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I recently applied for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship using the global route, planning to spend two years with an existing collaborator in Korea and then a year with a home supervisor in the UK. Unfortunately, I'm starting to find the Korean supervisor difficult to work with, and as unlikely as it is that we will get funded, I'm really dreading the possibility of having to work with her for another two years.

Has anyone here had experience with the MSCA global scheme and know if it's possible to change the outbound host after funding is awarded? I know all the funding and agreements are with the home university (which I'm not looking to change), but I also know that MSCA postdoc fellowships aren't intended to be portable and that the choice of supervisor and country has to be justified quite strongly in the application.

I'd be really grateful for any advice anyone has - I'm getting myself very worried here. Thanks in advance!

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  • What is an "outbound host"? If you are asking about finding another supervisor in the same host institution, this may be a duplicate of How difficult is it to change supervisor during a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship?
    – cag51 ♦
    Commented Oct 23 at 3:50
  • @cag51 , in the global version of the MSCA fellowship, the fellow spends up to two years on an 'outbound phase' outside the EU and then a then a 'return' year at a university inside the EU. All the funding is given to the return university, who employ the fellow throughout the project, wherever they are physically working. The fellow would normally have a visiting appointment at the outbound host.. To clarify, I'm looking at the possibility of changing the outbound host(supervisor definitely, university/country possibly), but not the return university (where the money/agreements are).
    – JPB515
    Commented Oct 24 at 10:29

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Only the funding agency can give you the definite answer. My suggestion would be to not worry about it for now (there is nothing you can do, and even talking about it alienates potential collaborators). If you do get the award, talk to the program manager to figure things out; if you don't get the award, everyone remains among your friends and you haven't burned any bridges.

That said, take this as a learning opportunity: If you write a proposal in which you promise something, you actually have to deliver. Grants are not free pots of money -- you also have to follow through with what you proposed. Finding out that you can't work with someone after you wrote a proposal in which you promise to work with them is not a good time. You should have known about this before.

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    I suspect the OP fully agrees that this is not a good time, and wishes they had realised sooner. But that isn't a luxury that we always have.
    – Flyto
    Commented Oct 23 at 7:12
  • @Flyto, very much this. I had been working with this person on another project for ~8 months before we submitted the application (including spending a few weeks on site in her lab) and thought it was a really good fit. Unfortunatley as that project has progressed and we've got to know each other better, things have gone downhill very fast...
    – JPB515
    Commented Oct 24 at 10:22

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