Dear all,
we have now revised the work-plan based on input from the last Openmod workshop. If you haven’t already done so, please take a look at section 4 in the technical annex - in particular the description of summer schools - in the next couple of days, and add your questions / suggestions / alternative formulations and ideas.
To avoid inflating the work programm and make it look unrealistic, I would personally delete the [Tasks and deliverables in bracket and italics…] So if you are committed to perform these tasks, and want me to include them, please add a note. Otherwise I would delete them from the proposal (we can still come back to them in future…)
As suggested in Aarhus, I have exchanged some mails with the COST association / our Swiss contact point regarding questions about the grant administration that came up at the meeting. You can find my questions and the answers from the COST association / our Swiss contact point below.
My conclusions from this are:
- we need to delete or hide all public forum threads and messages referring to the COST grant prior to the grant submission in September (to avoid breaching anonymity)
- we cannot stipulate flexible responsibilities ex ante; towards the COST association, the responsibility for organising workshops / drafting progress reports etc. will rest with the action chair and work-group leaders; however, this does not prevent them from following our current practice of electing the workshop host & location for each year and collecting inputs for “do-a-thons” through the forum (which should be in their interest, as they cannot force people to hold presentations)
- we cannot stipulate decisions based on majority vote, as decisions must be taken by the “management committee”, where Inclusiveness Target Countries represent the majority. However, we may continue to collect views and votes regarding allocation of funds etc. through our Openmod mailing list as non-binding input for decisions by the management committee.
- we cannot use letters of support as an alternative way of adding people to our network; institutions such as NGOs, International Organisations, Companies and Public Authorities can either join our network of proposers (which would strenghten our proposal), or we can mention that we are “in close contact” with them (better than nothing…but probably not a strong selling point).
As next steps we will:
- Collect feedback from NGOs (following the NGO-Bridge meeting), IEA ETSAP, and other organisations (e.g. industry?, government agencies?) regarding their participation and suggestions on the workplan, and amend the proposal accordingly.
- Ask national contact points from a couple of countries to review our proposal and advise us on further adjustments.
Questions to COST association (forwarded by our Swiss contact point):
Dr. Winzer (in cc) intends to submit a proposal for a COST Action; I would like to double-check your opinion on some questions he asked. He is already part of a network, which is seeking to extend itself through a COST Action and get some funding for their activities. Their Action would thus be linked to the openmod initiative. Much of their discussion regarding grant preparation has been carried out in the public, e.g. this forum thread, or the Mailing list. If they refer to openmod as related network, do they have to delete / hide these forum entries and Mails during the evaluation period to avoid breaching anonymity requirements? The SESA guidelines specify that proposers and/or institutions’ names should neither be explicitly mentioned, nor be potentially identifiable through links to web page. Since hiding or deleting these forum threads needs quite some efforts as information is somewhat spread, could you please inform us whether this would breach the anonymity requirements or not?
Another question related to the submission of a proposal: is it possible to submit support letters from colleagues at organisations interested in the Action who might not appear as applicant or can they only be mentioned in the description of mutual benefit?
Answer by the COST association:
Thank you for your email.
Proposers should not relate proposers as members of any existing network/initiative/project; public forum threads which disclose proposers may lead to eligibility breach.
Support letters are not accepted in the evaluation process.
Additional questions to our Swiss contact point:
A few additional questions that came up during our workshop in Aarhus last week regarding governance are:
• Voting Procedures: In the past, we have taken decisions by simple majority vote. The Guidelines on Action Management, Section 4.3.7 allow the MC to delegate some of its tasks to other committees. Could we also specify, that they delegate some / all decisions to a simple “majority vote” by all forum subscribers? If so, when / where would we need to specify this?
• Action Chair: We had used “rotating responsibilities” in the past. Each year we voted on the organizer & venue for the next conferences, who were then responsible for “convening the meetings”, “monitoring the outcome” (i.e. in collect feedback on improvement suggestions for next workshops). Ideally, we would use a similar approach in the COST grant. Do you think that would be possible? If so, when / where would we need to specify this?
And there was also a question regarding how the total budget for the action is calculated :
• Is it important that we specify all planned summer schools / STSMs / number of participants in conferences beforehand? Or is the budget independent / will be scaled if further conference participants / STSMs or summer schools are added later on?
Answers from the Swiss contact point regarding additional questions:
- Decisions are still taken by simple majority vote at Action MC meetings provided at least two-thirds of the COST Full or Cooperating Members are represented, see Art. 9 of Annex I “Rules of procedure for COST Action management committees” of the “COST Action management, monitoring and final assessment”, see also end of section 4.3.1 of the Guidelines on Action Management, which explains that written procedures via email are possible as well. The delegation concerns “specific tasks” but not entire voting rights, otherwise any other regulations on voting would be meaningless.
- According to Art. 7 of the same annex “The Action MC appoints by a simple majority vote from among its members an Action Chair and a Vice Chair for the duration of the Action”. But “In the event of the premature resignation or termination of the appointment of the Action Chair or ViceChair, they shall be replaced for the remainder of the mandate, again by a simple majority vote to elect a new Action Chair and/or Vice-Chair.” According to the definition in the Vademecum, a “Chair is elected during an Action MC meeting by the Action MC from amongst the Action’s MC members”, which again does not exclude changes in this position. So even though not formally foreseen, it is not forbidden to rotate the roles.
- Specifying all planned summer schools / STSMs / number of participants in conferences 4-5 years in advance in a proposals does not seem very reliable information, thus I doubt that this can reasonably be expected. An order of magnitude or aim could however make sense. If I understand correctly how the funding is distributed, it mainly depends on the number of participating eligible countries during the lifetime of an Action and not on the number of planned activities. Notice that you cannot influence the budget in your application.