Applicant(s) are Action participants with a primary affiliation to an institution located in a COST Full or Cooperating Member country or MC Observers from a COST Near Neighbour Country.

 The applicant(s) have to submit an application about the aim of the VM Grant and how its outcomes will generate benefits to the Action, actively contribute to the activities and overall objectives of the Action and submit a report at the end, to be approved by the VNS manager on behalf of the MC.

• A maximum of 6 Virtual Mobility Grants per Action per Grant Period can be awarded.
• Each Virtual Mobility Grant cannot exceed EUR 1.500.

Filling out an application form. The application shall be submitted in the e-COST system in each applicant’s account (https://e-services.cost.eu/user/login). Here is the template:

http://www.cost.eu/virtual_mobility_grant_application

Detailed instructions on how to do the online application can be found here: https://www.cost.eu/uploads/2021/04/VNT-userguide.pdf

Call is ongoing, VM Activity must be completed by October 15^th 2022, the evaluation process will take a maximum duration of 15 days upon receipt of the VM grant application in the e-cost system.

 Final reports on the VM activity will have to be approved by the VNS manager and will be shared among PROBE community and on the homepage.

Criteria among eligible proposals (fulfilling the checklist in Vademecum Section 10.2: ...link to be inserted) will be based on matching PROBE objectives (http://www.probe-cost.eu/) and scientific excellence. Proposal will be ranked by grade using the following criteria, and funded until the available budget is used up:

1. How clear is the statement of the main objective of the Virtual Mobility Grant?
2. How clear is the description of the planned collaborative activity?
3. Are all the participants listed and is their expertise and contribution clear and relevant?
4. How well will the planned initiative contribute to the MoU objectives (either research coordination and/or capacity building objectives can be tackled) and their delivery?
5. How well does the planned activity contribute to the COST Excellence and Inclusiveness Policy and to plans for stakeholder engagement and promoting participation of researchers from Near-Neighbour Countries (NNCs) and International Partner Countries (IPCs) (COST Global Networking) and to the approved virtual networking strategy, if available.

Please be aware of the non-eligible expenses (paragraph 10.3 Vademecum)

COST has suggested examples of the sorts of virtual activities that can be supported, and some of these are listed below, but this is not an exhaustive list and we welcome other creative suggestions:

1.  supporting the harmonisation and standardisation of methods and procedures within the Action networking activities, for example by:
1. setting up a survey amongst all Action members to collect different results and outcomes from experiments done in their respective research groups,
2. coordinating discussions to create common protocols to be used by the network afterwards,
3. preparing questionnaires and response scales to be used by the Action members as part of virtual networking activities;
2. supporting the implementation of research related activities that do not necessarily require in-person presence, for example:
1. computational or modelling activities,
2. data analysis of the Action for a specific report or activity;
3. content preparation and coordination of science communication activities, for example:
1. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC);
2. online workshops like ‘webinar series’;
3. online COST Action workshops in external international conferences or events, that could help in the promotion of the Action activities.

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., alexandru.tilea@inoe

Please find here the template to prepare the report of the mission.