Foster research excellence by establishing cross-border collaboration networks, while ensuring geographical and gender balance and actively engaging early-career researchers and innovators across all activities.

➡️ encouraging and enabling researchers from less research-intensive countries across Europe to set up or join COST Actions.

➡️ counterbalancing research communities’ unequal access to knowledge, infrastructures, funding and resources;

➡️ providing strong means to increase the visibility and integration of researchers to the leading knowledge hubs of Europe, as well as to acquire their necessary leadership skills, regardless of their location, age or gender;

➡️ smoothly contributing to trigger structural changes in the national research systems of COST Members;

➡️ identifying excellence across Europe to contribute to ERA widening objectives.

Open to any legal entities (a public entity (national, regional, local public authority or any other kind of public entity), universities, research centres, SMEs, large companies, NGOs, as well as Specific Organisation, etc.) in a COST Member or in any NNC or Third State

Proposal must :

➡️ Be submitted by an eligible Main Proposer (A legal entity in a COST Full/Cooperating member, EU Institutions, Bodies, Offices and Agencies (EC/EU) or European RTD);

➡️ Represent a Network of Proposers from at least 7 different COST Full or Cooperating Members among which at least 50% shall be from COST Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC)

➡️ Be anonymous: proposals may not contain any direct or indirect reference to people and/or their institutions participating in the Network of Proposers (Main or Secondary Proposers). This means that names of proposers or their institutions should neither be explicitly mentioned, nor be potentially identifiable.