The Marie Curie Fellowship Association (MCFA) is the non-profit Association of scientists who, following a stringent selection procedure based on the strengths of the candidate, the project, and the site of work were awarded a Marie Curie fellowship or other European Community research training grant. To date there are approximately 2700 members of the association, 80% of which are past grant holders. Nearly 70% held a postdoc grant, while 25% performed their doctoral studies as Marie Curie fellows. Our members are from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including Agriculture, Chemistry, Earth sciences, Economics, Social and Human Sciences, Engineering, Environment and Geosciences, Life sciences, Computing and IT, Telecommunications, Mathematics, and Physics. 92.5% of our members live in a European Union country, 3.3% live in states associated with the European Union, 2.8% in North America, and a further 0.4% on the Pacific rim. This diversity in discipline and geographic location represents our greatest strength, illustrating the MCFA as a pan-European cross cultural organisation, with global links, which is well placed to address the needs of all aspects of society. A Marie Curie fellowship is a grant within a harmonized scheme under one of the European research, training, and development framework programmes to stimulate the training and mobility of researchers in the European Community. The Association was launched at an inaugural seminar in Brussels in October 1996. This seminar was organized under the auspices of the European Commission. During its first three years the Association received a generous grant from the European Commission. Today the association is independent from the European Commission but there are still tight links between the Association representatives and the European Commission. Since the very first days of the Association the Marie Curie Fellowships Unit at the Direction Generale XII of the European Commission supported the Association with advice and logistical help. MCFA members contribute to debates on science policy within the European Research Area, at the behest of policy committees or the European Commissioner for research himself. All activities of the MCFA are co-ordinated at international level. The daily affairs of the Association lie in the hands of the Administrative Board, which is elected by the members of the Association at the Annual General Meeting. The MCFA is organised in committees, working, and national groups. The association actively participates in science and science policy related discussions at meetings and in the form of publications. It organises meetings at international, national and local level like scientific workshops or science policy related conferences (see for instance http://euconfe.web.cern.ch/eu-confe/ or http://www.mariecurie.org/swap). The association aims at developing steady contacts with other European scientific and science policy organisations. In collaboration with these organisations we transmit the opinions and ideas of mobile high level researchers and facilitate a cross cultural exchange of ideas following their experiences during their stay in different European countries. This permits us to represent and support members who are presently following a Marie Curie programme, and also to facilitate a close collaboration between academia and industry, permitting the free flow of ideas and skills. We publish our own work through the MCFA Annals, and regularly publish a newsletter to keep our members informed of events and information both in and around the MCFA. The MCFA gives regular advice to Marie Curie fellows via international and national mailing lists and through individual contacts. For its extensive work in international collaboration, UNESCO awarded the MCFA the Niels Bohr Medal.
For more information on the MCFA, you are kindly invited to visit our website http://www.mariecurie.org