Jones
Business # 1998 Gothenburg
The activities relevant to this paper are being undertaken in the context of a COST Cooperation. COST is the acronym for the French equivalent of "European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research" (Cooperation européenne dans le domain de la recherche scientifique et technique).
COST Cooperation was set up in 1971 by a ministerial conference involving the 19 original COST countries. Cooperation has subsequently widened to include further countries. There are now 25 COST member countries - the 15 EU member states. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Czech Republic. Slovakia. Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Slovenia and Croatia plus the European Commission.
A feature of COST is its flexible set of arrangements which enables national organisations.
institutes, universities. industry and end-users to join forces and make concerted efforts in a broad range of R&D activities. Since its beginning the European institutions (Commission and Council Secretariat) have played a particularly important role in the COST framework.
COST focuses on specific themes for which there is particular interest in the COST member countries. Any COST country can join any action by signing a "Memorandum of Understanding". Community funding covers only the coordination costs (scientific secretariat, workshops. meetings. seminars. publications. surveys. evaluations etc.). The different participating countries have to ensure that the means necessary for research cooperation are actually provided and implemented. The COST framework has proved to be suitable for several types of activity:
Coordination of existing or proposed research programmes at a European level.
Contributing to the development of the Communities major programmes
The work undortken by each Action is administered by 3 Management Comm~tteewith participants from interested countries. who are signatories to the Action.
There are currently (1 rminge of COST .Actions in the field of Urban Civil Engineering
COST Action C3 has a particular focus and relevance to Urban Water and Wastewater Infrastructure in Europe. The Action currently includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway. Portugal, Switzerland and the UK.
