The work of the COST Action (CA18124) on the “European Sexual Medicine Network” (ESMN) is coordinated by its Management Committee (MC), which consists of representatives from 29 countries and one MC observer from an International Partner Country. All of the Member Countries and the COST Cooperating State have signed and accepted the Memorandum of Understanding  on which the Action is based.

The COST Action (CA18124) started on the 5th of April 2019 and will end on the 4th of April 2023.

Management Committee

The MC holds responsibility for the strategic oversight and scrutiny of the ESMN, monitoring the implementation of aims and objectives, gender balance, inclusiveness of researches from ITCs and involvement of ECIs. It also pursues the goal of including experts from Near Neighbor Countries (NNCs) and International Partner Countries (IPCs) and regularly meets once per year. The MC can also meet on an ad-hoc basis if important decisions necessitate this. The MC Chair and Vice-Chair in cooperation with the Grant Holder will propose the Agenda for the meeting on behalf of the Core Group, which will be sent to all other MC members two weeks prior to the MC meeting.

Core Group

The Core Group, which is composed of a Chair, Vice Chair and a Grant Holder Scientific Representative, four Working Group Leaders and Co-Leaders, a Science Communication Manager as well as a STSM Coordinator and a ITC/ECI Conference Grant Coordinator, is responsible for the coordination of the COST Action which includes:

  • Preparation of Work and Budget Plans (WBPs), MC meetings and decisions, votes, etc.
  • Joint organization of Working Group activities
  • Can be mandated by the MC to take certain decisions
  • Assists the Chair in determining, on behalf of the MC, from amongst eligible participants those who are entitled to be reimbursed

Working Groups

The responsibility of the different Working Groups (WGs) is to coordinate and manage activities and tasks associated with achieving scientific and networking objectives in the individual groups as well as communication within the WGs and creation of contact points with other WGs, especially with WG 4 to ensure the dissemination of results and outputs. Each WG will have given timescales for answering specific research questions and will design its own organization, priority of objectives and methods for reaching the expected results. The WG leaders and the Grant Holder Institution (GI) plan the budget details together and the MC will approve additional meetings that the WGs will organize. An additional task is to provide input for the preparation of the Progress Reports and the Final Achievement Report as well as presenting the progress of the Working Groups to the MC.