2026 marks the 30th anniversary of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the European Union's flagship programme for doctoral education and postdoctoral training. Built around the principles of mobility and openness, the programme gives researchers the freedom to propose their own research topics, rather than working within predefined themes, while supporting international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral experience. 

Since its launch in 1996, the programme has grown from a small fellowship scheme supporting a few hundred researchers per year into a comprehensive initiative backing around 8,000 researchers annually across doctoral programmes, postdoctoral fellowships and staff exchanges. Over three decades, the MSCA has supported more than 150,000 researchers at all career stages and across all disciplines, including 23 Nobel Prize laureates which have been involved as fellows, supervisors or project coordinators. Today, companies, including a growing number of SMEs, account for nearly 50% of participating organisations, women represent close to 45% of supported researchers, and around 40% of participants come from outside the EU. 

To mark the anniversary, a series of commemorative activities have been launched. Among them is an interactive digital map inspired by radium, the element discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie, alongside her husband Pierre Curie and chemist Gustave Bémont. Radium, which carries the atomic number 88 and is over one million times more radioactive than uranium, provides the conceptual framework for the map: each "dot" represents one of 88 highlights from 30 years of the programme. 

The celebrations also include a video interview with Professor Hélène Langevin-Joliot, granddaughter of Marie Skłodowska-Curie. In the interview, she reflects on her family's legacy and emphasises the importance of supporting young researchers, fostering scientific collaboration and promoting women in research, values that have shaped the MSCA since its inception. 

Discover the full list of activities marking the 30th anniversary taking place across Europe and beyond here.