Persistence pays off

Claiming a prestigious fellowship at the fourth attempt

For Tomislav Stojanov, the road to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship was a rocky one. He won his fellowship in 2019 on the fourth attempt, only to have to postpone the start date three times due to Covid-19.

As the EU’s flagship mobility scheme for mid-career researchers, competition for MSCA Individual Fellowships is intense. The success rate for researchers moving within Europe was only 15 per cent in 2019, and Stojanov is one of only 29 researchers from Croatia to have made a successful bid since the country joined the EU in 2013.