Charles University became a grant holder of the COST Action titled Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability. Associate Professor Jiřina Kocourková from the Department of Demography and Geodemography at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, assumed the role of scientific representative for the project in January. In April, she will take over as the chair of the entire action, which began in 2022 and will continue until October 2026.
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COST (European Cooperation in Scientific and Technical Research) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. COST Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation. Unlike traditional grant agencies, COST Actions do not fund research itself but support networking activities such as short-term scientific missions, conferences, workshops, training schools, and other meetings of international teams. COST Action members are not employees of a single institution; instead, they are researchers from different countries, and additional participants can join over the course of the action. COST Actions also place a strong emphasis on the involvement of early-career researchers and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability Action, now led by Charles University, currently has more than 170 participants from 42 countries. Its goal is to advance research on the significance of paid parental leave for social sustainability. One of the key research aims is to gather information on how paid parental leave influences social inequalities and how it impacts on children. A major contribution of the project is strengthening international collaboration in this field, creating theoretical framework, developing appropriate terminology, and laying the groundwork for future research on this topic.
The project is supported by the COST Action – Sustainability@Leave, COST Action CA21150.
COST Action Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability explained here
Project website, COST official website