Terms

TERMS & ELIGIBILITY

Funding, Execution and Duration – STSMs should last a minimum of 5 days. The financial support on offer is a contribution to the overall expenses incurred during the STSM and may not necessarily cover all of the associated costs. Financial support is limited to cover travel, accommodation and meal expenses and is paid in the form of a Grant. The cost of research materials is not eligible for consideration as part of the grant.

The following funding conditions apply and must be respected: A STSM grant usually covers travel and subsistence costs. The financial support granted by a STSM is a contribution to the costs of the project/mission and may not necessarily cover all the costs. The STSMs duration is minimum one week (5 working days). In general, grants will represent an average contribution of about 1500 Euros from COMULIS to the applicant; and the maximum defined by COST is 4000 Euros. Check the full description and the COST Annotated Rules for exact conditions. STSMs must occur in their entirety within the dates specified in the Grant Period published in the respective Action call.

Please, note that the STSM grant will be paid to the successful applicants on completion of the STSM and after evaluation of the STSM report.  If the applicant is from an Inclusiveness Target Country (ITC), (s)he can apply for a pre-payment of 50% of the Grant. The applicant must keep in mind that the transfer of the 50% of the Grant can only take place after the mission has started and as such, requesting a pre-payment is more effective for STSMs longer than 1 month.

Registration and deadlines – The Applicant must use the on-line registration and operation of STSMs: https://e-services.cost.eu Applications may be submitted according to the schedules stipulated by the MC of the relevant Action, bearing in mind that delays must be considered for the assessment and administrative procedures. The application together with the STSM coordinator should arrive at the COST Office at least 3 weeks before the mission starts.

 Please, note that failure to submit the scientific report within 30 days from the end date of the STSM will effectively cancel the Grant.

COST can request additional information to substantiate the information contained within the documents submitted by STSM applicants.

Eligible Applicants

Coordinate two innovative Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) programs for individual:

·       Early Career Investigators (ECIs) and PhD students,

·       Experienced Imaging Scientist,

to visit an institution, laboratory, facility or industry in another participating COST Country or an approved non-COST country institution. Thus, bringing together researchers of different scientific backgrounds within international multi-disciplinary projects will increase the potential for scientific breakthroughs, high-impact publications, creation of new research fields, building of interdisciplinary activities and creating collaborations that may not currently be represented by the local imaging community.

 Please note: STSMs are not available to BSc/MSc students.

STSMs for ECIs will focus on selecting excellent projects where potential scientific breakthrough and competitiveness are clearly impaired by the lack of CMI means (knowledge), while STSMs for experienced Imaging Scientist will focus on the transfer of specific technology and skills between the facilities or facilities and companies/SMEs.

An applicant can be considered as being an ECI when (s)he is under 40 years of age. PhD students are also eligible to partake in STSMs. Other applicants must be employed by or affiliated to an institution or legal entity which has within its remit a clear association with performing scientific research.

Eligible ‘Home-&-Host’ Combinations

Applicant and Host Institution – The applicant must be engaged in an official research program as post-graduate student, postdoctoral fellow or research staff, or can be employed by, or affiliated to, an institution or legal entity, which has within its remit a clear association with performing research.

The following table shows the scenarios available to eligible STSM applicants:

HOME INSTITUTION

From a Participating COST Country

From an approved NNC* Country

From an Approved RTD*** Organization

* NNC: Near Neighbor Countries  that have been approved by COMULIS Management Committee


** IPC: International Partner Countries that have been approved by COMULIS Management Committee

*** RTD: Any intergovernmental scientific research organization that is responsible for infrastructures and laboratories
whose members are countries, and the majority of which are COST Member Countries or Cooperating State (e.g. EMBL, CERN)

The COMULIS Host Labs: ANY Lab can become a Host lab by successfully executing a STSM! Host labs can be located anywhere in the world. Applicants typically agree with the lab of their choice to host the mission. Please, note that the applicant is responsible for choosing and contacting the Host institution and for organizing the application process.

Please note: The STSM is not targeted to " full service " in CMI, but should rather support scientists in a collaborative way to develop tools and knowledge to perform their own work in CMI.

Interaction with the Host labs is not expected to be full time during the Mission, the applicant is expected to work independently on the project for an important part of the stay.

Please note: The scientific context of STSMs should be strictly limited to Correlative Multimodal Imaging involving development of Image technology and/or knowledge transfer in the field of Life Science. Any Exception will require very strong scientific justification and work-plan description.