The COST Action Insect-IMP: https://e-services.cost.eu/action/CA22140, focused on knowledge transfer for sustainable insect breeding, is still looking for candidates for the Management Committee.
COST Actions are EU-funded and fund networking-building activities, such as meetings, workshops, training schools and Short-Term Scientific Missions over 4 years.
The goal is to increase collaboration within a particular field or sector (in this case, insect genetics) and enable researchers and other stakeholders to increase their effectiveness in the field.
For example, participants in a COST Action have been found to have a 55% higher probability of co-authorship of scientific publications with other Action stakeholders, and an almost 3-fold increase in the probability of success for other EU funding proposals linked to the topic of the Action.
While the general topics and a rough workplan for our COST Action already exist, the activities within each year of the Action are governed by the Management Committee, or MC.
Each COST Member country can nominate two people for the Management Committee. This is done through National Coordinators, a list of which can be found here: https://cost.eu/about/who-is-who/#tabs+Name:National%20Coordinators.
As a member of the Management Committee, you are expected to attend one meeting per year, as well as a kick-off meeting in Brussels on September 21st, 2023.
Travel costs to these meetings are reimbursed, and since we (as the Management Committee) decide ourselves when and where we want to hold them, will be held alongside other relevant events such as conferences (so this could be a good way to reduce travel costs!).
Outside of the annual meetings, MC Members are occasionally asked to vote on MC Decisions through the e-Cost platform.
Since the main goal of Insect-IMP is knowledge transfer, we want to ensure that we have a broad range of insect species as well as a wide range of geographies represented within the MC.
Note that your country does not have to be represented for you to participate in Action activities or be eligible for financial support to do so.
However, Action budgets are not fixed, but are allocated based on the diversity of the MC and the Working Group Leads, so it is in all of our interest that we do have diverse countries represented in the MC.
We are also specifically interested in having good representation from the COST Inclusiveness Target Countries (countries shown in green here: https://cost.eu/about/members/).
If you are interested, please do not hesitate to reach out to you COST National Coordinator, or, if you have any questions, the provisional Action Chair, gertje.petersen@laves.niedersachsen.de or Vice Chair jana.obsteter@kis.si.
If you are in one of the ITC and do not feel like you are established or connected enough to represent your country, please do not hesitate to reach out to us or your National Coordinator to have a chat!
If you think someone you know might be interested, but cannot see them in the list of email addresses, please do not hesitate to forward this email.
If you are interested in being an active member of the Working Groups set out for this Action, you can apply for them here: https://e-services.cost.eu/action/CA22140/working-groups/applications.
Applications will be processed as part of the first Management Committee meeting in September.
We are also looking for candidates for the COST Leadership Programme.
This programme is targeted towards young researchers (under 40) from the COST Inclusiveness Target Countries (countries shown in green here: https://cost.eu/about/members/).
We can nominate 3 people, who will then be invited by the COST Association to attend a leadership workshop in Brussels in early September to build up their confidence to potentially take on leadership roles within the COST Action.
This can be as an MC Member, but also in leading a Working Group, or as Grant Awarding Officer or Science Communication Officer (both of which are also invited to specific training sessions after they are elected).
If you are a young researcher yourself, if you have a PhD Student or PostDoc in your group who you think might be a good fit, or if you know someone, please contact us / send them our way: provisional Action Chair, gertje.petersen@laves.niedersachsen.de or Vice Chair jana.obsteter@kis.si.
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