Dear all,
As discussed during the last workshop in Zurich, we plan to apply for COST funding to support OpenMod conferences and networking activities.
You will find a short Overview of
I. the COST Grant,
II. the Grant Application Process,
III. Instructions for joining and
IV. FAQ below.
I. Overview of the COST Grant
In a nutshell, the COST program provides on average 130k€/year for the duration of approximately 4 years to fund networking activities among European researchers.
The COST grant would fund the following expenses types (Vademecum, Sections 5-8):
• accomodation (up to € 120 / night)
• meals (up to € 20 / meal)
• transport (air: up to € 1200 / ticket; train: all; car: up to 2000 km @€0.2-0.3/km)
• grant administration (up to 15%, about ~€ 20k/y)
• local organisation (up to € 20 / participant and € 5k / event… or € 10k / event with receipts)
• …
The COST grant would fund the following meeting types :
• administrative meetings, work-group meetings, conferences (see above)
• training schools (trainers: as above; trainees: up to € 1.5k /trainee, € 160 / night)
• short-term scientific missions (up to € 3.5k /trainee, € 160 / night)
• …
The COST grant would NOT fund :
• preparation of conferences and trainings
• research itself
A short summary of how cost works can be found here.
Official documents and rules which describe the functioning of COST can be found here. The most important ones are:
• COST Grant-Agreement
• Cost-Vademecum
• Rules for participation and implementation
II. Grant Application Process
The next deadline for proposing a COST action is 5th September 2019.
By that date, we would need to submit the following documents:
• General Features of the application
• Technical Annex of the Grant Agreement (see this example for inspiration)
• Cost Policies section (max 1000 words)
• Network of institutions that apply for the COST grant
III. How to join:
In order to join the grant application team, please:
- Read this short summary of the current application.
- Contact me at winc_[at]_zhaw.ch so I can send you an invite through e-cost: Please note that to increase our chances of obtaining the funding, we will only add partners to the proposal who are from countries and back-ground we are still missing.
- Read the technical annex: any comments, edits and suggestions on the text are very welcome, as this is very much work in progress
- Describe your intended contributions: we use this feedback to evaluate, whether our work-plan is realistic, as the grant would only pay for networking, but not the research itself; your data will only be shared with the grant application team.
To maximize our chances of success, please try to invite people from backgrounds that are under-represented in this overview. In particular, we should not register more than 4 researchers per country!
IV. FAQ:
- What is (and isn’t) the role of the COST grant?
COST will provide funding for conferences (travel, accommodation, meals, room booking etc.); training schools; scientific exchanges etc.
COST will not provide funding to carry out the actual research (this is why they will not hold us accountable if the work plan was not fully achieved)
- Is there a problem with Double funding?
To our knowledge no, since COST only covers travel + networking expenses.
- Can people be funded that are not part of the “grant application and management team”?
Absolutely yes.
- Is the time for preparing workshops funded?
Unfortunately no; the funding only includes the direct travel, accommodation, room booking and meal expenses (?) (tbc: we need to check in more detail in the COST vademecum)
- Are countries outside Europe eligible?
mainly EuropeanEU countries. Near-neighbouring countries and a few international countries should be included. There are some special rules for those, but it is necessary to have them on-board + Turkey, Israel…
- Do participants have to be from Target inclusiveness countries?
Min 5 COST countries, 3 of which from COST target countries
- According to COST rules, 50% of funding should go to Target Inclusiveness Countries. Does this mean, some conference participants may not receive funding?
At least 50% of the actual expense should be spent to the benefit of ITC. In practical term, the COST association considers “at the benefit of ITC” any expense which is related to:
- Reimbursements of Action participants from ITC
- All costs of meetings and Training schools organised in an ITC
- Any stsm which is involves an ITC (as home or host country)
- All ITC Conference Grants
- Do we need to offer summer schools, even though we are not re-imbursed for the preparation time?
It will be up to the grant management team to decide whether / how many summer schools should be supported.
In practice, we do not expect this to be a problem, as some of the open source models are already now organising trainings to build up their user community.
The COST grant could thus be used to support these activities and facilitate further workshops.