The European Commision has published on 4th April 2008 a new call for proposal in the Framework Programme under the 'People' Specific Programme addressed to researchers at all stages of their careers, in both public and private sectors. Researchers are of at least postgraduate or equivalent level and are classified on the basis of professional experience with a budget of 185 Meuros.

The call is focused to support the further development and consolidation of the European Research Area, the People Specific Programme's overall strategic objective is to make Europe more attractive for the best researchers and it is implemented through “Marie Curie” actions under the following five headings:

• Initial training of researchers.
• Life-long training and career development (including Co-funding).
• Industry-academia pathways and partnerships.
• International dimension.
• Specific Policy actions.

The action will be implemented by supporting competitively selected networks of organisations from different countries engaged in research training. The networks will be built on a joint research training programme, responding to well identified training needs in defined scientific or technological areas, with appropriate references to interdisciplinary and newly emerging supra-disciplinary fields.

Proposals can be submiteed until next Tuesday, September 02, 2008 via the Electronic Proposal Submission Service (EPSS) which is an internet-based application providing a secure work space for a consortium to prepare and submit a proposal jointly.