On 17 December 2021, The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine hosted a Research and innovation day that included sessions on European Research Area integration, research infrastructures development, open science implementation and open innovations. It also dealt with expanding Ukraine’s participation in the international research and innovation programs, such as the COST Programme.
The objective of the sessions was to present the key achievements of the activities regarding integration of Ukraine into the European Research Area in 2021 and the plans defined by the Ministry for further comprehensive integration of Ukraine into ERA perspectives.
Oleksii SHKURATOV, Deputy Minister on European Integration, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine introduced the sessions by emphasising how important for Ukraine this info day is: “Activating the dialogue and communication with NGOs, with science community, with representatives of the innovation sphere, with representatives of business as far as further integration in science and innovation goes to the European Research Area.”
This info day was organised to create synergies between the public sector and the research community, business, civil society, and EU partners. In this context, the COST presentation aimed at providing researchers relevant information with key insights into a wide range of funding opportunities available at national and EU level. There are currently 86 COST Actions with UA participation involving 23 institutions.
Katalin Alföldi, policy officer at the COST Association gave a detailed overview of the COST Programme and answered the question from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
Ms Alföldi focused on the main differences between possibilities for the researchers and innovators from a COST Neighbouring Country and opportunities that are open when the country becomes an official member state of the program. She highlighted that researcher from Full COST Members are eligible to become main proposers. Therefore, they can submit a proposal on behalf of a proposing network and there are no limitations for hosting COST networking tools.
Last October 2021, Ukraine did join Horizon Europe and Euratom Research and Training Programme, which means that researchers and innovators can now participate under the same conditions as entities from EU Member States. This cooperation in science, research and innovation further strengthens relations and provide more opportunities for the Ukrainian research community to join the COST Programme.
Additional information
European Research Area (ERA-UA) – Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
Watch the full session here