Non-academic placement has an added value in MSCA PF applications since it “stimulates innovation and knowledge transfer while expanding career opportunities for researchers”. In the Feedback to Policy Report 2026 by the European Commission, it was presented that applications under the MSCA PF 2021–2024 calls had a higher-than-average success rate of around 20.1% compared to the calls’ average of 16.6%.

The placement gives researchers the opportunity to have an additional funded period of up to six months to carry out a placement at the end of their project in an organisation from any non-academic sector. A non-academic placement could be the private-for-profit sector, public administrations, or different sectors outside academia.

Non-academic placement must be an integral part of the proposal, explaining the added value for the project and for the career development of the researcher, and will be subject to evaluation. This incentive aims at promoting career moves between sectors and organisations and thereby stimulate innovation and knowledge transfer while expanding career opportunities for researchers.

MSCA Sweden is hosted by Alminica AB, an SME active in EU projects with business-driven expertise in knowledge transfer for impact, exploitation, and sustainability with practical and lasting value. Alminica AB also has a large network with innovative SMEs available for knowledge exchange. This makes Alminica AB a natural setting for stimulating innovation and knowledge transfer between research and industry.

The non-academic placement at Alminica AB integrates with your proposal through the topic: data-driven value creation for impact and exploitation towards business and sustainability.

In practice, this means evaluating which data and information your research generates, and how that data can be positioned to create value. That value can be developed into assets. These are concrete outcomes that stakeholders are willing to pay for, and answer the question that always will come: how will it make business? This is the realistic mechanism by which your research creates impact and exploitation beyond the lifetime of a project.

The placement adds value to your project by directly supporting its impact and exploitation objectives with a structured strategy that is tailored for your case. For your career development, it builds the capacity to present the usefulness of research in terms that matter outside academia — to industry, investors, and policy stakeholders. It will expand your career opportunities because you have realistic impact and exploitation pathways, which in addition align with the digital transition.

Alminica AB is founded by Dr. Mikael Syväjärvi, a serial entrepreneur in advanced materials research with 30 years of experience spanning national innovation programmes, EU projects from FP5 to Horizon Europe, and smart specialisation strategy — the European Commission’s framework for regional economic development through entrepreneurial discovery. He is one of the mentors in the EIC Business Acceleration Services, selected to support European Innovation Council innovators in advancing deep-tech research from lab to market.