Due to COVID-19, there are some additional issues around STSMs.

While it is possible to be flexible about when the STSM occurs (as long as it finishes prior to 15 August, 2023) starting an STSM which then must be cancelled while underway is very problematic. STSM recipients who cut short their STSM can only be reimbursed for the number of days of participation, irrespective of any travel and pre-paid rent. For example, if an STSM is set for three months, and travel and accommodation paid for by the recipient, but must be cut short after one month, only 1/3 of the STSM payment can be made. 

Please take this into account when agreeing to any STSM, both as an applicant or as host. We are happy to discuss proposals and will try to help mitigate risk and ensure a successful STSM. COST highly recommends buying travel insurance (which is an eligible expense). For COST COVID-19 regulations please see: https://www.cost.eu/cost-actions-event/action-networking-tools/covid-19-information-for-cost-actions/

What Are STSMs?

Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) are exchange visits aimed at supporting researchers’ individual mobility, strengthening existing networks and fostering collaboration. STSMs are intended especially, but not solely, for young researchers.

The aim of a STSM as defined by COST is to contribute to the scientific objectives of a COST Action. These Missions aim at strengthening the existing COST Actions whilst at the same time allowing those partaking in the missions to learn a new technique, gain access to specific data, instruments and/or methods not available in their own institutions/organisations.

Who can apply?

STSM applicants must be engaged in an official research programme as a PhD student or postdoctoral fellow or may be employed by, or affiliated to, an institution or legal entity which has within its remit a clear association with performing research (Home Institution).

Home institution eligible countries include: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo* Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Libya, Malta, Morocco, the Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, The Republic of North Macedonia, Norway, Palestine**, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom and Ukraine.

The Host Institution is the institution/organisation that will host the STSM grantee. STSMs must be performed between COST countries – researchers cannot apply for an STSM within their own country. A list of institutions that have already expressed interest to host SEADDA STSM grantees can be found below. However, applicants are free to propose other SEADDA institutions.

Awards will be made considering the scientific scope of SEADDA and supporting a variety of researchers in terms of gender, career stage, affiliation, and nationality.

What do STSMs provide?

You can apply for an STSM of a duration between 5 and 90 days (and, if you are an Early Career Investigator (ECI) up to 180 days). The STSM is a fixed grant which takes into consideration the budget request of the applicant and the outcome of the evaluation of the STSM application. STSM Grants do not necessarily cover all expenses related to undertaking a given mission. A STSM Grant is a contribution to the overall travel, accommodation and meal expenses of the Grantee. The STSM Committee will consider differentiated country rates to cover accommodation and meal expenses based on the perceived cost of living in the host country.

Grantees can apply for a maximum contribution of up to EUR 4,000 for travelling, accommodation and subsistence expenses, implementation of the project, delivery of the report to the COST Action MC and overall effort.

STSM activities must occur in their entirety within the dates specified in the call.

STSM awards may be combined with other funding sources, but these must be acknowledged in the application.

Please note that usually the awarded grant will be paid only after the STSM has been completed. This means that the applicant must have prior financial support (e.g. from their own institution).

However, specific provisions have been introduced to enable researchers from ITC participating in the COST Action to request a pre-payment of 50% of their STSM Grant when they complete the first day of their STSM. In such case, the representative of the Host Institution must confirm by e-mail to the Grant Holder that the STSM applicant has officially started the mission on day 1. Only then the Grant Holder can arrange the payment of 50% of the STSM grant. The remaining 50% of the Grant is payable once the administrative requirements have been satisfied after the STSM.

STSM grantees must make their own arrangements for all provisions related to personal security, health, taxation, social security and pension matters.

In your application, you need to describe the aim of the proposed STSM and how it contributes to the scientific goals of the COST Action SEADDA. You have to declare the planned expenses and the outputs planned as result of the STSM.

How do you apply?

The deadline of the call is Thursday, 23 February 2023.

STSMs must be completed by 15 August 2023.

The following is a step-by-step guide to applying for an STSM and the criteria by which STSM applications will be assessed.

The application process is as follows:

  1. Applicants must submit an application using e-COST: https://e-services.cost.eu/activity/grants
  2. If you do not already have an e-COST account you will first need to ‘create an account’ – which will include providing the details of the bank account where the grant will be transferred to if your STSM application is approved and the STSM successfully completed.
  3. Applicants must obtain a letter of invitation from the Host Institution confirming that they can undertake the STSM on the given dates should their application be approved.
  4. Applicants must complete, submit and download their STSM application online at: https://e-services.cost.eu/activity/grants
  5. Applicants must send their application form and the relevant supporting documents for evaluation to STSM coordinator Dr Edeltraud Aspöck (edeltraud.aspoeck[AT]oeaw.ac.at) with the subject SEADDA – STSM application – applicant’s name.
  6. The list of supporting documents to be submitted for the evaluation are:
    • Letter of invitation to the applicant from a senior researcher at the Host institution.
    • The submitted STSM application form (downloadable when the online application is submitted).
    • A letter including an overview of the proposed activities that will be performed, a workplan for the visit, a description of the proposed contributions to the scientific objectives of the SEADDA Action, an outline of the host’s scientific expertise/resources in support of the STSM. The letter should be a maximum of 1000 words.
    • A letter of support from the applicant’s Home Institution.
    • A full C.V. (including a list of academic publications – if applicable).
  7. The SEADDA STSM committee assesses the proposal (see ‘STSM Selection Criteria’ below) and may seek expert but impartial advice to inform their decision. If approved, the STSM coordinator sends the application and approval to the Grant Holder & Action Chair for final check.
  8. The Grant Holder sends the applicant a grant letter to sign and return. The STSM should not be started until this letter has been signed and returned.

After the STSM

  1. Within 30 days of completing the STSM, the Grant holder must submit a scientific report (max. 1000 words) to the STSM coordinator and to a senior researcher at the STSM Host institution. This must include: the purpose of the mission; description of work carried out; description of main results/outputs; plan of future collaborations with Host (if applicable); planned publications resulting from STSM (if applicable); confirmation of successful STSM by Host.
    The failure to do so will effectively cancel the grant.
  2. Payment of the Grant is subject to the approval of the report by the persons delegated by the Action’s MC and by a senior researcher at Host institution. The Grant Holder executes payment to STSM Applicant.

Criteria for Awarding STSM

For awarding STSM grants the COST key principles are relevant: excellence, inclusivity and balance.

  • The relevance and application of the proposal to the field of the Action: The scientific aims of the proposed research have to be relevant and applicable to the aims of SEADDA (1-5 points).
  • The quality and clarity of the proposed research: The importance and timeliness of the research have to be argued by the STSM applicant and must be of high quality (1-5 points).
  • The choice of Host institution: The specific scientific reasons for visiting their chosen Host institution have to be provided. The geographical distribution of the Host institutions will be tracked to ensure there is an evenly-spread network for knowledge transfer and involvement of ITC countries (1-5 points).
  • The home institution of the researcher: The number of applications from each institution will be taken into account. Again, a fair spread of researches across the network and involvement of ITC countries will be ensured (1-5 points).
  • The researcher’s profile: The researcher’s potential of successfully completing the STSM mission will be evaluated on the basis of their previous work and achievements and according to their career stage. In line with COST policy, we will preferentially award STSMs to early career investigators (PhD + <8 years). This should not discourage more experienced researchers from applying (1-5 points).
  • The potential publication/output of the proposed research: This will be evaluated based on the publication/output plan submitted with the application (1-5 points).

SEADDA STSM Host Institutions

The following SEADDA partners are formally offering to host STSMs.

The Cyprus Institute

  • Name and address: The Cyprus Institute, 20 Konstantinou Kavafi Street, 2121, Aglantzia, Nicosia, Cyprus
  • Website: cyi.ac.cy
  • Contact: Sorin Hermon (hermon@gmail.com)
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects: building domain ontology, 3D data repositories, integration of multi-disciplinary archaeological data.
  • Duration of stay: up to available resources.

Incipit CSIC (in collaboration with the University of A Coruña & University of Santiago de Compostela)

  • Name and address: Incipit CSIC, Avda. de Vigo s/n; 15705 Santiago de Compostela; Spain
  • Website: http://www.incipit.csic.es/en/Default.aspx
  • Contact: Cesar Gonzalez-Perez (cesar.gonzalez-perez@incipit.csic.es)
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects: archaeological information modelling; ontologies in archaeology; “soft” issues such as subjectivity, temporality, vagueness and multilingualism in archaeological information; archaeological discourse and inference modelling; archaeological dataset management, extension and reuse.
  • Duration of stay: We are open to almost anything, from a couple of weeks to 6 months or longer, depending on the candidate and the topic.

Please note that this would be a collaboration with Patricia Martín-Rodilla (patricia.martin.rodilla@udc.es) at University of A Coruña and potential connections with Martín Pereira-Fariña (martin.pereira@usc.es) at University of Santiago de Compostela, depending on the topic and the candidate’s interests.

Laboratoire Archéologie et Territoires (CITERES-LAT)

  • Name and address: Laboratoire Archéologie et Territoires (Tours, France)
  • Website: http://citeres.univ-tours.fr/
  • Contact: Olivier Marlet (marlet@univ-tours.fr)
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects: Linked Open Data and Ontology; potential projects : collaborate on specific developments of the OpenArchaeo platform (user-friendly semantic web query) and applications for alignment with standardized vocabularies; prepare data sets to feed OpenArchaeo (mapping with 3M or Ontop to generate RDF).
  • Duration : 2 months at least, depending on the candidates’ possibilities.

University of Minho Archeology Unit

  • Name and address: University of Minho Archeology Unit, Edifício dos Congregados, Avenida Central, nº 100. 4710-229 Braga. Portugal.
  • Website: https://www.uminho.pt
  • Contact: Natália Botica (nb@uaum.uminho.pt).
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects: Rock Art characterization and analysis from the RARAA (Rock Art Open Access Repository) project; management of archaeological datasets according to FAIR principles; use and reuse of 2D and 3D photogrammetric models of rock art panels.
  • Duration of stay: UAUM is open to setting the duration appropriate to the availability of the candidate and proposed topic.

Hypermedia Research Group

  • Name and address of institution: Hypermedia Research Group, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, UK
  • Website: https://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/
  • Contact: Douglas Tudhope (douglas.tudhope@southwales.ac.uk), Ceri Binding (ceri.binding@southwales.ac.uk)
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects: Archaeological vocabulary issues and investigations as relevant to the candidate, including structured vocabulary development and standard representations, publication as linked data, mapping between vocabularies, data cleansing, vocabulary based text mining and automatic indexing including temporal and spatial vocabulary applications.
  • Duration of stay: Short visits of 1-3 weeks would be appropriate for some of the topics but we are also interested in the possibility of longer visits depending on the candidate, topic and plan of work.

Digital Antiquity

  • Name and address of the institution: Center for Digital Antiquity, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 872402, Tempe, Arizona, USA 85287-2402
  • https://www.digitalantiquity.org
  • Contact: Rachel Fernandez (rachel.fernandez.1@asu.edu), Christopher Nicholson (Christopher.M.Nicholson@asu.edu)
  • Topics of expertise / potential projects:
    • Standards for creating useful and reusable datasets, including metadata, formatting, and additional documentation. Exploring issues with creating and archiving large, complex datasets. Visiting researcher would be expected to come with an existing dataset(s) or in the process of creating one for their country or field of interest.
    • Reviewing and implementing FAIR principles and creating training documentation for archaeological repositories.
  • Duration of stay: 1-2 months

The Israel Antiquities Authority

  • Name and address of the institution: The Israel Antiquities Authority – offices spread all over the country
    Contact: Liat Weinblum (liat@israntique.org.il)
    Topics of expertise / potential projects:

     

    • Methodology and Management of Preventive Archaeology on a National level,
    • Software tools for Digital Documentation of Archaeological Excavations, Integration of multi-disciplinary archaeological data
    • Analytical Laboratory (both MOlaband FIXlab), Photogrammetry Solutions for Archaeological Excavations
  • Duration of stay: up to available resources

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.
** This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.

 

Meet Some of Our STSM Participants

  • Vera Moitinho De Almeida and Julian Richards in front of the ADS offices.
    SEADDA STSMs: Past and Future
    by Holly Wright
    There can be no doubt that the first two years of STSM participation in SEADDA did not go as planned, but there was still much to celebrate, and much to look forward two at we head into the second half of the Action. In the first year, the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) at the University of York, UK was able to welcome Dr Paulo Lussu from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy for his STSM project titled Durable online dissemination of large 3D datasets from museological collections. Paolo Lussu reflects on his time at ADS ADS also welcomed Dr Vera … Read more