As part of the ongoing work within the PROGRAMMING COST Action 21122, a substantial dataset has been gathered. A survey focusing on the educational interests and needs in the field of geriatric care collected over 6,000 responses from healthcare professionals and final-year medical students across Europe and beyond.
COST Action members have been encouraged to apply for the opportunity to analyze this valuable dataset. Scientific publications resulting from this analysis must align with COST principles of openness and inclusiveness, promoting open access to results and fostering collaboration among investigators from different countries.
To assist PROGRAMMING CA applicants in enhancing the number of publications and ensuring a smooth and equitable process, a committee has been formed (named ‘Review Committee’-RC). The primary objectives of the RC are to:
- Assess submitted proposals and promote efficiency (including avoiding overlapping works and bringing together proposers with similar research interest).
- Ensure a transparent and fair review process.
- Provide data to PROGRAMMING CA members who possess the necessary skills to produce academic publications and bring together more senior researcher with YRI to promote research opportunities of the latter.
- Support submitted proposals by proposing and enabling collaborations when relevant
- To assure that the outputs of our member’s initiatives comply with the Action’s objectives, principles and aimed messages and COST requirements (including COST visual branding guidelines)
- Keep track of all productions from the PROGRAMMING COST Action 21122.
Important point: Even though the RC was formed almost spontaneously out of the need to exploit the data from the WG1 pan European survey, its purposes are applicable also for all scientific works produced by any of the Action’s activities (including literature reviews and original works coming out of the Action’s activities other than the WG1 survey). Therefore, a centralization of intended scientific works (translated to proposals) to a common body is necessary.
To support this effort two supporting proposal forms has been developed as application tools:
- Extended Form: For members planning to analyze the data for the purpose of writing a scientific paper, undergraduate, postgraduate, or PhD thesis, or a policy document.
- Simplified Form: For members planning to use the data for conference presentations.
Both the Extended Form and Simplified Form can be downloaded from the Members’ Area found at the uppers left corner of the website: https://cost-programming.eu.
The Review Committee will collect the proposals, assess them, hold regular meetings to discuss and conclude to a direct approval or a suggestion for modifications.
The Review Committee’s will not intervene in the list of authors for the intended publications, neither will provide a ‘real’ review of manuscripts, but it will need to confirm that the final manuscript -prior to submission- aligns with the Action’s objectives and methodology.
The RC comprises the following members:
- Action Chair: Marina Kotsani
- Action Vice Chair Mirko Petrovic
- Science Communication Coordinator and WG5 Co-Leader: Karolina Piotrowicz
- Grant Holder Scientific Representative Athanase Benetos
- G5 Leader: Ana Sofia Duque
- WG1 Leaders: Anne Wissendorff Ekdahl, Tahir Masud, Anna Marie Herghelegiu, and Tajana Pavic
- Data-provider and organiser: Giulia Ogliari
Any Core Group member is welcome to join the RC if they wish (please express your interest by writing to Anne Wissendorff Ekdahl).
In the case of significant and specialized research questions or methodology, additional experts may be appointed to participate in the group meetings.
The committee will be chaired by WG1 Leader Anne Wissendorff Ekdahl and co-chaired by Science Communication Coordinator Karolina Piotrowicz.
Applications should be submitted to Giulia Ogliari and Karolina Piotrowicz (scc.programming21122@gmail.com), who will forward them to the committee at regular intervals and handle the communication of responses to applicants, on behalf of the whole committee.
Rather than introducing barriers, this initiative aims at facilitating the research initiatives within the Action and underscores our commitment to advancing research in Geriatric Medicine and fostering collaboration within the COST Action network.