Marie Curie individual fellowship applications can be offered as a Job?

What if “Nature Jobs” or “Euraxess” would publish this Job offer from an academic institution: “Hey, I need help moving to my new apartment! Well, I don’t have the apartment yet… but if you could find the apartment and rent the moving truck… that would be great. And.. by the way, you should be really qualified, interested, and with at least 3 references“.

Apparently this is happening with “Marie Curie Individual Fellowships“, and it’s a higly diffused habit. Just go on Nature Jobs and search marie curie, you will see what I mean.

Marie Curie fellowships (IF) are European actions which aim to promote innovation and research in different research fields. The IF support individual researchers at postdoctoral level and beyond to work on a research project OF THEIR OWN DESIGN.

The individual researcher has to take contact with the hosting institution and together with the supervisor decide the best strategy to write the proposal. In the creative process of a new project, it’s of course difficult to establish the paternity of ideas, as they naturally come from the positive interactions between people.

In this case, research groups looking for funding are saying: “Hey We Already have the Project! We just need to select the right candidate“.

Am I wrong in saying: “This is against the European Commision ideas behind IF-Marie Curie“?

The contact between the individual researcher and the hosting group needs to run on different channels, like: dedicated websites, common research interests, conferences and so on.

“Nature Jobs” and “Jobs Euraxess” cannot publish these offers like “Job Offers“, because they are indeed “Collaboration Request”

A research institute should be able to attract scientists to apply for this kind of funding and not offer “Jobs“, which are not yet there.