MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF 2026)

Is the Hosting related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?: No

Contact Information

Organisation / Company Type: Higher Education Institution

Website: https://www.uspceu.com/en/research/presentation

https://ceucpc.eu/en/

Email: maigon@ceu.es

gabriela.garibaymarin@ceu.es

State/Province: Madrid

Postal Code: 28040

Street: Calle Isaac Peral N 58

Description

USP‑CEU is seeking excellent postdoctoral researchers interested in applying for the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA‑PF 2026). The University CEU holds the HR Excellence in Research (HRS4R) Award and is strongly committed to attracting and supporting international research talent.

USP‑CEU is a competitive and supportive host institution for MSCA‑PF candidates, with a strong track record including 10 awarded fellowships, an exceptional 100/100 score, and two recent successes in the MSCA‑PF 2025 call. We offer personalised guidance throughout the proposal preparation process, as well as our International Talent Retention Programme, which provides successful MSCA Fellows with an additional 6–12‑month contract to support long‑term career development.

Hosting Research Group

The Centre for Competition Policy and Market Regulation (Royal Institute of European Studies, Universidad CEU San Pablo, Madrid) is specialized in the analysis of Competition Law & Policy. It has an interdisciplinary nature. The Centre is a forum for analysis and debate on the use of Competition Policy as a tool in our societies, Competition Law enforcement and the intersection between Competition and Regulation (e.g. with Single Market Rules, sectoral regulation, data protection, consumer protection, trade, industrial policy, etc). It has more than 25 years of experience and it has been awarded the following National and European actions and Research Projects:

• 2 triannual research projects of the Spanish National Research Plan, on New trends on Cartels;
• a Jean Monnet Chair on Single Market and Competition Policy in the Digital and Ecological Transition Era;
• a Jean Monnet Network, leading a consortium of partners such as UCLondon, UCLouvain, EUI Florence, CUHK, CASS (Beijing) and Fudan (Shangai).
• a 4-years' research project of the Spanish National Research Plan, on Judges and Competition Law.
• Granted research projects and actions:
• "Judges and Competition Law", National Research Plan, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and National Competition Commission. 2021-2025.
• "New challenges in the fight against hard cartels." National Research Plan, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and National Competition Commission (2017-2019)
• "Horizontal agreements: the fight against hard cartels in Spain. Prevention, detection, evidence and sanction". National Research Plan, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and National Competition Commission. 2012-2014.

The Centre has close links with the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), the EU Commission (DG COMP) as well as with law firms and economic consultancy firms working in the field.

The supervisor, Prof. Maillo (Jeronimo Maillo Gonzalez-Orus) has been a member of the Board of the RADC (Spanish Academic Network for the Defense of Competition), a member of ASCOLA (Academic Society for Competition Law) and the AEDC (Spanish Professional Association for Competition Defense). He has also been appointed as an NGA in the Cartels and Mergers Working Groups of the International Competition Network (ICN) and in this role, he has cooperated and assisted the CNMC in some of its projects. The Centre has an agreement allowing some of its researchers to do an internship in the CNMC.

Publications:

• MAÍLLO, J. & ESCODA, D. (Dirs), Competencia y Regulación en Mercados Digitales (forthcoming, 2026).
• MAÍLLO, J. (Dir) (Hacia un nuevo Mercado Único Europeo. Más allá de los Informes Letta y Draghi (forthcoming, 2026).
• MAÍLLO, J & SÁNCHEZ, M, (2025), Retos y oportunidades para la competitividad europea: competencia, regulación y sostenibilidad medioambiental en Villar, M y Antón, A. (Dirs), Aspectos jurídicos de la tarificación en sectores estratégicos, Aranzadi-La Ley, 2025
• MAÍLLO, J. (2022), Cooperación empresarial 'verde' bajo el artículo 101 TFUE: un análisis de opciones, en Robles, A. y Zurimendi, A. (dirs.), Estudios de la RADC 2022, Aranzadi Thomson Reuters, pp.337-360.
• MAÍLLO, J.(2022), Competition Law Sanctions in Spain, in Toth, T. (ed), The Cambridge Handbook of Competition Law Sanctions, Cambridge University Press, 2022).
• MAÍLLO, J. and VERDEGUER, M. (2022). The Competition Law Global Governance Dilemma and the EU-China Relationship. Revista General de Derecho Europeo 56/2022.

Research Proposal:

The Project to be developed by the Postdoctoral Fellow should fit into one of these three lines of research:

• Competition Law and Digital Markets
• Competition Law and sustainibility.
• Intersection between Competition and Regulation or Competition and Industrial Policy

Within the first two lines, the candidate can work on the impact on cartels and other cooperation agreements, abuses of dominant positions, merger control or public restraints (mainly State aids).

The postdoc fellow may also work on the intersection between competition and regulation, particularly in fields related to the abovementioned first 2 lines of research: developments such as the Digital Market Act or the intersection between competition and data protection are very welcome. Indeed, our Law School holds a Google Chair (by Prof. José Luis Piñar Mañas, former president of the Spanish Data Protection Agency) and the Fellow may therefore benefit of the interaction between the Jean Monnet and the Google Chair, with their correspondent research teams. The impact of Artificial Intelligence and Big data in Competition Law cases is also a very interesting area of research. The CNMC created a new very innovative unit in this area and is devoting increasing resources to this topic.

As the Centre is a section of the Royal Institute for European Studies, a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, another area of interesting developments maybe the intersection between trade and competition (for instance the follow up of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation or the European Framework to control FDI), and the international dimension of competition policy and its global governance. The Institute has several ongoing research projects on the evolution of EU trade policy and the relations with other big global actors such as the US and China. We have good links with prestigious Chinese and US Institutions (Harvard, Fudan, CASS, CUHK) and other European partners which are working in this field (UCL, Louvain, EUI Florence). We have also recently received European funding for and EU-African Academic Network (CIDRA).

Two other aspect that may interest the candidates is the possibility of lecturing in both English and Spanish at graduate and postgraduate level in these research fields.

Candidate experience and profile:

Postdoctoral candidates of any nationality (max. 8 years after defense) who:

• Have a legal and/or economic specialisation in competition policy or the above-mentioned related aspects.
• Want to choose CEU San Pablo University (and the Centre for Competition Policy and Market Regulation) as host institution and therefore being based in Madrid
• Hold an excellent level of English. A good level of Spanish is a plus, but not indispensable.

Application

An expression of interest shall be sent to Prof. Maillo (maigon@ceu.es) and Gabriela Garibay (gabriela.garibaymarin@ceu.es). Your file should contain the following elements:

1. A short CV (Max. 2 pages).
2. Two letters of reference
3. A one-page research proposal
4. A short statement explaining why CEU would be the best host institution for your research

For MSCA-PF 26 call, at the deadline for the submission of proposals (09/09/2026) candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activities in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the above mentioned deadline.

Those files received before 15th of June will be considered for MSCA-PF 2026 call. Applications received after this date, will be considered for other calls after discussion with the candidate.

Keywords: Antitrust, Competition, Digital, Ecological Transition, Market Regulation, Trade