Original story published by ERA Portal Austria
On 6 November 2018, the COST Awareness Day “Promotion of RTI networking: COST – A story of success!” took place in Vienna. Around 120 participants from Austria as well as guests from abroad joined in on this 2.5 hours networking event.
Photo credit: FFG
While COST President Sierd Cloetingh and COST Director Ronald de Bruin gave a strategic outlook on the COST programme and highlighted Austrian success, Austrian COST participants talked about their personal stories of success. The National Coordinator for the COST programme in Austria, Nicole Schmidt (FFG), presented figures on Austrian participation and outlined how to join the programme.
The Awareness Day was followed by a 2-day meeting of COST senior officials, who approved new COST Actions and welcomed Albania as a new member into their midst. With 37 member states and one cooperating state (Israel), COST now includes more than 20 so-called Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC). The COST programme puts a strong emphasis on these less research intensive countries and their best possible integration into European networking and collaborative research. “COST is an important pillar in the European RTI landscape, with great benefits also for Austria”, Ingolf Schädler, Deputy Head of Section at the BMVIT emphasised.
The event was hosted by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT). More details and presentations can be found on the website of the COST Awareness Day .