THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI

Their core work

The University of Mississippi is a US public research university that hosts European Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows and partners on international research staff exchanges. Its H2020 footprint is spread across very different academic departments — theoretical physics, linguistics and cognitive science, and regional history and sociology — reflecting a broad research faculty rather than a single specialization. For European partners, the university functions mainly as a US host institution for individual researchers seconded or trained under MSCA schemes. Its signature domestic strength, visible in its most recent H2020 work, is scholarship on the U.S. South, race, and rural society.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

The early period (2016-2017) shows two unrelated science fellowships — theoretical physics in StronGrHEP and clinical linguistics in LINGUISTIC ILLUSIONS — with no thematic link between them. By 2021, the focus shifts sharply into the humanities with RACELAND, covering racial segregation, rural studies and U.S. Southern history. The direction of travel is clear: from scattered STEM hosting toward the social-science topics where Mississippi has a distinctive regional profile.

European collaborations are tilting toward Mississippi's home-turf expertise in Southern regional studies and race scholarship, which is where future humanities consortia are most likely to find a strong fit.

How they like to work

The university never leads an H2020 project — it appears only as a third-party partner or host institution in Marie Curie schemes. Its network is small (nine unique partners across eight countries) and each project brings different collaborators, so it behaves as an occasional host rather than a repeat member of any fixed consortium. Partners should expect to work with a specific faculty member and department, not an institutional EU office.

Nine unique consortium partners spread across eight countries, with no visible repeat collaborations. The network is European-facing by design — every project is an EU mobility instrument anchoring a researcher in the United States.

What sets them apart

As a US land-grant university in the Deep South, Mississippi offers something European consortia cannot source at home: primary archives, communities and field sites for studying race, segregation and rural America. That regional authenticity — visible in RACELAND — is its real differentiator, alongside being a credible MSCA host institution in the American South where few H2020 partners exist.

Highlights from their portfolio

• RACELAND
  Most thematically distinctive project — uses Mississippi's geographic and archival position to study the ecology of segregation, a topic few European institutions can host credibly.
• StronGrHEP
  The only staff-exchange (MSCA-RISE) engagement, showing the university can function inside a multi-partner international research network, not just as an individual fellowship host.
• LINGUISTIC ILLUSIONS
  A Global Fellowship on language development in Down Syndrome and SLI — demonstrates clinical linguistics capacity alongside the better-known humanities strengths.