Agricultural Bio-Markers for Array Technology
COST Action 853, 31 October 200, No details available
Quality Legume-Based Forage Systems for Contrasting Environments
COST Action 852, 26 September 2001, No details available
Gametic cells and molecular breeding for crop improvement
COST Action 851, 19 June 2001, see further information (Acrobat)
Parasitic Plant Management in Sustainable Agriculture
COST Action 849, 13/02/2001, No details available
Apoptosis and Programmed Cell Death: Molecular mechanisms and applications in biotechnology and agriculture
COST Action 844, 2 December 1999, see further information (Acrobat)
Quality enhancement of plant production through tissue culture
COST Action 843, 2 December 1999, see further information (Acrobat)
Managing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for improving soil quality and plant health in agriculture
COST Action 838, 30 October 1998, see further information (Acrobat)
Plant biotechnology for the removal of organic pollutants and toxic metals from wastewaters and contaminated sites
COST Action 837, 27 October 1998, see further information (Acrobat)
Agriculturally important toxigenic fungi
COST Action 835, 19 January 1998, see further information (Acrobat)
Quantifying the agricultural contribution to eutrophication
COST Action 832, 14 March 1997, see further information (Acrobat)
Fundamental, agronomical and environmental aspects of sulphur nutrition and assimilation in plants
COST Action 829, 13 March 1997, see further information (Acrobat)
Seed science in the field of genetically controlled stress physiology
COST Action 828, 28 February 1996, see further information (Acrobat)
Gametic embryogenesis
COST Action 824, 12 January 1994, see further information (Acrobat)
Development and application of new technologies to improve phytodiagnosis in Europe
COST Action 823, 30 March 1994, see further information (Acrobat)
Development of integrated systems for large scale propagation of elite plants using in vitro techniques
COST Action 822, 20 January 1994, see further information (Acrobat)
Arbuscular mycorrhizas in sustainable soil-plant systems
COST Action 821, 3 November 1993, see further information (Acrobat)
Population studies of airborne pathogens on cereals as a means of improving strategies for disease control
COST Action 817, 20 July 1993, see further information (Acrobat)
Biological control of weeds in Europe
COST Action 816, 11 June 1993, see further information (Acrobat)
COST Backgound COST is based on Actions. These are networks of co-ordinated national research projects in fields, which are of interest to a minimum number of participants (at least 5) from different member states. The Actions are defined by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU, available from the COST site) signed by the Governments of the COST states wishing to participate in the Action. The duration of an Action is generally 4 years. COST covers a wide range of scientific and technological domains and in the year 2001 almost 20% share of running actions was on agriculture and biotechnology.
The member countries participate on an "à la carte" principle and activities are launched on a "bottom-up" approach. One of its main features is its built-in flexibility. This concept clearly meets a growing demand and in addition, it complements the Community programmes. COST has almost 200 Actions involving nearly 30,000 scientists from 32 European member countries and more than 46 participating institutions from 11 non-member countries and Non Governmental Organisations.
COST represents an estimated volume of national funding of more than € 1.5 billion per year. An average of € 60 000 per Action is available for co-ordination depending on size and activity of the Action. This expenditure represents on average 0.5% of the overall national funding, which shows that COST gives excellent value for money. This funding is basically used to cover co-ordination costs such as contributions to workshops/conferences, travel costs for meetings, contributions to publications and short term scientific missions of researchers to visit other laboratories. In order to create or join an Action, contact the relevant national COST Co-ordinator for details or refer to the relevant documents on the COST web-page [http://www.belspo.be/cost/]
Founded in 1971, the European Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) is an intergovernmental framework, allowing the co-ordination of nationally funded research on a European level. COST Actions cover basic and pre-competitive research as well as activities of public utility. The goal of COST is to ensure that Europe holds a strong position in the field of scientific and technical research for peaceful purposes, by increasing European co-operation and interaction in this field.