Dr. Mostafa Moonir Shawrav

Executive Director, Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA)

Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA)

Wien, Austria

27 profile visitsMCAA Chapter

My organisation

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Wien, Austria

The Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) is a global network of researchers, who have benefited from or are benefitting from the Marie (Sklodowska) Curie Actions. MCAA supports, and contributes to, the advancement of knowledge for a global, diverse, and informed society. MCAA enhances the flow of knowledge across different countries, sectors of the economy, and scientific disciplines. By encouraging networking, cooperation, and mutual understanding among MCAA members and external stakeholders, MCAA serves as a forum of debate between researchers and society. The key focus of MCAA is to promote career development, offer networking and science policy. Since the establishment in 2014, MCAA has contributed in shaping the future science policy in Europe, providing different career development opportunities and supporting the wider research community on topics affecting research and researchers' lives. Currently, MCAA has over 22,000 members from 150+ countries. MCAA has 37 geographical chapters and 11 thematic working groups. In addition, MCAA is well established in the EU research policy landscape. MCAA member is part of ERA Forum, Coalition for Advancement of Research Assessment (CoARA) and chaired the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance. MCAA is also a member of the International Science Council (ISC), the Initiatives for Science in Europe (ISE). MCAA is also committed to several ERA Actions, such as ERA Actions 3 - Research Assessment, ERA Action 4 - Promote attractive research careers, ERA Action 9 - Promote a positive environment and level playing field for international cooperation based on reciprocity ERA Action 14 - Bring science closer to citizens, ERA Action 16 - Improve EU-wide access to excellence, ERA Action 17 - Enhance the strategic capacity of Europe’s public research performing organisation Enhance public research institutions' strategic capacity, ERA Action 19 - Establish an efficient and effective ERA monitoring mechanism

About me

Mostafa has over 15 years of experience in research, innovation, and policy across academia, industry, and nonprofit sectors in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Currently, he serves as the Executive Director of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), where he leads the MCAA Secretariat, comprising over 16 staff members, and drives policy, advocacy, and researcher career development.

Through the organisation of the MCAA Policy Forum—where the MSCA Impact Report was officially launched—Mostafa drives high-level advocacy efforts with Members of the European Parliament, members of the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission. He serves on the European Research Area (ERA) Forum, where he is the main representative for the ERA Actions on Research Assessment and Knowledge Valorisation, and the secondary representative for Research Careers (representing individual researchers under Stakeholder Group 4). He is also an expert for the European Commission's Foresight on Demand (FoD) on Researcher Careers and served as an Independent Expert for the European Commission's Mutual Learning Exercise (MLE) on Knowledge Valorisation. His leadership record also includes former roles as Co-Chair of the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance and Chair of the MCAA.

Over the past eight years, Mostafa has shaped major European policy initiatives, including the publication of the MSCA Supervision Guidelines in 2021 and its revised 2025 edition. He has actively engaged in stakeholder consultations, led high-level policy debates, and served as the researcher mobility expert for the “Knowledge Ecosystem in the new ERA” study. Additionally, he was a member of the EU Science Diplomacy Steering Team, which coordinated the Report on a European Framework for Science Diplomacy. He has contributed to major European projects, including SECURE, SECURE2, European Citizen Science (ECS), and CoARA-Boost. Expanding his organisational commitments, he co-leads Working Group 2 for the COST Cross-Cutting Activity (CCA) on Career Development, having established and maintained over 70 cross-sector collaborations across Europe.

His engagement on global platforms includes the Global Research Council, World Science Forum, International Science Council, European Open Science Forum, American Association for Advancement of Science, Science Europe, Science Business, EuroScience Policy Forum, and Vitae Conference. He has contributed his expertise in sustainable research careers, science policy & diplomacy, and career planning for researchers at over 100 events, including those hosted by nine different presidencies of the Council of the European Union.

Social media

Skills

science policy
science diplomacy
Nanotechnology
ERA
career development

Interests

Research Assessment
science diplomacy