COST Senior Officials - 126th meeting
The 126th meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials of COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) was held in Brussels on 16 and 17 January 1997. COST is an intergovernmental framework which coordinates the national research of 25 European states, including all 15 EU Member States. Currently, Romania, Malta and Estonia have observer status. Lithuania, Cyprus and Latvia have recently submitted applications, and will give presentations on their R&D activities at the next meeting, to be held in April. Formal decisions on the membership of all these countries will be taken at the COST Ministerial Conference, which will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 26 and 27 May 1997. COST currently has 140 Actions in progress. The Committee approved extensions to eight of these. The Committee then approved 17 new Actions, in the fields of technology-driven physics, medical research, telecommunications, environment, forestry, agriculture, biotechnology, chemistry and social sciences. The Committee also approved the participation of entities from non-member countries (Russia, Israel, India, Romania, Bulgaria and Armenia) in a number of existing Actions. The Committee also received a report from the Czech Delegation, on the preparation for the Ministerial Conference, and a progress report on the Evaluation of COST, currently under way. The Committee noted that the High Level Reflection Group, which will report to the Ministerial Conference on the future of COST, has now commenced its work.