COFUND

In a COFUND action the EU does not fund projects. It co-finances somebody else's funding programme (a doctoral programme, a fellowship scheme, a regional or national research call) so that the programme can be larger or more international than its owner could afford alone.

The applicant is therefore the organisation that RUNS a programme: a university with a doctoral school, a research council, a ministry, a foundation. It designs the scheme, runs its own open and transparent selection, and takes responsibility for the researchers it recruits. The EU contributes a fixed amount per recruited researcher or per project funded.

For an individual researcher or a company this is invisible infrastructure. You never apply to COFUND; you apply to the doctoral programme or the national call it stands behind, usually without noticing the European money underneath.

The obligations that come with the co-funding are the point. Selection must be open, transparent, merit-based, impartial and international, which is a real constraint on programmes accustomed to recruiting from their own graduates. Employment conditions, supervision and training must meet European standards.

For an organisation, the attraction is leverage and durability. COFUND turns an existing scheme into a larger one, brings international applicants to it, and leaves behind a recruitment practice that survives after the EU money ends. It is a slow instrument and an institutional one, not something to attempt without a programme already in place.