Small but strategic

Monica Dietl

Monica Dietl, director of the Brussels office of Cooperation in Science and Technology, tells Tania Rabesandratana how Cost, which funds science collaboration in Europe, is preparing for the future.

You’ve been directing the Cost office for seven months now. What did you find most striking about the initiative when you joined?

What surprised me is how much the Cost [networking] Actions can achieve with relatively little money. Cost has a small budget [€240 million from Framework 7 for 2007-13], which allows us to fund about 60 new actions every year, that run for four years and receive €100,000 per year on average. With this money we allow researchers to exchange knowledge and methods, develop new knowledge together, and move towards common programmes.