Action Networking tools
Networking is an excellent way for individuals at every stage of their career to discover exciting opportunities, meet new connections, and broaden personal research horizons. COST Actions have been designed to maximise networking possibilities, featuring a wide range of tools and additional activities, which benefit individuals and wider research networks alike through strengthening research outcomes and community knowledge.
Meetings, workshops and conferences
Meetings are organised by COST Action Management Committees (MC) in any COST Member State joining the network. They can be of different types, such as MC meetings, working group meetings, workshops and conferences. They may be open to the wider community and provide opportunities to enhance the COST Action’s visibility. COST will contribute to the travel and subsistence costs of the invited participants, and to the cost of organising the meeting.
Short-term Scientific Missions (STSM)
These scientific missions allow researchers involved in a COST Action to visit an institution or laboratory in any country in the world. Their aim is to foster collaboration and share new techniques and research infrastructure that may not be available in a participant’s home institution or laboratory. STSMs provide a good opportunity for both young and experienced researchers looking for mentoring and lifelong learning.
COST Action Better Understanding the Heterogeneity of Tinnitus to Improve and Develop New Treatments (TINNET) explain more about STSMs in this video.
Training schools
Training schools offer intensive training on an Action topic at the premises of one of the Action participants. Trainees are typically, but not exclusively, young researchers from across Europe. These schools can also offer researchers from any career stage, lifelong learning opportunities.
“The training school showed me how much there was to learn, to use this tool correctly, you need to be familiar with many things I knew nothing about. I am a botanist, and I found myself dealing with drones using different types of sensors, different global navigation systems, etc.“
Goran Tmušić of the University of Novi Sad’s Department of Biology and Ecology. Click here to read more
Conference grants
These grants are aimed at Action participants and in particular at young researchers from Inclusiveness Target Countries. They help individuals attend beneficial international conferences that are not organised by COST Actions.
“It was an unparalleled opportunity to meet outstanding researchers in my field, show my work and gain new ideas”
Marcin Makowski of molecular medicine institute iMM João Lobo Antunes – Lisbon.
Click here to read more
Communication and dissemination
The sharing of scientific results is vitally important in strengthening science and research. Due to the value and impact communication and dissemination activities can have on the wider research community, COST actively encourages and supports Actions to share outcomes with researchers, policymakers, the private sector and civic society such as NGOs.
Watch an award-winning short video by COST Action ‘Populist Political Communication in Europe: Comprehending the Challenge of Mediated Political Populism for Democratic Politics‘ (IS1308), which was created as part of an education package for use in high schools:
Virtual Networking Grants
COST has developed two new type of Grants to respond to the rising need of digital tools in the context of the pandemic and to ensure continuity of COST Actions’ work activities:
- Virtual Networking Support (VNS) Grant aims at promoting virtual collaboration to complement traditional ways of collaboration within the research and innovation communities.
- Virtual Mobility (VM) Grants aim at strengthening the existing networks by allowing researchers to foster collaboration in a virtual setting, to exchange knowledge, learn new techniques, disseminate, and share the Action results.
