COST is the acronym for "European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research". It is a framework for international research and development cooperation, allowing to coordinate national research at European level.

COST does not fund research as such, but coordination of research. COST includes as member states countries from the European Union, and a number of other European countries. COST BM0704is an action within the COST BMBS-Domain (Biomedicine and Molecular Biosciences), which is one of 9 domains existing in COST at the present time. More information can be found at the COST-Website.

The Action’s Chairperson is Dr. Alastair McKinlay, Health Protection Agency, United Kingdom. Vice-Chair: Dr. Mirjana Moser, Bundesamt für Gesundheit, Switzerland.

For the time being, 27 signatory countries decided to actively participate in Action BM0704:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Finland
• Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Israel
• Italy
• Latvia
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slowenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

Besides this, contacts have been made with international bodies such as WHO, ICNIRP and EBEA.

Currently the Action has built up five Working Groups:
• Working Group 1: EMF Monitoring and Measurement (Chair: Dr. Georg Neubauer, Austria)
• Working Group 2: EMF Computational Dosimetry (Chair: Dr. Joe Wiart, France)
• Working Group 3: EMF Epidemiological and Human Studies (Chair: PhD Maria Feychting, Sweden)
• Working Group 4: EMF Biology (Chair: Dr. Isabelle Lagroye, France)
• Working Group 5: EMF Risk Management (Chair: Dr. Peter Wiedemann, Germany)

Further information on the Action can be found at: http://w3.cost.esf.org/index.php?id=212&action_number=BM0704