Talk Academia

Hi all,
I am writing to ask you whether any of you have problem with their host institution regarding the salary? In my case my host professor told me that our human resources dept. is not very happy that MC salary is higher than other people at a similar level and apparently they are creating some trouble. Again, my host said it will be solved, but just in case: what are my exact rights and at what stage should I file a complaint to the EC? As far as I know EC is quite strict that the salary dictated by the EU should be paid to the fellow not the salary decided by the host institution, right? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

That's correct - the MSCA salary is calculated by the European Commission, based on a fixed base salary and country coefficient grid. This protects individual researchers from the precarity of academics under contemporary market societies. My suggestion would be to tell the HR department to raise everyone else's salary to a reasonable level, rather than fighting to lower yours, which they are getting for free, based on your own work, from the European Commission. Although I do hope that you find a more political and less confrontational solution

A follow-up message:

Apparently the reason is that I already have ~4 years of postdoc experience before the start of the fellowship. Together with the time in my PhD, this already puts my pre-MC salary to something above a standard MC salary. The problem is solved thanks to my host - he and the chair pushed the project office so that some of the research budget is now added to my salary to bring it to its previous level.

This is a nice solution; they paid you correctly! Happy times!!