COST Office News and Managing Your Action up to May 2009 By Anna Belehaki

1. COST Office News and Managing Your Action up to May 2009 • By Anna Belehaki • On behalf of Carine Petit • ESSEM Science Officer • Frascati, April 2009

2. News from the COST Office News from ESSEM Status of the Action Useful to know and reminders To be done at this MC meeting Outline

3. New “Domain”: Trans-Disciplinary Domain Open Call of September 26, 2008 ESSEM EEP meeting: 23-24 February 2009 DC hearing session: 5 March 2009, 3 full proposals Final list of 30 proposals to be proposed to the 174th CSO, among which the 3 ESSEM proposals, on 26-27 May 2009 173nd CSO on 19-20 March 2009 in Berlin: Legal status of COST under FP8 Open Call of March 27, 2009: 493 pre-proposals, 59 ESSEM Next Collecting Date: September 25, 2009 COST Governance and Open Calls

4. Early Stage Researchers (i.e. PhD + <10 years) Open Call participation and WG leading Increased duration of STSMs beyond 3 months 3 ESSEM Conference Grants per year of 3000 € for attending International Conference (abstract for an oral presentation must be accepted) Last Collecting Dates: February 28, 2009 and March 31, 2009 More Training Schools At least once a year, an Action workshop should foster the participation of ESR Actions are encouraged To meet in COST premises, Brussels New flat rate: 120 € per night per participant To conform to their timetable. Prolongation/Extension will be consider only without additional budget and on basis of strong scientific justification New instrument and new rules

5. Collection of the Annual Progress Report from 1st April until 15 May: The Chair will have to fill in the scientific part of the report (quite short); the admin part is provided by the COST Office Next ESSEM Annual Progress Conference: 24-25 June 2009, Istanbul All the Action-Chairs will be invited to make a presentation to be followed by a general discussion and the evaluation by the respective Rapporteur The ESSEM Chair, Vice-Chair and SO will meet the Action-Chairs for an informal meeting and open discussion News from ESSEM

6. Open Call of March 2008 led to 3 new ESSEM Actions to be launched in spring (total portfolio: 28 running Actions): ES0805: The Terrestrial Biosphere in the Earth System ES0806: Stable Isotopes in Biosphere-Atmosphere-Earth System Research (SIBAE) TD0803: Detecting evolutionary hot spots of antibiotic resistances in Europe (DARE) News from ESSEM

7. CSO Approval 18 June 2008 Free application 17 June 2009 End Date 19 November 2012 Signatories to MoU 20 COST countries Intention to sign Israel Non-COST applications Russia (2 institutes) and Armenia Rapporteur Dr. Zoltan Dunkel Grant Holder Institution Royal Observatory of Belgium; Dr. Ronald Van Der linden Webmaster Dr. Anna Belehaki COST Action ES0803: Developing space weather products and services in Europe

8. Budget 16 Nov. 2008 – 31 May 2009: 55 000 € KO meeting (39 p.; 5 latecomers*) 30 336 € (partly paid) CG meeting, Brussels, 29 Jan. (4 p.) 2 714 € (paid) MC+WGs, Frascati, 1-3 Apr. (55 p.) 35 200 € (approved) 3 000 € (approved) Expert meeting, Paris, 28 May (10 p.) 6 400 € (planned) Total expenses 77 650 € Negative Balance - 22 650 € ! ESSEM budget covers your negative balance, by chance enough money thanks to less active Actions; So, try to better fit to your budget next year. *Latecomers: still time to submit your TRF and receipts! COST ES0803: 16 Nov. 2008 – 31 May 2009

9. Indicative min. budget for 20 COST countries:101 000 € Period: 1st June 2009 – 31 May 2010 No systematic carry over from 2008-2009 budget to 2009-2010 budget Pool of money left by ALL Actions from 2008-2009 budget will be redistributed between ALL Actions for 2009-2010 proportionally to the number of COST countries ES0803 will take advantage of this measure! Try to prepare a budget plan which fits well your work plan, with well justified activities. Do not hesitate to exceed by 15-20 % the announced budget. COST ES0803: 1st June 2009 – 31 May 2010

10. March 2009: Internal tests performed by IT, 2 AOs, 1 SO and 2 volunteer Action Chairs April 2009: Revisions based on initial testing Release for use May 2009??? Transition to grant system of 1 Action per month per domain Migration of ES0803: to be discussed with Ronald as soon as we have a ‘t0’ date to start the migration of the Domain The Actions must nominate 2 internal MC auditors who will assist the Grant Holder to check the validity of the expenses Grant agreement in the vademecum, chapter 6: http://www.cost.esf.org/participate/guidelines COST Grant System

11. Useful to know about non-COST Countries • Meetings can be held ONLY in a COST country member of the Action • New template for application of non-COST Countries • A better description of mutual benefits is requested and of the contribution of the non-COST Institution in the Working Groups • A motivation letter must be submitted by the non-COST Institution to the Chair and the Science Officer • The application must be approved successively by: • Management Committee • ESSEM Domain Committee • JAF Group and CSO

12. Important reminders • Early Stage Researcher: less than PhD + 10 years including researchers still working on their PhD or Master Degree • Next collecting date for ESR Conference Grant: to be decided in June at the next DC Committee and will be communicated to Anna • All requests for organizing meetingsmust be submitted in advance: 3 weeks for small expert meetings, 4 weeks for MC+WG, 2 months for meeting support requests, 4 weeks for STSMs • Every meeting must be documented afterwards by minutes to be provided to COST within one month after the meeting • Standard pre- and post-approval to be used for the meeting support requests and the STSMs

13. Prepare your work plan for 2009-2010 and the associated budget plan. They will the basis for preparing the Grant Agreement MC Decisions about: Applications of Russia and Armenia Nomination of 2 MC Auditors Clear vote of the work plan and budget plan Continuous update of the website: lists of WG members must be available on the Action website At this MC meeting and beyond

14. Sign the Attendance List (each day!) Complete and sign your Travel Reimbursement Form and submit it, together with receipts, to the local organizer or to the Chair Send additional receipts by scan/email or fax until 9 April 2009 Save energy and money by using public transportation instead of taxis (prepare carefully your travels)! Max 40 € per participant and per meeting will be reimburse for taxi. Thanks for the planet! International Year of Planet Earth (2007-2009) http://yearofplanetearth.org/index.html Have a fruitful meeting! At this MC meeting

15. ESSEM team Stephanie Beauloye, Kent Hung Administrative Officers - ESSEM sbeauloye@cost.esf.org, khung@cost.esf.org Dr. Lucia Forzi Junior Science Officer – Natural Sciences lforzi@cost.esf.org Tel: 32-2-533-3858 Dr. Carine Petit Senior Science Officer – Natural Sciences Science Officer - ESSEM cpetit@cost.esf.org Tel: 32-2-533-3831