Expressions of interest for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships

I invite expressions of interest to support at most one Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship application in my group at the University of Trento. The 2025 Marie-Curie call has not opened yet but, based on how it proceeded in previous years, it is likely to open in April 2025, close in mid September 2025, with final results expected to be announced in February 2026. The starting date for the position can then be as early as ~June 2026, or can be deferred to as late as ~January 2027. See https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/calls/msca-postdoctoral-fellowships-2024 for information regarding the last application. These should give you a rough idea of how the fellowship works, but there is no guarantee the next call will follow the same rules.

I invite expressions of interest for both the European and Global fellowship schemes.

• European Postdoctoral Fellowships: 24 month fellowships open to researchers of any nationality;
• Global Postdoctoral Fellowships: 36 month fellowships open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to carry out projects within a host outside the EU and Associated Countries (24 months for the outgoing phase and 12 months mandatory return phase in Europe). My group at the University of Trento can be chosen as the host for the return phase in Europe. Note that, to the best of my understanding and at the current state of things, host organizations in Switzerland and the UK cannot be chosen for the outgoing phase (which has to be genuinely “out of Europe”).

To comply with the Marie-Curie mobility rules, the candidate must not have resided or conducted their main research activity in Italy (for European Fellowships) or the country of the host for the outgoing phase (for Global Fellowships) for more than 12 months in the 36 months preceding the call deadline.

Research projects related to dark matter, dark energy, cosmological tensions, black hole physics, and more generally probing fundamental physics with cosmological, astrophysical, and terrestrial observations, are particularly welcome. As a previous winner of this Fellowship, and having supported various applications in the past, I am very familiar with the scheme, and will provide hands-on support to craft a proposal as strong as possible.

Expression of interest procedure

For logistic and practical reasons, and due to issues with earlier applications, I have decided to support at most one applicant, who:

• already possesses their PhD now;
• earned their PhD no more than 8 years by the time the call closes (i.e. after September 2017);
• does not currently hold a faculty position;
• satisfies the Marie-Curie mobility rules outlined above.

Note that the above criteria are more stringent than the standard Marie-Curie ones.

If you are interested in applying for a Marie-Curie Fellowship in my group, please submit the following material via AcademicJobsOnline at at the eDelivery link https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/edelivery/5197 by March 31, 2025.

• max. 1-page cover letter (see notes 1), 5) below). Please make sure your cover letter indicates the day you earned your PhD;
• curriculum vitae;
• list of publications;
• max. 1-page sketch of a possible research project (see note 3) below);
• 2 or more (up to 5) references letters.

The above material can be sent either in English or Italian, except for the research project sketch, which should be in English.

Important notes:

1) TheMarie-Curie fellowship is extremely competitive and the application involves a lot of work, not only on the applicant’s side but also on mine. For this reason, I will only support an applicant who, if selected, is seriously committed to applying for this fellowship (and won’t pull out before the call deadline). Given the notorious difficulty in attracting top candidates to Italy, to gauge the level of seriousness of the applicant, I ask you to explain in the cover letter why you are interested in coming to Italy for a postdoc even though most top applicants wouldn’t. I am particularly receptive towards personal (non-scientific) reasons, so if you do want to mention them in the cover letter I do invite you to do so.

2) If selected, I expect commitment in submitting the Fellowship application. Therefore, please send your expression of interest only if you are seriously interested in investing a significant amount of time in writing a strong proposal.

3) The concept of “two-way transfer of knowledge” is particularly important in the evaluation of Marie-Curie Fellowships. Therefore, your research project sketch should concisely indicate how the project would lead to two-way transfer of knowledge, i.e. what skills you would gain by working in my group, and what skills I would gain from having you in my group. To put it differently, the project should efficiently merge our research interests and skills, and not merely be a continuation of what either of us has been doing. It goes without saying that the project should be highly innovative (but feasible), and not just a run-of-the-mill project.

4) The above page limits are mandatory: the Marie-Curie Fellowship application has strict page and formatting requirements, so if you can’t follow the above limits you are unlikely to be able to follow the Marie-Curie ones!

5) In your cover letter, please indicate whether you plan to apply for an European or Global Fellowship. Note that the Global Fellowship is reportedly even more competitive. If you plan to apply for a Global Fellowship, please make sure your cover letter indicates at least 3 potential host institutions, with at least 1 potential supervisor per host institution.

The group

My group is embedded within the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology group at the University of Trento (https://sites.google.com/unitn.it/gravity-and-cosmology/home), a dynamic and rapidly growing group, with a wide range of interests including theoretical and observational cosmology, gravitation, black hole physics, and QFT in curved space-time. The group includes 3 faculty members, 2 regular visiting faculty members, 3 postdocs, 2 PhD students, and several Master’s students, offering lots of mentoring opportunities. The Marie-Curie Fellow would be encouraged to collaborate with other leading groups in Europe, Asia, and the USA, with whom I maintain close ties, while also developing their own ideas, and will have the opportunity to join INFN.

Salary

A Marie-Curie Fellowship in Italy typically pays about 4.000€ or more, which is extraordinarily good for Italian standards - you would be making more money than me, for 2 years at least!

The city

Trento is a charming, medium-sized medieval town located in the heart of the Italian Alps. The town regularly tops rankings for quality of life in Italy. It is surrounded by nature (mountains, lakes, woods,...), and the Trentino Alto-Adige region (https://www.visittrentino.info/en) is home to 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites, while also being a renown skiing site, and boasting a rich culinary and wine-making tradition. The city is well connected to the rest of Italy, as well as Central Europe, with e.g. Milan, Turin, Trieste, Ferrara, Bologna, Padova, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Innsbruck, and Munich all being within no more than a 4-hour train ride or drive. The University of Trento is a young, but highly dynamic and international University, and regularly tops the rankings for medium-sized Universities in Italy, especially within the physical sciences.

Further information

If you need further information, please contact me at sunny.vagnozzi@unitn.it (unless you’re a bot, of course). If you do, please use the subject line “Expressions of interest Marie Curie your_name your_surname”. Please do NOT send emails with application material or informal expressions of interest related to these positions (that’s what the AJO link is for!). Any personal reasons for being interested in this position should be explained in the cover letter, not by email to me.

I expect to make a final decision on whether and whom to support by April 10, 2025. Note that for logistic reasons I can support at most one applicant.