Introduction
UNA4CAREER is a postdoctoral Fellowship Programme funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Programme at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain, that aims at mobilizing 7,4 M€ in the Region, through a multiannual fellowship programme of 60 months duration, that will attract 40 experienced researchers in two international calls.
Beneficiaries will join one the 92 excellence groups of the UCM that cover almost all the thematic fields of knowledge, since will gear around 4 knowledge areas with clear interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach: Humanities, Social Sciences, Experimental Sciences and Health.
UNA4CAREER leverages on Una Europa Alliance inspired by, and contributing to, EC European Universities Initiative: UCM plus seven top universities from Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, UK and Finland, that will act as Organisations Hosting Secondments.
Specific objectives
UNA4CAREER focuses on excellence as its main mission, both in the research that postdoctoral researchers will carry out and in training, reinforcing specific learning as well as transversal competences. This idea is specified in the following objectives:
Expand the skills of the postdoctoral researchers in order to improve their employability in academic and non-academic sector.
Give the fellows an interdisciplinary, international and intersectoral experience, to create new minds sets and approaches to research and innovation.
Encouraging researchers to pursue a career with a truly European dimension, also including promotion of entrepreneurial skills and support to creation of spin-off, as part of the complementary training which brings together over 50 specific courses.
To reach these objectives each applicant will design an individual research project covering an interdisciplinary dimension, which includes almost all fields of knowledge.
Each applicant will have the opportunity to put into practice complementary approaches within specific secondments in academic and non-academic sector through the huge network of eight European universities belonging to Una Europa Alliance. This will further stimulate synergistic interaction between the projects, allowing the generation of innovative results that otherwise could not be achieved.
The wide range of training in specific research skills and transversal skills will help researcehrs become facilitators of the transformation of scientific innovation into products with social and economic value.
