Mobility

You can apply for a short term scientific mission of a minimum duration of 5 calendar days and a maximum duration of 90 days. For ECIs, longer STSMs are possible. Your STSM needs to end on October 31st, 2022, at the latest. The STSM will be a fixed grant to cover part of the travel expenses, accommodation and subsistence expenses. Please note that the awarded grant will be paid only after the STSM has been completed – therefore the applicant must have approval and prior financial support e.g., from their own institution. However, specific provisions have been introduced to enable researchers from Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITCs) participating in the COST Action to request a pre-payment of 50% of their STSM Grant once the mission has started. In such case, the representative of the Host Institution must confirm by e-mail to the Grant Holder (GH) that the STSM applicant has officially started the mission on day 1. Only then can the Grant Holder arrange the payment of 50% of the STSM grant. The remaining 50% of the Grant is payable once the administrative requirements have been satisfied after the STSM. The ITCs are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Republic of North Macedonia, Republic of Serbia and Turkey. The calculation of the financial contribution for each STSM must respect the following criteria: – Up to a maximum of EUR 4 000 in total can be afforded to each successful applicant; – The final amount is decided by the Action Management committee (MC) or Core Group on proposal of the evaluators, based on the request of the applicant and should reflect the duration and location of the STSM. Country rates to cover accommodation and meal expenses may be differentiated based on perceived cost of living in the host country. A list with daily allowance rates per country can be found in https://www.cost.eu/uploads/2020/02/Daily_Allowance_table.pdf, STSM awards may be combined with other funding sources, but these must be acknowledged in the application. In your application, you will have to define the goal of the proposed STSM, the work to be carried out, expected outcomes and description of the contribution to the Action Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) objectives.  Likewise, you will have to submit other details such as your CV, planned start and end dates, the requested budget, a letter of support from your Home Institution and a written agreement from the Host Institution stating that the activities detailed in the work plan can be performed on the agreed dates. Other documents may be required by the Action (e.g. recommendation letter, etc).

For detailed rules regarding eligibility and financial support, please see the relevant sections of the Annotated Rules for COST Actions and the User Guide for STSM.