Meeting at the Higher Education and Science Committee of Armenia on promoting Armenian researchers
On April 16, Sargis Hayotsyan, Chair of the RA MESCS Higher Education and Science Committee, and Prof. Zoran Popovski, Vice President of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST Association), discussed opportunities for promoting Armenian researchers’ and innovative enterprises’ participation in COST Actions.
The meeting was also attended by Tigran Arzumanyan, Director of the Scientific and Innovation Partnership Assistance Center (SIPAC) Foundation, who concurrently is the national coordinator for the COST Association.
As Prof. Popovski noted during the discussion, each of COST’s approximately 300 Actions involves, on average, around 200 researchers, totaling roughly 60,000 participants overall. Currently, however, Armenian researchers participate in only 30% of these 300 Actions.
Chairman of the Higher Education and Science Committee, Sargis Hayotsyan, emphasized the importance of expanding Armenia’s participation in COST, highlighting that this would allow researchers to exchange knowledge, establish new collaborative networks within the international scientific community, and subsequently submit more competitive proposals to the EU’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
In this context, Hayotsyan and Popovski considered the possibility of initiating national measures aimed at promoting participation in COST Actions. Popovski presented several international best practices aimed at boosting participation, which could be valuable for developing Armenia’s own national policies.
As a reminder, the EU-supported COST program provides funding to interdisciplinary scientific and innovation networks involving researchers from 41 member countries and other partner states through COST Actions. These Actions bring together scientists and innovators from various fields to collaborate on specific topics over four-year periods. COST Actions are open to all fields of science and technology and encourage the participation of researchers from academia, SMEs, public institutions, and other interested organizations.
It should also be noted that on April 15, 2025, the first National Information Day dedicated to the COST program was held at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, jointly organized by SIPAC Foundation, COST Association, and the Department of International Relations of NAS RA.
During the Information Day, the main provisions of the COST program, opportunities for establishing scientific networks and obtaining funding within COST Actions, application procedures, and the advantages of participating in COST Actions were presented. The event featured presentations by representatives of the COST Association and Armenian beneficiaries of COST Actions.