The revised rules and procedures clarify and simplify the participation in and implementation of COST activities and allow for a wider range of activities to be funded. In particular, the key innovations introduced by COST include:

• A harmonised set of documents. Four concise and coherent documents approved by the CSO and a revised COST Vademecum approved by the ESF now provide scientists and researchers with all the information necessary to take advantage of COST funding in order to network with their peers at pan-European level and beyond.

• A renewed focus on increasing Inclusiveness and Excellence. A number of innovations have been introduced specifically to increase the inclusiveness of COST activities, allowing  COST to support high quality, outstanding  researchers from all COST countries.

• Measures to increase participation by Near Neighbour Countries.Funding for participants from COST Near Neighbour Countries has been increased, and the procedures to allow scientists from these countries to participate in COST Actions have become much faster.

• Increased online processing. Thanks to improvements to COST’s bespoke e-transaction system (e-COST), a wider range of transactions relating to the networking activities supported by COST (e.g. reimbursement claims, grant letters and approvals) can now be processed fully online.

The review of COST’s rules and procedures for participation was undertaken by the COST Office on a mandate by the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO).

The aims of the review were in particular to harmonise and streamline the rules and principles for participation in COST activities - and especially COST Actions - so as to better respond to scientists’ networking needs.

The revised rules and procedures also improve the effectiveness of COST as a unique means for European researchers to jointly develop their own ideas and new initiatives across all scientific disciplines through trans-European networking, and contribute to increasing the efficiency of COST Office operations.