The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) and the European Science Foundation (ESF) have been informed by the European Commission Directorate-General for Research & Innovation of their decision to allocate an additional EUR 10 million to COST. This allocation raises the total budget for COST to EUR 250 million which was the maximum initially envisaged by the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) subject to a mid-term evaluation.
In 2010, the evaluation Expert Panel strongly recommended ‘that the appropriate process be put in place to allocate the additional EUR 40 million reserved in FP7 for COST’.
In April 2011, the European Commission already invested an additional EUR 30 million. The European Commission’s budget situation now allowed confirming the complementary EUR 10 million.
COST implements networking activities for researchers, contributing to the European Research Area (ERA) goals and participating in the delivery of the Europe 2020 agenda.
COST is an intergovernmental framework for European Cooperation in Science and Technology, making it possible for the various national universities, research organisations and private industry to work jointly on a wide range of Research and Development (R&D) activities contributing to integration of research communities and share, creation and use of knowledge. COST is presently used by the scientific communities of 36 European countries to cooperate in more than 250 research networks (called COST Actions) that leverage national research funds.
