COST plays an important role in the development of the European research area. COST's mission is to strengthen Europe in scientific and technological research through the support of European cooperation and interaction between European researchers.
Under Horizon Europe COST will be fully funded by the Widening and ERA part and is one of the widening actions to help EU countries that are lagging behind to stimulate their participation in Horizon Europe through scientific networking.
These networks, in the form of COST Actions, can be in any scientific field and are open to all type of actors (academia, public institutions, SMEs, Companies, etc.). A typical COST Action runs for four years and has an average budget of 134,500 EUR per year.
The funding is limited to networking activities (meetings, conferences, seminars, workshops) and the organisation of exchange activities (scientific exchanges of short duration, training schools, publications and dissemination activities). The actual research is funded via other (national or regional) channels.
There are mainly two ways to engage with COST:
- you can either join an already existing COST Action. Click here to have an overview of the existing COST Actions. You can hereby participate in the management committee, working groups or other activities of the COST Action.
- you can create a new COST Action. New ideas for COST Actions can be submitted through the COST Open Call, that is organized once a year.
In Flanders, FWO is the first Contact Point for any questions related to the COST Programme. For more information on COST please visit the FWO website.
