In this new episode of The Grant Collaborations, produced in paid collaboration with Fundamentally Science, I sit down with Rita Gil Mata to talk about a challenge many universities and research support offices know all too well: how to prepare MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship applicants well enough in a context of exploding proposal numbers and falling success rates. Rita brings more than two decades of experience in European research funding support, and for her this programme is especially important because it touches researchers at a formative moment in their careers. Her starting point is both simple and urgent: Europe does not have a talent problem in MSCA PF — it has a preparation problem. Too many strong candidates, strong supervisors and committed institutions are all doing their best, but still working in fragmented and insufficient ways.

That is the motivation behind the MSCA Catalyst model Rita has built. Rather than offering only a one-off training or a last-minute review, the programme is designed as a structured response to the whole ecosystem around the application. It combines three connected parts: applicant training built around the actual template, supervisor mentoring to clarify roles and expectations, and expert proposal review for the strongest applications selected by the institution. The idea is not only to help applicants write better proposals, but to align applicants, supervisors and research managers in a preparation process that starts early, builds ownership and avoids the familiar late-stage panic. It is a practical answer to a structural problem and a call to European institutions to take MSCA preparation much more seriously if they want to protect talent and remain competitive in research.

Time codes:

01:32 Guest introduction and fly in