“ITN” — Innovative Training Network — is the Horizon 2020-era name for the European Commission’s flagship doctoral-training funding scheme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). Under the current programme, Horizon Europe (2021–2027), the scheme has been renamed MSCA Doctoral Networks (DN). The underlying mechanism — multi-institutional consortia across countries, jointly training doctoral candidates through structured programmes, secondments, and shared supervision — is a direct continuation of the ITN model, and “ITN” remains the term most people search for and many research offices still use informally. This guide uses “ITN / Doctoral Networks” to cover both the legacy and current naming, and is precise about which rules apply to the live Horizon Europe scheme versus the discontinued Horizon 2020 one.
What an ITN / MSCA Doctoral Network actually is
An MSCA Doctoral Network is not a grant to a single university for a single PhD position. It is a grant to a consortium — a partnership of independent organisations, in different countries, that jointly design and deliver a structured doctoral training programme for a cohort of doctoral candidates recruited specifically for the project. The European Commission’s own framing is that Doctoral Networks exist to “implement doctoral programmes by partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe and beyond to train highly skilled doctoral candidates, stimulate their creativity, enhance their innovation capacities and boost their employability in the long-term.”
Three sub-types exist within Doctoral Networks, corresponding to the three separate Horizon 2020 ITN variants that were consolidated into one action for Horizon Europe:
- Standard Doctoral Networks — the general multi-sector, multi-country training partnership (the direct successor to Horizon 2020’s “European Training Networks”).
- Industrial Doctorates — doctoral candidates split their time between an academic and a non-academic (typically industry) beneficiary, with joint supervision, preparing candidates specifically for careers outside academia.
- Joint Doctorates — a highly integrated model in which partner institutions deliver a single joint doctoral programme leading to a joint, double, or multiple doctoral degree, with joint supervision and admission committees.
A project can run up to four years (five years for Joint Doctorates), though each individual doctoral candidate’s own funded contract within the network is shorter — typically 3 to 36 months (up to 48 months for Joint Doctorates), since a network recruits and trains multiple candidates on staggered timelines, not one candidate for the full project duration.
The consortium requirement
This is the structural feature that most distinguishes an ITN/DN from ordinary doctoral funding. A Doctoral Network requires at least three independent legal entities, each established in a different EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, with at least one established in an EU Member State. Additional partner organisations from anywhere in the world may join beyond that minimum. Consortia routinely draw on universities, research institutions and infrastructures, companies (including SMEs), and other socio-economic actors — the requirement is deliberately intersectoral as well as international, not just academic partners in different countries.
Every beneficiary organisation in the consortium is expected to recruit and supervise at least one doctoral candidate; the network as a whole then delivers shared training activities (schools, workshops, joint courses) that no single institution could offer alone, plus the secondments described below. This is what makes a DN a genuine joint programme rather than a funding pool split across unrelated national projects — the training design, supervision responsibilities, and candidate mobility are built around the partnership from the proposal stage, governed by a consortium agreement alongside the Horizon Europe Grant Agreement itself and coordinated by a single lead organisation acting as grant coordinator.
Who qualifies as a doctoral candidate
Horizon 2020’s ITN scheme used the term “Early-Stage Researcher” (ESR), defined by two conditions: not yet holding a doctoral degree, and being within the first four years (full-time equivalent) of a research career, measured from the degree that entitled the person to embark on a doctorate. Horizon Europe has dropped the “Early-Stage Researcher” label and, with it, the four-year research-experience cap. Per the European Commission’s own MSCA Doctoral Networks application guidance, the eligibility condition for a doctoral candidate is now simply that the person must not have a doctoral degree at the date of their recruitment, and must be enrolled (or become enrolled) in a doctoral programme with one of the participating organisations. In practice this means candidates who took a career break, worked outside research, or otherwise fall outside a strict four-year post-degree window — who would have been ineligible under the old ITN rule — can now be recruited into a Doctoral Network, provided they have not already been awarded a PhD.
The mobility rule, by contrast, carries over largely unchanged from the ITN era and remains one of the defining eligibility conditions of MSCA generally: a candidate must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, study, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date. This is assessed cumulatively, not as a single continuous stay — short trips such as holidays or conference visits don’t count against it — and it is what actually operationalises the “transnational” part of transnational doctoral training: the rule exists specifically to ensure MSCA funding trains researchers who move across borders, rather than funding a country’s own graduates to do a PhD at home.
What the funding actually covers
MSCA Doctoral Networks are funded through fixed unit costs calculated per recruited researcher-month, not a single negotiated stipend set by the host institution. The European Commission’s own description is that the MSCA contribution covers: the salary costs of the doctoral candidate; research, training and networking costs; and the overall management of the project. Concretely, that breaks into:
- Living allowance — a monthly gross unit cost that is then adjusted by a country correction coefficient specific to the country where the recruiting organisation is based, before national tax and social-security deductions are applied. For 2025 Doctoral Networks calls, institutional EU-funding offices have published this base figure as approximately €4,010/month before country correction — verify the exact figure for the call year in question against the live MSCA Work Programme, as this unit cost is revised for each annual call.
- Mobility allowance — a fixed monthly top-up (reported at roughly €710/month for 2025 calls) paid to every recruited researcher regardless of family status, intended to offset the practical costs of relocating.
- Family allowance — an additional fixed monthly amount (reported at roughly €660/month for 2025 calls) paid only where the researcher has family obligations as defined by the MSCA Work Programme (e.g., a spouse/partner and/or dependent children), on top of the living and mobility allowances.
- Research, training and networking costs — a separate institutional unit cost, paid to the recruiting beneficiary per researcher-month, that funds the actual training activities: courses, schools, conference attendance, research consumables, and the network’s joint training events.
- Management and indirect costs — a further institutional unit cost covering the coordinator’s and each beneficiary’s project administration, distinct from and in addition to the training-cost line above.
Because these are unit costs rather than actual-cost reimbursement, the doctoral candidate’s take-home pay is not set by departmental pay scales the way a typical university studentship stipend is — it is a Commission-defined EU-wide rate, adjusted only by the country correction coefficient of the specific host country, which is why the same MSCA doctoral role can carry a visibly different net stipend depending on which consortium partner recruits the candidate.
Secondments and the structured-training obligation
A Doctoral Network is not simply “do your PhD, but the grant happens to have foreign partners.” Structured secondments to other participating organisations — often crossing both a country border and a sector border, e.g. a university-based candidate spending months at an industry partner — are a defined part of the training design, not an optional extra. Standard Doctoral Networks allow secondments for up to half the duration of a candidate’s research training activities; Industrial Doctorates and Joint Doctorates, which already build in extended time at a second organisation by design, aren’t bound by that same cap. Every recruited candidate must also have a documented career development plan, agreed jointly with their supervisor(s), covering training and career needs — teaching, publication planning, conference participation, transferable skills — beyond the research itself.
How an ITN / MSCA Doctoral Network differs from a standard national doctoral studentship
| Dimension | MSCA Doctoral Network (ITN) | Typical national doctoral studentship |
|---|---|---|
| Awarding structure | Grant to a multi-country, multi-sector consortium (3+ independent legal entities, 3+ countries) | Funding to a single university department or a single national funding council award to one supervisor |
| Mobility | A binding eligibility condition — candidate cannot have lived/worked >12 of the last 36 months in the host country | No mobility requirement; typically favours or requires local/national candidates depending on the funder |
| Supervision | Joint/shared supervision across partner organisations, often spanning academic and non-academic sectors | Usually a single primary supervisor at one institution |
| Secondments | Structured placements at partner organisations built into the training plan | Not typically a defined requirement |
| Stipend | Fixed EU unit costs (living, mobility, family allowances), adjusted by a country correction coefficient | Institution- or funder-set stipend, often following a national research-council pay scale |
| Nationality/eligibility | Open to candidates of any nationality who satisfy the mobility rule — deliberately international by design | Often prioritises or restricts by residency/citizenship depending on the national funder |
| Selection | Competitive at the level of the whole EU-wide call; consortium recruits into pre-defined doctoral positions tied to the funded project | Institution-level or departmental recruitment, timing set locally |
The practical implication for a research administrator advising a prospective candidate or a PI assembling a proposal: an MSCA Doctoral Network position is a genuinely different administrative object from a standard PhD studentship, not just a better-funded version of one. Eligibility has to be checked against the mobility rule specifically (a strong local candidate can be ineligible purely on residency history), the position sits inside a consortium-wide Horizon Europe Grant Agreement and consortium agreement rather than a standalone studentship contract, and the work package structure of the underlying Horizon Europe project governs the training and secondment schedule the candidate is committed to.
Where ITN/Doctoral Networks sit within MSCA
Doctoral Networks are one of several MSCA actions under Horizon Europe, and it’s worth distinguishing DN from its siblings, since all four legacy Horizon 2020 action names were renamed in the same 2021 restructuring:
- Doctoral Networks (DN) — this scheme; successor to Horizon 2020 Innovative Training Networks (ITN).
- Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) — successor to Horizon 2020 Individual Fellowships (IF); for researchers who already hold a doctoral degree.
- Staff Exchanges (SE) — successor to Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE); short-term staff secondments between organisations, not a doctoral-training scheme.
- COFUND — co-funds existing national, regional, or international doctoral or fellowship programmes rather than creating a new consortium-run programme from scratch.
A candidate researching “ITN” funding as a prospective PhD applicant should specifically be looking at open MSCA Doctoral Networks calls, coordinated through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and administered by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) — not the individual-researcher Postdoctoral Fellowships, which have a different eligibility profile entirely (a doctoral degree already in hand).
Frequently asked questions
Is “ITN” still the correct name to search for?
Officially, no — the European Commission renamed the scheme MSCA Doctoral Networks (DN) for Horizon Europe (2021–2027). “ITN” was the Horizon 2020 (2014–2020) name and is now a discontinued action, but the term persists heavily in search behaviour, informal usage, and even some institutional documentation, because the underlying model (consortium-based, mobility-driven doctoral training) is essentially the same programme under a new name.
Can non-EU nationals apply for a Doctoral Network position?
Yes. MSCA Doctoral Networks are open to researchers of any nationality worldwide; the binding eligibility condition is the mobility rule (residence/main-activity history relative to the recruiting country), not citizenship.
Does a Doctoral Network candidate need a Master’s degree first?
Candidates need whatever degree entitles them to enrol in a doctoral programme in the relevant country and institution — in most European systems a Master’s degree, though entry routes vary by country and institution. The MSCA-specific condition on top of normal doctoral-admission requirements is simply not already holding a doctoral degree at the date of recruitment.
Who actually employs the doctoral candidate — the EU or the university?
The recruiting beneficiary organisation (a university, research institute, or company within the consortium) employs the candidate under a standard employment contract or equivalent, using the unit-cost funding it receives from the Horizon Europe grant to cover the salary, mobility, and (where applicable) family allowance components described above. The European Commission funds the consortium; the consortium’s member organisations are the actual employers.
How is an Industrial Doctorate different from a standard Doctoral Network position?
In an Industrial Doctorate, the candidate is jointly supervised by an academic and a non-academic (typically industry) partner and spends at least half their time outside the academic sector by design — the secondment cap that applies to standard Doctoral Networks doesn’t apply here, since substantial non-academic time is the point of the sub-type, not an exception to it.
Further reading on CASRAI
For the legal instrument that governs an MSCA Doctoral Network project once awarded, see Grant Agreement (Horizon Europe), consortium agreement, coordinator, beneficiary (Horizon Europe), work package (Horizon Europe), and lump-sum grant (Horizon Europe). For the broader landscape of grants administration this scheme sits within, see the Grants Management pillar page.
