Each month, COST highlights a COST Action which has had a significant scientific and societal breakthrough.
In the summer of 2021, COST published its Final Impact Assessment for Horizon 2020, portraying the scientific and societal impact of COST. The report includes multiple examples of breakthroughs that contribute to the development of research in Europe and beyond. After an in-depth monitoring and analysis, four Actions were selected to showcase those advancements.
The breakthrough of this month is by COST Action “European non-wood forest products network (NWFPs)”, FP1203. This network’s strong policy and innovative dimension is demonstrated by the number of citations in several policy documents and the fact that it used a natural language processing approach, an AI method that allows computers understand language in a similar way humans do.
Additionally, Action participants generated a publicly available database and an interactive map with up-to-date data that identifies gaps and protocols on NWFPs for further data collection and modelling.
See the factsheet below for more details:
Read the other articles in the breakthrough series:
The breakthrough series: non-globular proteins
The breakthrough series: climate governance
Accreditation for cover photo – Egor Kamelev from Pexels