BEiNG WISE

What is an Short-Term Scientific Mission?

A Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) consists of a visit to a host organization in the Action located in a different country than the country of affiliation by a researcher or innovator in the Action for specific work to be carried out and for a determined period of time. An affiliation is any form of recognised relationship between the individual and a legal entity. Check here the precise definition provided by COST.

An STSM should specifically contribute to the scientific objectives of  Behavioral Next Generation in Wireless Networks for Cyber Security (BEiNG-WISE) – CA22104, and must directly fit within the scope of any of the Working Groups.

Main points about STSMs:

  • You should submit your proposal by the deadline;
  • All STSMs support exchanges between countries participating in the BEiNG-WISE Action;
  • STSMs have a typical duration of one or two weeks. We will favor short STSMs so that more people can be funded;
  • All STSM activities must occur in their entirety within a single Grant Period and always within the action lifetime. Grant Periods run from November 1st of year n to October 31st of year n+1.
  • The grant is awarded after the mission. Carefully follow the rules for reimbursement to ensure you get your grant.
  • The total cost of the STSM cannot exceed EUR 3000 (hard limit with no exceptions). It provides a contribution for travel, accommodation, and subsistence expenses. The financial support should be considered as a contribution to the costs of the mission and may not cover all the costs associated with the mission.

Objectives of STSMs:

  • Establish new collaborations or reinforce existing ones across disciplines and sectors
  • Positively impact the career of young researchers by fostering the creation of a wider research network and mentoring by more expert researchers.
  • Produce valuable outcomes (publications, funded projects) in the scope of the BEiNG-WISE Action.
  • To facilitate the transfer of knowledge and the training to new techniques, research equipment, teaching modalities, etc.

See out Host Expression of Interest page

Applications for an STSM

The applications for STSMs should be submitted according to the following procedure.

Step 1: Application

An eligible applicant should complete and upload a request for an STSM via the online tool in the e-COST platform (notice that registration to the e-COST system is mandatory, reachable via this link). To this aim, the applicant should provide the following supporting documents:

  • Grant application, including i) the goals of the STSM, ii) associated workplan (with clear STSM starting and ending dates) and relevance to the BEiNG-WISE Action, iii) expected outputs and how they contribute to the objectives of BEiNG-WISE COST Action. Carefully follow the guidelines and limits provided in the template. Failure to comply with guidelines and limits will result in automatic rejection of the application.
  • A motivation letter.
  • CV of the Applicant.
  • A letter of invitation from the Host Institution, stating that the STSM can be performed on the dates indicated in the application should the grant be awarded.
  • A support letter from the Home Institution.
  • The requested budget (travel, accommodation, subsistence).

Please be aware that the applicant is responsible for obtaining an agreement with the host institution before submitting the application.

Step 2: Evaluation

After the submission deadline, the Grant Awarding Coordinator organizes the evaluation of the received applications. All applications will be evaluated according to the Evaluation Criteria reported hereafter. You can expect a decision one month after the submission deadline.

Step 3: Selection

Upon selection, the grantee will receive a formal Grant Notification Letter. After receiving the letter, the grantee can officially start the STSM.

After Completing the STSM

Report of the Activities:

The grantee is required to submit, within 30 calendar days from the end of the STSM (or 15 days after the end of the Grant period, whatever comes first) a report to the Host Institution, Action Chair, Vice Chair, appropriate Working Group Leader, and Grant Awarding Coordinator for approval. Such a report should include:

  • A scientific report using the template available through the e-COST platform, and describing the work carried out, the main achievements, and the planned future follow-up activities;
  • An official letter/confirmation by the host institution of the successful execution of the STSM.

The Action Chair and Grant Award Coordinator are responsible for approving the scientific report. The failure to provide the scientific report within the aforementioned timeline will effectively cancel the grant. Once the report is approved and the payment request submitted, the payment of the STSM grant will be carried out by bank-to-bank transfer to the grantee.

Presentation of Results:

The grantee may be asked to present the results of the STSM during internal events or meetings organized by the BEiNG-WISE Action (e.g., in the Management Committee or Working Group meetings).

Acknowledgment:

When the results from STSM visit are published in a scientific journal or presented at any national or international conference (including poster presentations), the grantee should acknowledge the support of the BEiNG-WISE Action as follows: 

“This article/publication/contribution is based upon work from COST Action CA22104 – Behavioral Next Generation in Wireless Networks for Cyber Security (BEiNG-WISE), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). www.cost.eu”.

Posters should also include the COST and the EU logos. You can retrieve all the logos and information at this link.

Timeline

First application round: Jan. 22nd – Feb. 12th

Second application round: Apr. 1st – Apr. 30th

Evaluation Criteria

All grant applications will be evaluated according to the following list of criteria.

CV of the applicant:

Applications from Early Career Researchers (< 40 years old) and Ph.D. students will be prioritized.

Workplan and Schedule:

  • Is the work plan well structured and clearly defined?
  • Is the schedule of activities realistic?
  • Is the required budget reasonable?

Expected outcome and relevance to the Action:

  • Which Working Groups of BEiNG-WISE are potentially interested in the results of this STSM?
  • What are the expected outcomes of the STMS (publications, dataset, software, etc)?
  • Is the objective of the STSM directly connected to one or more of the objectives of the BEiNG-WISE Action?

Scientific Networking:

  • Is the support provided by the host institution sufficient to successfully carry out the STSM?
  • Could the work proposed in the STSM proposal be performed without mobility?
  • Is it expected that the STSM fosters novel networking activities between the involved institutions (e.g.,  exchanges, setup/joint participation in other collaborative projects)?

COST Policies on Excellence and Inclusiveness:

  • Is the applicant from an Inclusiveness Target Country/Near Neighbor Country?
  • Is the applicant from an underrepresented gender?

General Eligibility rules

Eligibility rules are given in the COST annotated rules. We report a summary in the following.

  • The grantee should be affiliated to a legal entity (check here for a detailed definition). Undergraduate students are not eligible, while Master’s students need to provide a document signed by their university stating that they follow a master’s degree affiliated with a research programme.
  • The grantee should be from a COST member country, or a Near Neighbor Country unless invited to a school as a trainer.
  • People not from a COST member country or a Near Neighbor Country can be funded once in the lifetime of the action to participate in a WG meeting but neither a school as a trainee nor an STSM.

COST member countries (41): Armenia, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and United Kingdom + Israel + South Africa.

COST Near Neighbor Countries (12): Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Faroe Islands, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia.

Inclusive Target Countries (ITC) (25): Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.

Contact

For more information and inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact the Grant Awarding Coordinator:
– Dr. Alessandro Brighente, alessandro.brighente@unipd.it
University of Padova, Padua, Italy