Coordination and organisation

As per ‘Rules and procedures for implementing COST Actions’ (COST doc. 4154/11) , a kick-off meeting will initiate the Action, to which each partner will be invited and at which the detail of the work plan and the structure of the COST Action will be defined.

The COST Action NEWGEN will be supervised and coordinated by the Management Committee (MC) composed of:

• A Chair and a Vice-Chair nominated during the kick-off meeting
• Representatives of each of the COST countries participating to the Action.
• The four Leaders of the defined Working Groups

The MC will meet biannually, one meeting coinciding with another COST Action event. In addition to the tasks described hereafter, the MC main objective is to promote the communications between researchers, industrials and end-users (surgeons or medical units), which is the critical point of the COST Action NEWGEN. The MC will closely assume that the WGs will highlight these triangular interactions between these different stakeholders, leading to the necessity to have a significant representation of each group of partners at each organized event. The MC will manage the following tasks:

1. General Management of the COST Action NEWGEN meaning:

• Collect WGs reports and dissemination of an annual report
• Direct interaction with the COST Office and with the COST National Coordinators (CNCs)
• Management of expenses
• Administrative tasks
• Management of WG meetings, at least each 6 months
• Management of Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSM) and training courses / workshop for early-stage researchers (ESR)

2. Networking: the MC is responsible of the dynamic of the whole Action and has to stimulate the partners to respect the milestones established in the COST Action.

• The organisation of scientific events (call for papers, selection of papers, material organisation, etc.). Each year, the MC will organise a joint scientific meeting to which partners from each WG will be invited to participate. This joint meeting will also be the opportunity for the MC and for each WG to meet together.
• During the second and the fourth years of the Action, the MC will organise a large scientific event, open to the whole academic, industrial and medical community, at European or Worldwide level.

3. Dissemination: the MC will oversee all aspects of the dissemination plan as per section H.

The COST Action NEWGEN will be organised in four Working Groups. As described in section D.2., the four Working Groups are:

• WG1: Design and synthesis of raw materials
• WG2: Manufacturing and characterization of 3D-porous scaffolds
• WG3: Functionalization of implants for improved functional and therapeutic effects
• WG4: In vitro an in vivo evaluation of the performance

A Working Group (WG) Leader will be nominated for each WG who will be responsible for its coordination. Each WG will consist of partners from academic institutes, industries and end-users, with the aim to create a multi-disciplinary group, that the work of the group may reflect such a range of perspectives. They will ideally meet twice per year. A given partner may be involved to more than one WG. During the first year of implementation, the WGs will stimulate their members to find new partners to strengthen their activities and the scope of the Action.

The first meeting of a WG will give the opportunity to the participants to discuss and establish their concrete work plan, with detailed activities.

Deliverables expected for each WG:

• A mid-year (progress) and an annual (scientific) report, to be sent to the MC. The first reports will ideally contain a state-of –the-art of the main subjects of interest, as well as a global European roadmap for R&D, market, potential partners, etc.
• Contribution to the Action website by editing a specific webpage
• In collaboration with the MC: organisation of at least one dedicated event (Workshop, training school for early-stage researchers, scientific conferences). Short-term scientific missions will be organized through the duration of the Action
• Scientific publications: to be submitted to the MC for approval.
• Proposition of concrete projects (at least one) at the end of the Action, involving partners issued from the different WGs.

Interactions between the four WGs will be strongly encouraged by the MC. Anyway, a joint meeting will be organised once per year by the MC.

The partners in the COST Action NEWGEN have numerous contacts with coordinators and participants to other European and National projects and networks as well as bilateral interactions on smaller technological development and support activities with a wide range of third parties. The partners will be required to disseminate information and publications via the scheduled open events and meetings organised throughout the duration of the programme, as well as public European and international conferences and Symposia, with a view to identifying potential new members for the consortium during the first year of the COST Action and to invite experts (out-of the COST Action) to present lectures of their works and activities of their relevant networks. The COST Action NEWGEN is also opened to collaborate with other complementary research networks to organise joint workshops and seminars in order to foster multi-disciplinary exchanges.

This COST Action will respect an appropriate gender balance and considerable involvement of early stage researchers (ESR) in all its activities and the Management Committee (MC) will place this as a standard item on all its MC agendas.

Early-stage researchers will be largely involved throughout NEWGEN. Indeed, the WGs are encouraged to organise meetings, training schools, workshops and conferences giving the opportunity to young scientists to present their PhD thesis or their post-doctorate activities. Short-term scientific missions (STSM) will be one of the best means to provide new experiences to young researchers.
Networking in NEWGEN will respect a normal gender balance; women partners will be involved at every level of the COST Action. One third of the actual consortium of partners are women and this part is growing to more than 50% if the total number of potential participants (including members of each institution) are taken into account.