Participating in an ongoing COST Action
The COST website features a database of all COST Actions with a short description, a list of members in the management committee and a memorandum of understanding (containing the proposal for the Action). To participate in an ongoing COST Action, you can first contact participants in the Action for further information about the planned activities.
Participation in a working group of an Action can be decided directly with the working group leaders of the Action and there is no need to contact the SNSF. This is however only possible if there is at least one person representing Switzerland in the management committee. If this is not the case, you may consider joining the management committee; the procedure is described in the following paragraph.
To participate in the management committee of an Action, please contact the COST national coordinators (CNCs) at the SNSF (cost@snf.ch), so that the SNSF can nominate you in a straightforward procedure. For each COST Action, two positions as management committee member and three positions as substitute member are available. To launch the nomination procedure, please send a CV together with a statement of interest, describing your interest and your intended contribution to the Action (template provided below), to your CNCs at the SNSF via cost@snf.ch. No statement of interest is needed from proposers (applicants) of the COST Action.
Submitting to COST a proposal for a new COST Action
The proposal for a new Action needs to be jointly prepared by scientists or innovators from at least seven different COST member or cooperating states, of which at least half need to be inclusiveness target countries (ITCs or widening countries). Researchers, engineers and scholars from any legal entity (institute of technology, university, university of applied sciences, research centre, and company, in particular SME, and legal entity such as NGO) based in a COST member or cooperating state are eligible to apply for a COST Action. The list of states can be found on the COST website (see link below). Switzerland is a COST member state and Swiss-based scientists are fully eligible for all COST activities.
Proposals for new Actions can be submitted to the COST open Call via e-COST. Submissions are collected every 8-9 months and are evaluated according to the following criteria: 1) impact, implementation and excellence, 2) COST Inclusiveness policy, 3) equality in terms of early career involvement and gender balance policy and 4) balanced Actions’ portfolio and interdisciplinarity. Full participation requirements can be found in the SESA (Action proposal submission, evaluation, selection and approval) and SESA guidelines, see the link to the COST open call for new Actions below.
What the SNSF offers: The COST national coordinators (CNCs) act as national contact points (NCPs) for COST and provide information at the national level about COST. In Switzerland, the SNSF has this role and offers, for instance, assistance for the preparation of proposals for new Actions.
Submitting to the SNSF a project associated with an ongoing COST Action
The SNSF organises yearly calls for COST research projects in Switzerland associated with recently approved COST Actions. Researchers based in Switzerland and actively participating in a COST Action can apply for the funding of a research project for up to four years for a budget of up to 80,000 francs per year. Since COST research projects often cannot start at the same time as the associated COST Actions, the projects can continue beyond the end of the associated Action. The participation requirements for COST research projects are very similar to those of the SNSF’s project funding scheme; see the call document and the Funding Regulations of the SNSF below.