COST logo; credit: COST
«The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) is a funding organisation for the creation of research networks, called COST Actions. These networks offer an open space for collaboration among scientists across Europe (and beyond) and thereby give impetus to research advancements and innovation.» – COST website. Latvia has been a member of COST since 2014, participating in a number of COST Actions (CAs).
Since 2018, Latvia has been participating in CA16201 – «Unravelling new physics at the LHC through the precision frontier». Latvia and our group is represented in the Management Committee of this CA by Dr. Kārlis Dreimanis. This CA «is a COST Action in the field of theoretical elementary particle and high-energy physics. It involves an interdisciplinary community of more than 120 researchers from 27 countries with outstanding expertise in physics, mathematics and computer science.»
Through participation in this CA, our group aims to further build our capacity in high-energy physics research, as well as to enhance the training of students in this field of science. For example, through this CA, and in close cooperation with our partner institutions from the CERN Baltic Group, our group secured the additional funding necessary to organise the first annual «Baltic School of High-Energy Physics and Accelerator Technologies», originally planned for summer 2020[1]. This CA was initiated in 2017 and will run until the latter half of 2021, when the continuation of its operation will be reviewed. During the remainder of the current round of this CA, we aim to utilise the vast network of connections and monetary support it provides to increase Latvia’s capacity in high-energy physics, through further training events in Latvia and traineeship opportunities for Latvian students at CERN.
[1]Due to the on-going global health emergency, the 2020 edition has been postponed to 2021.