MSCA-PF: LaTeX Template

Note

This is an unofficial template based on the templates provided by the MSCA-PF program (originally in the RTF format). Proposals based on this template have been successfully submitted in 2022 and 2024 (to my knowledge). Newer versions of this template are available and reporting any discrepancies is highly appreciated!

LaTeX class and template for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow grant applications.

• Details and original template is provided here (calls are updated each year).

• For the official editable version of the template, you must start the submission process. The template will then be available on the left-hand side in a section named "Download Part B templates".

• For a similar template for the Doctoral Network see msca-dn.

Usage

To use this template, you essentially just need 3 files: msca-pf.cls, msca-pf-part-b1-template.tex and msca-pf-part-b2-template.tex.

• The msca-pf.cls file contains the required formatting and some helpful options (described below).

• The other two files contain the actual sections and documentation text from the MSCA program. These could be renamed to whatever you prefer, e.g. project-acronym-b1.tex.

The two templates for Part B1 and B2 contain a lot of text used to describe what the various sections should contain. This should, of course, be deleted as well. However, the sections themselves (and some tables) should stay in the given format and location.

Finally, as the documents themselves mention at the start: when in doubt, always consult the official documentation!

Compilation

The resulting PDF files are included for easy viewing. The template is compatible with both PDFLaTeX and LuaLaTeX/XeLaTeX. It can be easily build with e.g. latexmk

latexmk -pdflua msca-pf-part-b1-template.tex
latexmk -pdflua msca-pf-part-b2-template.tex

Documentation

This packages provides the msca-pf class that is based on the KOMA-script scrartcl class and accepts any options meant for it. It can be used as

\documentclass[12pt,layoutgrid,draftproposal]{msca-pf}

% ... preamble ...

\begin{document}

% ... content ...

\end{document}

The class has two options meant for drafting:

• layoutgrid: overlays a grid on top of each page to check margins and other alignment issues.
• draftproposal: adds helpful drafting options, such as line numbers and a time stamp.

It also provides a few useful commands that can be used in the proposal. The following commands are mandatory:

• mscaidentifier: the call identifier, e.g. HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01. This should be set to the appropriate version by default.
• mscaproject: the acronym for the project.

Additionally, there are also some commands to help constructing the CV and other little tables in the submission:

• mscaorgoverview: an environment (wrapper around tabular) that defines the table template from Section 5.1 for participating organisations. This is a fixed 6 column table.
• mscaorgcapacity: an environment (wrapper around longtable) that defines the table template from Section 5.2 for participating organisations. This is a fixed 2 column table.
• cvitem: an environment to define a nicely aligned CV item.
• \cventry{dates}{name}{details}{location}: a generic entry in the CV. Use \cventryitem to get one already wrapped in the cvitem environment.
• \cvpub{date}{authors}{title}{journal}: a publication. Use \cvpubitem to get one already wrapped in the cvitem environment.
• \cvdetail{name}{description}: a additional description for an entry. This must be added in the same cvitem environment as the entry itself to use the same alignment.

A Gantt chart must also be provided in the proposal. There are some LaTeX packages, e.g. pgfgantt, that can be used to create such charts. However, you can also just use a third party application, export the chart as a PNG or PDF, and include it like that.

Fonts

The official MSCA guidelines require the Times New Roman font on Windows or macOS and the Nimbus Roman font on Linux. When using PDFLaTeX this package uses the newtx fonts. When using XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, we try to load the Times New Roman font and, if it is not available, the Nimbus Roman font.

If these do not work for you, you can load fonts yourself using e.g.

% on PDFLaTeX
\usepackage{newtxtext}
\usepackage{newtxmath}

% on XeLaTeX / LuaLaTeX
\setmainfont{Times New Roman}

License

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0).