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COST Governance

This section is devoted to the governance of COST as implemented by the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO), the main decision-making body responsible for the strategic development of COST.

The CSO is the main decision-making body of the COST structure, it reports directly to the Ministerial Conferences, formulates the general strategy of COST, appoints the various Domain Committees, decides on their terms of reference and approves the research Actions to be launched.

The current CSO President is Dr Ángeles Rodríguez-Peña. The CSO President is elected for a period of three years.

COST Position Paper

On 19 March 2012, the CSO approved COST’s position paper ‘The COST Framework - A cornerstone of the ERA’ (COST 4106/12). This initiative aims at underlining COST’s valuable role in the European Research Area (ERA), as it has been recognised throughout the years by consecutive reviews and assessments – including the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) mid-term evaluation of COST in 2010. The position paper is available for download and was also further explained in a news item.

COST Mission and Goals

In June 2011, the CSO approved the updated 'COST Strategy' (COST 4157/11) which lists COST's strategic goals. The strategy was approved as a follow-up to the updated 'COST Mission Statement' (COST 4152/11) in May 2011.

CSO Composition and Meetings

The CSO is composed of representatives of the 35 COST Member States and one cooperating state. One committee representative per country acts as the COST National Coordinator. The CSO meets two to three times a year. Press releases and Summaries of Conclusion are available for download on this page or on the website of the COST Secretariat provided by the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, where you can find all COST documents.

The next meeting (185th) will be held on 6 and 7 June 2012 in Dublin, Ireland.

CSO Press Releases from COST Secretariat

Dr Ángeles Rodríguez-Peña on COST

I strongly believe in COST as an intergovernmental framework. Its international cooperation is built upon trust and stability of activities. Its long term objectives and priorities are transparent to create synergies and coordination with other contributors to the European Research Area.

Key Documents

COST-EC documents

Summaries of Conclusion from COST Secretariat

Last updated: 11 May 2012 top of page