PARTICIPATION OF SERBIAN RESEARCHERS IN COST ACTIVITIES AND AN OVERVIEW OF COST PROCEDURES AND NATIONAL RULES FOR JOINING RECENTLY APPROVED COST ACTIONS

Abstract

To strengthen Europe’s ability to address scientific, technical, and social issues, COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) connects academics and innovators by funding excellence-driven and multidisciplinary pan-European networks - COST Actions. Over the last 50 years it has become one of the best mechanisms to promote science cooperation in the world having significant impact on young researcher carriers. In this paper the project evaluation procedure in the COST research framework (Seeber et al. 2022) will be discussed focusing on the degree of interdisciplinarity of Actions proposals - whether it can be advantage or not. In addition, a comprehensive statistical analysis of Serbian representatives participating in active COST actions will be presented (Mijic et al. 2022). Furthermore, the effects of participating in a COST Action on the level of scientific production of researchers from inclusive target countries as well as young researcher is discussed. Participation in COST activities has become progressively more competitive and researcher from Serbia are involved in almost 97% of active Actions. In order to provide efficient joining COST Actions information on new national rules and procedures required will be presented together with overview of recently approved Actions expected to start in September 2024. Acknowledgments Thanks are due to The Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia and the Institute of Physics Belgrade for national COST office support.