COST Action TU0701 Improving the Quality of Suburban Building Stocks

COST is supported by the EU RTD Framework programme. ESF provides the COST Office through an EC contract. prime paginr per sost.indd 5 27/03/2012 12.04.45 COST- the acronym for European COoperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research- is the oldest and widest European intergovernmental network for cooperation in research. Established by the Ministerial Conference in November 1971, COST is presently used by the scientific communities of 35 European countries to cooperate in common research projects supported by national funds. The funds provided by COST- less than 1 % of the total value of the projects- support the COST coope-ration networks (COST Actions) through which, with only around €20 million per year, more than 30.000 European scientists are involved in research having a total value which exceeds €2 billion per year. This is the financial worth of the European added value which COST achieves. A “bottom up approach ” (the initiative of launching a COST Action comes from the European scientists themselves), “à la carte participation ” (only countries interested in the Action participate), “equality of access ” (participation is open also to the scientific communities of countries not belonging to the European Union) and “flexible structure ” (easy implementation and light management of the research initiatives) are the main characteristics of COST