"The contribution of science and technology to the development of human society" - COST Interaction Conference, 9-11 October 1995 The European Commission, DG XII, has published the proceedings of the 1995 COST Interaction Conference - "The contribution of science and technology to the development of human society". The conference which was organized jointly by the Swiss authorities and the European Comm... The European Commission, DG XII, has published the proceedings of the 1995 COST Interaction Conference - "The contribution of science and technology to the development of human society". The conference which was organized jointly by the Swiss authorities and the European Commission within the framework of COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technological Research) took place in Basel, Switzerland, from 9 to 11 October 1995. Attended by over 600 participants, from both inside and outside the COST networks, the conference was structured around three symposia: - The reasonable exploitation of the earth's resources; - The development of new processes, products and services; - The human dimension in science and society. Speakers at the conference emphasized the importance of COST in promoting inter-disciplinary research across Europe. Since COST has a bottom-up approach, uses national financing for each partner and funds pre-competitive research, it has a clearly defined role to fill. The conference did, however, suggest that COST might be better defined, in order to secure greater complementarity with other European research programmes. The published proceedings contain summaries of the three symposia and abstracts of the discussions which took place during the conference.
