Minutes of the 1st Management Committee Meeting, 17-18 December 2007, Brussels
Minutes of the 1st Management Committee Meeting
COST Office
Avenue Louise 149, Brussels, Belgium
17-18 December 2007
1 Welcome to participants
The participants of the inaugural meeting of COST Action FA0605 were welcomed by Ms Stol Bouktje and Dr. Ioanna Stavridou, the Science Officer for this Action.
The meeting was chaired by Ms Stol until the election of a chairperson for the Action, which was carried out under agenda item 7.
2 Adoption of the agenda
The draft agenda was adopted without any amendment.
3 Presentation of the delegations
A total of 29 participants from the following 21 countries were attending the meeting: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom.
The COST Office was represented by the Science Officer of the COST Domain on Food and Agriculture Ms Stol Bouktje and Dr. Ioanna Stavridou, as well as the responsible Administrative Officer, Mr Peeters Christophe. The list of officially nominated delegates and the participants of the meeting with their contact information is presented in Annex 1.
4 General information on the COST mechanism and on the funding of co-ordination
At the beginning of this item Ms Bouktje gave a briefing on the COST mechanism, presenting the general framework for that programme created to promote scientific and technical co-operation in Europe. Relevant information can be found on the COST-Website at http://www.cost.esf.org/index.php?id=38.
Ms Bouktje informed the delegates about the principles and procedures related to the COST Actions and about the possibilities of getting activities funded from the COST budget. The relevant documents can be found at the official Web-site of COST:
• Rules and procedures for implementing COST Actions (Annex 2)
• Financing of COST activities (Annex 3)
• Rules of Procedure for Management Committees of COST Actions (Annex 4)
• Guidelines for the implementation of Short-Term Scientific Missions (Annex 5)
• Guidelines for evaluation and monitoring of COST Actions (DOC. 271/07) (Annex 6)
• Memorandum of Understanding of COST Action FA0605 (Annex 7)
• COST Grant Sytem (CGS) (Annex 8)
• Rules for reimbursement of expenses for experts eligible for reimbursement (Annex 9)
With reference to the COST guidelines Ms Bouktje called into mind that Signatories are committed to making every effort to ensure that the necessary funds for participating in the Action are made available under their internal financing procedure. The document ‘Rules and Procedure for Implementing COST Actions’ provides various modes for the participation in a COST Action (see Chapter 4).
Furthermore, the MC decided to change Article 8 defining the minimal number of participating Signatories that must attend a MC meeting for that meeting to be considered as official. In the light of the current number of signatory countries it has been agreed to lower the relevant threshold from two-thirds to a half.
5 Status of the Action
COST Action FA0605 was approved by the Committee of Senior Officials on 20 November 2006. The Action entered into force on 21 March 2007 after five countries had signed the Memorandum of Understanding. The Action officially starts with the first MC Meeting and will end in four years - 16 December 2011.
As of the first Management Committee meeting, a total of 21 countries had signed the MoU according to the official records of the COST Council Secretariat. The signature countries were Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom.
6 Election of Chair and Vice Chair
The Management Committee elected Prof. Antonio TIBURCIO to the Chair of COST Action FA0605. Prof. Csaba KONCZ was elected Vice-Chair.
The new Action Chair took over the chair of the meeting from this item onwards.
7 Working plan for implementing the Action
7.1 Objectives and working programme
The objectives of the Action FA0605 are outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) (Annex 7). The newly elected Chair, Prof. Antonio Tiburcio presented a summary of the Action background, pointing out that the main objective of the Action is to assess and report on (i) the identification of key regulatory genes that control drought, salt and cold tolerance through modulating the levels and activities of stress protecting metabolites (chiefly polyamines, proline, and other glutamate-derived amino acids and chaperonines) and (ii) the possibilities of exploiting the gained knowledge to improve drought, salt and cold tolerance of commercially valuable crops and trees. An additional goal of the Action is to strengthen the scientific excellence in the area and to disseminate this information to European scientists, industry and other share holders. Furthermore, the Action aims at stimulating new interdisciplinary scientific networks in Europe, as well as networking nationally funded activities on this area. The deliverables will include seminars, workshops and publications in the focus areas. The scientific impact will have a long term effect on the transformation of the European industry towards a bio-based industry, and maintain the employment level of the industry.
7.2 Working method - organisation and management
It was decided that the Action will be carried out mainly through 4 Working Groups and through Short Term Scientific Missions (STMS). All 4 Working Groups should address the relevant key areas as described in the MoU. Working Groups have been invited by the Management Committee to cooperate as closely as possible and to ensure the necessary flow of information.
Regarding the grant system the Chair Prof. Antonio Tiburcio expressed the readiness of his institution, Universitat de Barcelona, which should be issued at the end of the year 2007. It has been agreed that 15% of the budget will be allocated to the grantholder for the necessary administration.
After a comprehensive discussion the following structures and responsibilities were agreed upon:
7.2.1 Working Group 1: Functional characterisation of protein kinases involved in abiotic stress signalling
Co-ordinator: Laszlo Bogre (UK)
7.2.2 Working Group 2: Genetic identification of signalling factors controlling ABA, salt, osmotic, drought and cold regulated transcription.
Co-ordinator: Dorothea Bartels (DE)
7.2.3 Working Group 3: Expression of genes involved in the production of osmo-protectants.
Co-ordinator: Aviah Zilberstein (IL)
7.2.4 Working Group 4: Integrated molecular analysis of the polyamine metabolic pathway in response to abiotic stress.
Co-ordinator: Pedro Carrasco (ES)
7.2.4 Executive Committee
In accordance with the existing COST rules the MC has set up an Executive Committee consisting of the Chair, Vice-Chair and the four Working Group Co-ordinators. The MC will decide on the way the STSMs will be handled in the following Joint WG/MC meeting.
All MC members have been invited to encourage young scientists to participate in that scheme.
Applications can only be submitted by using the on-line registration tool (www.cost.esf.org/stsm) described in the relevant guidelines.
7.2.5 INTERNET/WEB site
To facilitate communication between the members of the Action and to promote distribution of information on the research activities going on in the field of COST Action FA0605 Dr. Bernd Wollenweber expressed the readiness of his institute, Aarhus University, to host and maintain a Website for this Action on its server. The offer of the Aarhus University has been welcomed by the Management Committee.
7.2.6 TC Rapporteur of the Action
The Domain Committee on Food and Agriculture (DC FA) nominated Dr. Ozlem Ekici as Rapporteur for COST Action FA0605, whose task will be to report about the activities of this COST Action to DC FA. .
7.2.7 Meeting Secretary
It has been agreed that Dr. Jaume Bastida (University of Barcelona) to act as Secretary recording the minutes when the Science Officer is not present.
7.3 Distribution of tasks
It has been agreed that all MC members will nominate their national WG members no later than by 31 January 2008 and send their names to the Action Chair, the Vice-Chair and to the COST Office.
Furthermore, MC members have been invited to support the Action Chair in building up an informative Web-site by providing adequate information material.
8 Place and date of future meetings
A number of choices were given regarding the venue of the meeting, which included:
Crete (Greece) by Kalliopi Roubelakis-Angelakis
Osigek (Croatia) by Tihana Teklic
Sofia (Bulgaria) by Dimitar Djilianov
Matera (Italy) by Rina Iannaccone
Geneve (Switzerland) by Liliana Sticher
It was decided that the five candidatures will send to the Chair (by 31st December 2007) a plan including expected expenses and facilities to reach the place of the Meeting. Final decision will be made by the Executive Committee (Core Group) after evaluation of the four plans.
The date of the next Meeting will be during the week of 11 to 14 of April 2008.
Budget relevant decisions:
The Management Committee has approved the following requests:
Grant 2007 for the website (2.000 Euro)
Action Grant: Universitat de Barcelona (Administrating Institute), Overheads 15%.
9 Any Other Business
None
10 Closing of the meeting
In closing the meeting on 18 December 2008 at 12:00 hrs Action Chair Prof. Antonio Tiburcio expressed his gratitude to the members of the Management Committee for their active participation in the meeting.
Ioanna Stavridou
December 2008
List of participants
Altman Arie (Israel)
Angelini Riccardo (Italy)
Bastida Jaume (Spain)
Bogre Laszlo (United Kingdom)
Bouchereau Alain (France)
Cvikrova Milena (Czech Republic)
Djilianov Dimitar (Bulgaria)
Fischer Karsten (Norway)
Fortes Ana Margarida (Portugal)
Heino Pekka (Finland)
Heyer Arnd (Germany)
Iannaccone Rina (Italy)
Jerzmanowski Andrzej (Poland)
Kadioglu Asim (Turkey)
Kevers Claire (Belgium)
Kollist Hannes (Estonia)
Koncz Csaba (Germany)
Marcinska Izabela (Poland)
Mauro Sergio (Belgium)
Mishra Kumud Bandhu (Czech Republic)
Renaut Jenny (Luxembourg)
Roubelakis-Angelakis Kalliopi (Greece)
Sperisen Christoph (Switzerland)
Sticher Siu Liliane (Switzerland)
Szabados László (Hungary)
Teklic Tihana (Croatia)
Tiburcio Antonio (Spain)
Wollenweber Bernd (Denmark)
Zilberstein Aviah (Israel)