respective stream of Erasmus+ mobility grants, or work in a Eucor partner university. Furthermore, doctoral candidates have the possibility of living in an international environment in Strasbourg (at the International University House), while teaching, research, and administrative staff have the option of benefitting from financial support from the University of Strasbourg for their own mobility projects. 

As stated on their official website, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fund excellent research and innovation and equip researchers at all stages of their career with new knowledge and skills, through mobility across borders and exposure to different sectors and disciplines. The MSCA help build Europe’s capacity for research and innovation by investing in the long-term careers of excellent researchers. There are 5 types of MSCA targeting different objectives.

The objective of Doctoral Networks is to implement doctoral programmes by partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe and beyond to train highly skilled doctoral candidates, stimulate their creativity, enhance their innovation capacities and boost their employability in the long-term. Doctoral Networks are open to international consortia of universities, research institutions, businesses, SMEs and other non-academic organisations. Doctoral Networks implement doctoral programmes, by partnerships of universities, research institutions and infrastructures, businesses including SMEs, and other socio-economic actors from different countries across Europe and beyond.

These doctoral programmes will respond to well-identified needs in various research and innovation areas, expose the researchers to the academic and non-academic sectors, and offer research training, as well as transferable skills and competences relevant for innovation and long-term employability.

The objective of Postdoctoral Fellowships is to support researchers’ careers and foster excellence in research. The Postdoctoral Fellowships action targets researchers holding a PhD who wish to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and develop their careers. PFs help researchers gain experience in other countries, disciplines and non-academic sectors.

There are 2 types of Postdoctoral Fellowships:

Both types of fellowships may also include short-term secondments anywhere in the world during the fellowship (except during the return phase of a Global Fellowship).

In an effort to build bridges between the academic and non-academic sector, researchers can receive additional support to carry out a placement of up to 6 months in a non-academic organisation based in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. This placement needs to take place at the end of their fellowship.

The Staff Exchanges action funds short-term international and inter-sectoral exchanges of staff members involved in research and innovation activities of participating organisations. The aim is to develop sustainable collaborative projects between different organisations from the academic and non-academic sectors (in particular SMEs), based in Europe and beyond.

Exchanged staff benefit from new knowledge, skills and career development perspectives, while participating organisations increase their research and innovation capacities. Staff Exchanges are open to international consortia of universities, research institutions, businesses, SMEs and other non-academic organisations. They need to include:

The COFUND action provides funding for regional, national and international programmes for training and career development, through co-funding mechanisms. It spreads the MSCA’s best practices by promoting high standards and excellent working conditions. COFUND promotes sustainable training and international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility.

A single legal entity in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country applies. Additional partners can be included in the project.

There are 2 types of COFUND:

The objective of the MSCA and Citizens action is to bring research and researchers closer to the public at large, with a focus notably on families, pupils and students. It does so through the organisation of the European Researchers’ Night, a research communication and promotion event taking place across EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries which aims to:

A good example of a national research mobility framework are the Hubert Curien Partnerships, which promote the mobility of scientists involved in bilateral research projects, are an important component of France’s program of scientific cooperation.

A French initiative coordinated within France by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation, the partnerships are financed by France and the foreign partner country. Schemes exist for 24 countries evenly spread around the world.

The funds allocated annually to partnerships in various countries make possible joint support for research at universities in France and the partner country, allowing researchers from universities in the two countries to collaborate.

All partner universities count with schemes for receiving incoming visiting professors and sending outgoing visiting professors to other universities. However, these are for the most part bespoke bilateral arrangements between two institutions or even at a department or laboratory level, and information is often decentralised, which makes the mapping of all these initiatives an impossible task. Most of these arrangements are little institutionalised and are usually paid for by a university’s own budget, even if different initiatives, like Erasmus+, MSCA, or Eucor, to name but a few, have tried to encourage this kind of mobility with extra funding. 

By way of example, the Polish National Agency for Academic Agency encourages incoming visiting professors to come to Polish universities through several programmes, the most reputed of which is the NAWA Chair. Similarly, in France, non-EU incoming visiting faculty’s salaries and expenses are covered by Campus France instead of individual universities.