Brussels, 18 May 2006
Full text of Document 248/06
Suite of documents 248/06
The CSO President welcomed the participants1 to the meeting, in particular the new delegates attending for the first time: Mr Herman van der Plas (NL), Mr Luis Delgado (ES) and Mr Brian Ditcham (UK).
1. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA
The Committee adopted the agenda as set out in CM 805/1/06 REV 1 of 16 March 2006.
2. APPROVAL OF SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF THE 163TH MEETING
The Committee approved the Summary of Conclusions of the previous meeting as set out in doc. COST 330/05.
3. PRESENTATIONS OF THE COST DOMAIN REVIEWS
It was recalled that the CSO at its 161st meeting in March 2005 had agreed to carry out domain reviews in the field of Agriculture, Biotechnology, Food Sciences, Forestry and Forest Products, Environment and Meteorology; and Transport and Urban Civil Engineering. The review reports by independent Review Panels as well as comments from the respective TC Chairs had been made available to delegations.
The findings of the review panels were presented to the Committee by Panel members, Dr Nilsson and Dr O'Mahony, who also responded to some questions raised by delegations2.
The President concluded by inviting the COST Office to compile the recommendations of all finalised review reports on COST domains, in order to utilise relevant findings in future activities and procedures.
4. EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS AND COST
Mr Sean O'Reagain, Commission, gave a presentation3 on the European Technology Platforms encouraging a proactive approach from COST to identify common areas and to explore directly with individual Technology Platforms possibilities for cooperation.
5. SYNERGY WITH OTHER EUROPEAN INITIATIVES
The President recognised the ongoing cooperation with the Commission services, such as the continuous consultation process on new Action proposals and e.g. the initiative for the NanoScience conference in October 2006. Ways to increase synergy with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) are under examination and COST had been invited to be present at a JRC event in Bulgaria late April. It was observed that a second meeting of the Commission/COST Strategic Group, as proposed by the Commission in its document "Towards a new partnership between COST and the Commission, would be appropriate (first meeting held on 4 May 2005).
- EUREKA
The Committee was informed that
- COST had been represented at a recent EUREKA workshop in Ukraine by the CSO President and the COST Secretariat, where i.a. the possibility of Ukraine applying for membership had been examined,
- COST Action 529 "Efficient lighting for the 21st Century" will be presented as a concrete example of possible cooperation between COST and EUREKA at the next EUREKA Ministerial Conference on 9 June 2006 in Prague.
The Committee invited the COST Secretariat to prepare a policy paper on cooperation with EUREKA, describing concrete cases and presenting possibilities for more intensified cooperation.
- ESF
The President noted that the "ESF Strategic Plan 2006-2010" and "An analysis of the impact of ESF instruments", both available on the ESF website, included some references to COST which had raised concerns in some delegations. A letter from the ESF CEO dated 21 March 2006 clarifying the situation had been made available to delegations.
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