COST Action CA21137: “Ethics in Dementia”

Management Committee and Working Group Meeting
Minutes
From 20/03/2023 at 09:00:00 to 21/03/2023 at 17:00:00
Face to face, Beograd, Serbia
Institute of Social Sciences, Beograd, Serbia

 

1.Welcome to participants, verification of the quorum and adoption of agenda

Kate Irving and Sigurd Lauridsen verified quorum and summarized the status of network and the important next steps.

Status of EDEM:

• The overall status of EDEM is good and WG leaders are making plans for reaching the deliverables of the Action.

• A process for the Short Term Scientific Missions are currently being set up (criteria for eligibility)

• The website is currently being developed.

Forthcoming activities within the Action:

• Training school the summer/fall of 2023

• Physical WG meeting in the fall of 2023

• 5 STSMs and 3 virtual meetings before October 2023

• Virtual MC meeting in the fall of 2023

2. Information to the MC

Vote on establishing a core group that comprises all relevant leaders.

Sigurd gives a short presentation of the annotated rules for establishing a core group.

It is proposed that the delegation of power of the core groups should be limited to the following:

• Change of place and date of activities within the Action

• Invitation to participants for networking activities.

• Selection of providers for dissemination and communication product (e.g. website, publication, etc.)

• Approval or refusal of WG application as well as termination of WG members ship against criteria set by the action MC.

• Selection of invited participants who will be reimbursed.

It is proposed that the core group would be comprised of the following:

• Chair of the Action

• Vice-chair

• WG leaders

• Equal Opportunity Officer

• Communication Officer

The Core Group will meet online each month.

The vote:

The core group is established by a unanimous vote.

3. Combining training school and working group meeting

Gabija Jarasiunaite had volunteered to host a training school on ethics and dementia in Lithuania this fall the last week of august or in the beginning of September. We had a thorough discussion of whether or not to combine the training school and working group meeting.

The vote:

We decided by unanimous vote to combine the training school and working group meeting hosted by Gabija Jarasiunaite at the Vytautas Magnus University Jonavos str. 66-332, Kaunas, 44191, Lithuania.

At an upcoming meeting in the core group with Gabija Jarasiunaite we will outline a program for the event and settle on specific dates

4. Memberships

Kate Irving gives a short description of the inflow of new memberships. There is a plenary discussion of how to attract to new countries to join the action. We need MC members from the following countries:

Countries to target:

Iceland

Sweden

Finland

Netherlands

Slovenia

Bulgaria

Italy

France

Armenia

UK

Austria

Switzerland

Moldova

Slovakia

Countries with only one MC member:

Greece

Latvia

Belgium

Czech Repub

Germany

Bosnia

Hungary

Important: We encourage all MC members to reach out to colleagues they may have in these countries and ask them to join the Action. To become a MC member the person should contact their national coordinator whom can be found here: https://www.cost.eu/about/who-is-who/#tabs+Name:National%20Coordinators

In the core group we will also discuss further how to recruit new MC members from these countries.

5. Work plan and Budget

Sigurd went through the budget and informed that the network had been given 30.000 Euros to arrange a working group meeting in the fall.

6.Implementation of the COST Excellence and Inclusiveness Policy and Grant Awarding by the Action

Joanna Rymaszewska presented criteria and a procedure for awarding grants for STSMs and virtual meetings based on the COST Excellence and Inclusiveness Policy.

There is funding for 5 STSMs and 3 virtual meetings to strengthen collaborations in the network (2,100 per person). Each has a minimum of 5 days. These missions should enable access to research expertise or infrastructure.  A call will be released in early April as the deadline for spending the money is 31.10.23

The following criteria for selection were discussed and agreed:

Formal evaluation:

Grant Awarding Coordinator (GAC) will formally analyze the applications and reject those that are incomplete or that do not meet the eligibility criteria. If Host will be one of the EDEM Core Group will not evaluate the application.

Main evaluation:

Grant Committee (Leader, vice-Leader, GAC, Equal Opportunities Coordinator) will grade:

  1 – Very poor: proposal illogical and not understandable   

  2 – Poor: proposal with limited understanding, planning and no clear objectives

  3 – Fair: proposal with some understanding, planning and objectives   

  4 – Good: good proposal but needs input to develop feasible outputs   

  5 – Excellent: proposal well designed in terms of planning, feasibility and projected outputs.

  Optionally in any doubts or obligatory:

  + 1 point according to its appropriateness within the objectives of the one of EDEM WG

  + 1 point to applications submitted by Young Researcher/ Early Career Researcher/Innovator (PhD student or Post-doc <8 years after PhD)

1) Grant Awarding Coordinator prepare the ranking of eligible STSM applications according to COST Excellence and Inclusiveness Policy and Principles of Openness and Inclusiveness.

2) A minimum grade of scores will be established by the Grant Committee

3) In the case of even scoring, the Grant Committee will take in to account geographic and/or gender balance.

4) Project Leader based on ranking will decide the specific grant amount and duration.

5) The final results of the evaluations will be communicated by email to the applicants within two weeks after the submission of the application.

Action points:

o 5th of April – Preparation of the call, template

o 6th of April – open the call (via mails, EDEM website, COST platform, Fb)

o 30th of April – deadline of submisions

o 15th of May – finish of evaluation proces and decisions – mails to applicants

o It means – time forSTSM and VM  – June, July, August, September, October 2023

o If the budget is not used, the application deadlines will be extended

o Next years – calls for STSM and VM in the network continuously open

The vote:

The criteria, procedure and Grant Committee is accepted by a unanimous vote.

7. Progress of each working group and Science Communication Plan

WG5 Exploitation and dissemination: Hilde Thygesen.

Hilde presented the design concept for the website.  We all agreed that the design was excellent.  There were no objections to using the suggested website provider.

Action points:

• Each member need to get back to Hilde with suggestions for the website design.
• Each WG leader needs to write a short description of the WG 200-300 words, the aims and objectives and the deliverables and get these to Hilde within the next 2 weeks.
• Each WG needs to develop a communication- and exploitation plan.
• WG5 «Dissemination» needs more members.  We have asked that each WG leader add themselves to the dissemination WG.

8. Progress on MoU Objectives, WG tasks, deliverables, and Goals for the current GP.

All WG leaders presented the status, progress and plans at the meeting. All had detailed plans to involve the network and to reach deliverables. All presentations will be distributed to the whole network and archived at the EDEM Website once it is operational

9. Planning

a) Revision of Work and Budget Plan of the current GP

Sigurd will draft a revised Work and Budget Plan to accommodate the 30.000 Euros top-up budget the Action has received from COST. This budget will then be put to an E-vote.

b) Draft plans for the following GP(s).

At a virtual MC meeting in the fall a plan for the following GP will be discussed

c) Upcoming activities

• Training school the summer/fall of 2023 and physical WG meeting in the fall of 2023. This

• 5 STSMs and 3 virtual meetings before October 2023

• Virtual MC meeting in the fall of 2023

10. Monitoring and Reporting to the COST Association

Sigurd will submit a summary of this MC/WG meeting to the Cost Association.

11. Summary of MC decisions

• We established a core group by a unanimous vote.
• We decided by unanimous vote to combine the training school and working group meeting hosted by Gabija Jarasiunaite at the Vytautas Magnus University Jonavos
• The criteria, procedure and Grant Committee were accepted by a unanimous vote.