22 October 2007 | General, President
COST participates in the Conference on “Cultural Diversity and Religious Pluralism”
Professor Francesco Fedi, President of the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO), was invited and attended the Conference on “Cultural Diversity and Religious Pluralism: the possible Dialogue in Europe” held on 19-20 October 2007 at the Link Campus University of Malta in Rome.
The Conference was organized by the RIPE Group (“Religion Innovation and Pluralism in 21 Century Europe”) founded on May 20th 2006 in Aarhus University, Denmark, at the end of the Conference “Religion and Society”. The contributions of the Conference have been published in the volume “Religion and Society: Crossdisciplinary European Perspectives” (Ed. Forlaget Univers Aarhus, 2006). One of the Group’s activity is an annual conference with the aim to present and compare the results of the main researches and studies carried out during the year.
“It is indeed a great pleasure for me to be here today in my capacity as President of COST” said Professor Fedi in his address “ and to give you my welcome address both on behalf of COST and of ESF. As you may know, a fruitful cooperation has been established between COST and ESF. ESF acts as the implementing agent for COST and provides the scientific, technical and administrative secretariat to COST Scientific Domain Committees and to COST Actions.
An ESF Exploratory Workshop on “Religion and Society: Crossdisciplinary European Perspectives” took place in May 2006 and an ESF Forward Look on “Religion and Other Belief System : what do people believe in and what does it make them do?’ will take place shortly. I gather that some of you will be involved in this ESF Forward Look.
For the Seventh Framework Programme which, as you know, will last until 2013 COST received an increase of funds of about 80% with respect to the Sixth Framework Programme. The future for COST and ESF appears therefore brilliant and I do hope that your initiatives could find the necessary support either in ESF or in COST”.
