I have applied for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship and, despite receiving a grade of 90%, did not receive it. Although nothing is mentioned in the application, it turns out something called a "seal of excellence" (SoE) exists and is given to people with scores higher than 85%. They claim this seal could be used to acquire funding from other sources.
Unfortunately, except for some hand-wavy stuff about a medical school in the Netherlands and some universities in Germany, there is not a lot of information about what one could achieve with these seals. I have heard from friends that in Italy, more specifically Padova, the university itself can offer to cover your research if you are awarded a SoE.
My question is specifically about France, since I could not find much on the subject: Is it of any use here, and especially in the Île-de-France region?
