Publications

The brochure provides guidance for researchers and innovators in Near Neighbourhood Countries and Third/International Partner Countries on how to get involved in COST Actions.

The COST corporate publication ‘Growing ideas through networks’ explains the COST Programme and COST Actions, including how they operate, who they are for, and how to propose or join an Action.

This report presents the findings of the fifth wave of the COST Association Customer Satisfaction Survey, conducted between March and April 2025. A total of 41,136 customers were invited to participate in the survey, and 11,366 responded, resulting in a response rate of 28%.

Countries covered: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.

The NNC Factsheets 2024 highlight the growing involvement of nine Near Neighbour Countries in COST Actions, showing their increased participation in networking activities and research collaboration from 2019 to 2024. Researchers from these countries are actively contributing as secondary proposers in the COST Open calls and participating in a wide range of Actions across various fields, including health, sustainability, artificial intelligence, and education. Testimonials from participants emphasise the value of COST in expanding professional networks, fostering interdisciplinary cooperation, and enhancing scientific visibility.

Discover a breakdown of facts and figures from COST’s 41 Member Countries and 1 Cooperating Member. The factsheets cover elements such as representation in COST Actions and participation in networking activities, to networking activities in country, number of leadership positions, budget received, success stories, and testimonials. Data is also broken down by age and gender.

COST ACTIONS ADDRESSING PRESSING CHALLENGES

COST empowers researchers and innovators across Europe to tackle the most pressing scientific challenges of our time. The COST Annual Report 2024 demonstrates the power of collaborative research and networking, and how we continue to strengthen the European Research Area through innovative, pan-European partnerships.

This edition captures the highlights of the year, with key activities and figures that demonstrate COST’s growing impact. It presents compelling success stories of COST Actions addressing critical areas such as climate change, health, smart cities and marine protection. It also shows the COST’s commitment to supporting young researchers and bridging innovation gaps across Europe.

The COST Administration encourages the development of a COST Action Gender Equality Plan (GEP). In order to assist Actions that wish to develop a GEP, COST has developed a template that can be customised with a networks needs, preferences, and priorities.

COST Association commissioned Technopolis to carry out an impact assessment to better understand impact pathways that lead to innovation. While the impact paths foreseen by the COST impact model were analysed in previous studies, this study fills the knowledge gap regarding the different types of and paths to innovation of COST Actions.

The case studies illustrate various ways in which COST Actions can be innovative in their design and implementation and highlights how COST Actions can also result in various innovative outputs, like business models, new products (patents) or educational formats.

In this statement COST’s Scientific Committee urges the European Commission, European Parliament, and Member States to increase the budget allocated to COST in order to fund at least 50% more new Actions per year and reinforce COST’s role as a capacity builder.