1) What is the actual goal of MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship?

Not only to finance an excellent experiment. The fellowship is to make you a long-term investment in European research: a researcher addressing a tangible challenge facing society with a tangible project, and emerging more autonomous, more networked, and more employable to various jobs within the EU research and innovation system.

2) What has to be crystal clear in the first page?

In the first few minutes, you have to persuade a reviewer to believe your proposal. The answer to that first page should already be:

-What is the real-life issue you solve and why it is important to Europe.

-Where existing solutions do not work.

-In a sentence or two, what is the core of what you want to say.

-The most important actions you will be doing to put it into real life.

When a weary panelist is able to repeat your project in 30 seconds after reading page one, you are properly set.

3) What should I do to present my project in such a way that the reviewers will not lose its direction?

Think “front-loaded clarity”. Each subsection is introduced with a line that summarizes the conclusion of the section (In this section we demonstrate that…). Do not use too long runs of writing and too long digressions. Anything not contributing to your three or four main messages must be eliminated even when it sounds brilliant.

4) What is it about the MSCA project that is game-changing and not merely technically nice?

Complexity itself is not a source of impressiveness to panels. A convincing MSCA PF project:

-Attacks a large-scale issue that is important beyond your niche (health, climate, digital, security, etc.).

-Offers a technically sound solution and a realistically implementable solution.

-Gives rise to something that others may really need: a protocol, a prototype, a tested model, a workflow.

The test is straightforward: how do we do something differently in five years only when the project works.

5) How do I demonstrate that I am really over the state of the art?

Begin with a brief, candid map of the state of the art: key strategies, their strengths, their weaknesses to your particular problem. Then make a very clear contrast: “Current methodology are doing A and B but fails when X; my project presents C, which involves the removal of X in a direct way by… One sentence should be highlighted by the reviewers that comprehend your novelty.

6) Detailed or not detailed methodology?

Go to idealism not to the laboratory. Name your systems, techniques and models; clarify the logic of your work plan and critical risks: demonstrate that you have the idea of what can go wrong, and how you would respond. You need not identify all the buffer compositions, but you must demonstrate that a plausible technical strategy supports each objective.

7) The importance of the host institution and secondments choice?

Crucial. MSCA concerns bi- directional knowledge transfer. You must show:

-What you will learn at the host that you cannot readily learn elsewhere(new field, techniques, sector, network).

-What knowledge do you get that only makes the host stronger?

-Secondments (particularly in industry or some other sector) assist in establishing that your project is not isolated but is a part of a larger ecosystem.

8) What is the definition of impact in an MSCA PF, as more than a buzzword?

-Impact has two equally significant aspects:

-Impact on society/Europe: the role of your findings in EU priorities (e.g., better health, green transitions, digital resilience, strategic autonomy).

-Influence on your career: in what way the fellowship will bring you a definite realistic opportunity (independent PI, lead in R&D, deep-tech entrepreneur, etc.).

They both need particulars rather than generalities. “I will be a better scientist”.

9) How can Microfluidics Innovation Center (MIC) be incorporated in my MSCA PF?

In the case of your idea microfluidics, lab-on-chip, organ-on-chip, advanced flow chemistry or high-throughput screening, MIC can either be host or an academic secondment partner. You gain access to engineers who design actual instruments, not merely chips, as well as a team accustomed to turning ideas on paper into prototypes in European projects. Such a mix is likely to appease feasibility and long-term effects panels.

10) Got any last, extremely useful advice before I get down to writing?

Yes:

-Adhere to the official template to the letter; all the bullets in the instructions must be answered somewhere distinctly.

-Adhere to page limits; additional pages are neglected.

-Write to some expert in a related discipline, and not to the three individuals on the planet who are familiar with your method, just as much as you are.

-Have at least one person not in your niche read your opening page and tell you in their own language what your project is all about and why. In case of difficulty, make corrections to the text and keep on adding details.