FAQs

UNA4CAREER is a multiannual fellowship programme lead by the UCM and co-funded by the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie action COFUND. Through UNA4CAREER, experienced researchers will be incorporated into one of the 94 Research Groups of Excellence in the UCM.

UNA4CAREER will leverage in Una Europa Alliance, that gathers together 8 universities from 8 different countries: Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom and Finland.

UNA4CAREER aims to support the career development and training of researchers in all scientific disciplines through international and intersectoral mobility. By funding excellent research and providing attractive working conditions, UNA4CAREER offers high-quality professional opportunities open to researchers of any nationality or discipline.

UNA4CAREER intends to cover almost all the thematic areas of knowledge. This means that the knowledge area is chosen freely by the applicants from among humanities, social sciences, experimental sciences and health.

The programme offers two calls, each of which is expected to finance 20 fellowships.

The fellowships awarded through the UNA4CAREER programme will have a maximum duration of 36 months. Technical proposals shall be drafted taking into account a duration of 36 months for the proposed projects.

The beneficiary will sign a full-time employment contract, stating exclusive dedication to the research project that has been included in their application. The initial duration of the fellowships will be 1 year, extendable annually, without the accumulated duration of the initial contract plus the extension being able to exceed three years.

The separate budget for fellowships is made up of two items.

Contracting cost. This amounts to 46,032 euros per year (monthly unit cost of 3,836 euros). Social security contributions paid by the employer and the applicant are included in the total cost of the fellowship.

Cost of research, training, travel and secondments. This is a monthly unit cost of 987 euros that will be used to cover expenses related to the activities inherent to the proposed research project, including those incurred from secondments (travel, accommodation, research expenses at destination).

The word cotización (contribution) refers to amounts of social security that workers and employers must pay to the State. General Social Security Law dictates that workers, the assimilated to them and the business owners for whom they work, in virtue of the principle of their responsibility for eventualities that may befall the individuals that render services for them, are obliged to make contributions to the general regime.

Further information on contribution bases and types of contribution of the general Social Security regime can be consulted on page 112 of these guidelines.

As soon as the evaluation process has been completed and a definitive list of beneficiaries is available, the UCM’s recruitment services will begin the process of recruiting the selected researchers.

The research project and the fellowship will start at the same time and this will be as soon as possible, taking into account the administrative procedures for recruitment.

No, is not possible. Beneficiaries will be fully dedicated to the activities that are the object of this call. In particular, they cannot be the beneficiary of two Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions at the same time.

Also, the fellowships will be incompatible with the validity of any other employment contract entered into by the contracted personnel.

You will find this information both in the Call document and in the Guide for Applicants. You can find them on the programme’s website.

Yes. All candidates who are experienced researcher with a PhD must have defended their thesis prior to the call deadline. However some of them who defended it shortly before the call deadline might not have their PhD diploma yet. In that case they should present an official document in which the date of the thesis defence must appear.

No, only one submission per applicant is allowed. In fact, if it is detected that the same researcher submits more than one proposal, her/his application is automatically eliminated from the evaluation process.

However, the same supervisor can appear in more than one proposal.

You can certainly apply. But if you are a beneficiary in both calls, you will have to give up one of them, since a MSCA beneficiary, you will be fully dedicated to the activities that are the object of this call. In particular, they cannot be the beneficiary of two Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions at the same time.

You do not have to, as not all the groups eligible to participate in these proposals are listed on our website. To see a complete list of excellent groups there are at the UCM, you can follow this link.

No. The UCM Research Groups that can participate in this call are those that have been awarded the “Excellente” label in the field of “Valoración Global Definitiva” according to the evaluation performed by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación.

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At UNA4CAREER web page applicants can find a list of UCM Research Groups with the label of “excellence”, who have shown their interest in hosting postdoctoral researchers through UNA4CAREER.

Be aware that not all groups eligible to participate in these proposals are listed on our website.

Organisations Hosting Secondments can be of any geographical origin. However, when evaluating proposals, in the case of organisations from the Non-Academic Sector, the actors involved should preferably come from the EU Member States, or H2020 Associated Countries, or the United Kingdom.

Yes, of course. If you know any entity that wants to participate with you in your project, we encourage you to invite them to do so. It is not necessary to restrict yourself to the entities that appear in our database.

Yes. Any academic or non-academic (industry, hospitals, NGOs, public bodies, libraries, museums, national archives, other entities) organization can participate hosting the applicant to do a secondment at their facilities.

Yes, your project can involve entities which are not hosting secondments. For example, you may need to make short visits at other institutions.

Yes, you can, but you will have to deal with these aspects in the sections of the proposal (template) designed for this purpose.

However, if you are selected for funding, prior to the start of the fellowships, the applications of the beneficiaries will be submitted to an ethical review by an Ethics Committee established for this purpose. This Committee will determine whether the projects of the beneficiaries contain any relevant ethical aspect that has not been adequately addressed. For each project, the Ethics Committee will issue a binding report including, if necessary, the changes to be carried out on the ethical aspects described in these projects, of which the beneficiaries will be notified. The beneficiaries will have a maximum period of one month from the date of notification of the report to carry out these changes and present them to the Ethics Committee for review and acceptance.

UNA4CAREER intends to cover almost all the thematic areas of knowledge. This means that the knowledge field is chosen freely by the applicants among humanities, social sciences, experimental sciences and health. In this regard, there are no restricted or priority areas.

You can propose any kind of research, from the most basic research to closer market/society research.

But you should be aware that your proposal will be evaluated by, among other things, the novelty of the proposed research, and the adequacy and quality of the interdisciplinary, international and intersectoral dimension of the research plan.

The design of your research project should be done according to your experience and CV, the background of the research group and taking into account the objectives and evaluation criteria of the call. You should rely on the tutor researcher to do this work.

During the implementation of the project the Beneficiary may be seconded outside the Research Group of Excellence at UCM to an Organisation Hosting Secondments.

The secondments planned in the applicants’ technical proposals should contribute to provide the funded projects with the intersectoral and/or interdisciplinary dimension required by the UNA4CAREER programme.

Any secondment must be declared in the corresponding table on the technical proposal template (page 2) and be clearly described and justified, where appropriate, in the relevant sections of this technical proposal template.

The minimum duration of a secondment will be 1 month, and the total cumulative duration of all planned secondments will be 6 months. A secondment may be divided into several periods of mobility which shall not be less than 1 month each.

Call opening: 3 June 2021

Application deadline: 29 July 2021

Evaluation and Selection: 1 September 2021 – March 2022

Results: May 2022

The application should be submitted by the applicant, not by the supervisor.

The application platform is available following this link: Online Application Platform

Yes, you can find the necessary information about the application process in the [Descarga no encontrada]

The number and type of documents you can submit is very varied. The following would be valid: work contracts, permits, rental contracts, residence certificates, etc.

Please note that each document you present must be an official document. And, if they are not in English, a copy of the original document must be provided and a translation into English must be attached.

If your PhD degree is not in English, a copy of the original document must be provided and a translation into English must be attached.

Yes, there are official templates. They are entitled Annex I and Annex IV and are part of the documents that you download when you enter the application platform.

No, all documents must be attached to the application made through the website created for this purpose.

After the deadline for submission of applications, a provisional list of successful and unsuccessful applicants shall be published. Excluded applicants will have a period of ten working days from the date following publication of the list to rectify the defect which led to their exclusion or failure to act.

The rectification will be formalized through the telematic application enabled for this purpose, attaching, if necessary, the necessary documentation for that.

It does not have to be included in the proposal, but it will be necessary to develop this plan together with the tutor researcher and present it after the resolution of the grant.

It does not have to be widely explained in the proposal, but it should be mentioned, and will be necessary to develop this plan together with the tutor researcher and present it after the resolution of the grant.

You can email us at una4career@ucm.es.

Evaluation of technical proposals: the technical proposals included in the applications will be sent to the appropriate panel according to the knowledge area selected by the applicant.

At the end of this process, a ranking list will be drawn up with the scores obtained by all the applicants, combining the priority lists of the four panels, from which the 40 applicants (if the total number of applicants exceeds this number) with the best scores will be subject to a personal interview.

Personal interviews: two members of the panel will participate in the interviews with the applicants. The chairman will be present to ensure compliance with the established evaluation procedures. The interviews will be conducted by videoconference.

After the interviews, each panel member will score the applicant separately on the basis of the established evaluation criteria, resulting in a duly justified quantitative evaluation together with the panel member’s comments. The resulting scores will be used to draw up a new priority list to be submitted to the Selection Committee.

The interviews will be conducted by videoconference.

You can check the status of your proposal by consulting the lists that will be published on the website of the European R&D Office of the UCM (https://oficinaeuropea.ucm.es/) and on the website of UNA4CAREER (https://www.una4career.eu).

The recruitment process will be guided by the UCM through the tutor researcher. In this process you will be asked to provide documentation to prove that you meet the eligibility requirements of the proposal. In addition, you may be asked to provide other documentation in order to comply with the legal requirements for recruitment.

Yes, for example: identification document, bank details, tax status, etc.

These will be the type of documents required for employment under Spanish labour law.

Except in cases of force majeure, the start of contracts cannot be postponed.

You can write to una4career@ucm.es explaining your situation.

You can contact with Estefania Martinez, who is the manager of the UNA4CAREER program. Her email is una4career@ucm.es.