PermaCOST was officially kicked of as a COST Action on October 3, 2025, in Brussels, where the first Management Committee meeting of the Action took place. Our network brings together researchers, practitioners and stakeholders to strengthen the coordination and standardisation of permafrost monitoring across Europe.
Permafrost has been dramatically warming and degrading in most mountain and polar regions, with farreaching and long-term implications for natural and anthropogenic environments. In this context of rapid changes and large socio-economic impacts, the increased scrutiny from the society and the growing demand for sound data from stakeholders make permafrost monitoring a timely and highly relevant field of research.
Documenting, analysing, and assessing the response of permafrost to climate change requires fundamental cross-disciplinary and cross-geographic knowledge that can only be achieved through coordinated and standardized monitoring activities.
For years, European research groups have been at the forefront of operational and innovative permafrost monitoring activities, but they have not been able to further coordinate their activities or to establish widely accepted standards for data acquisition and processing.
The PermaCOST Action aims to bring together European permafrost researchers, stakeholders, and practitioners with expertise in different measurement techniques and permafrost conditions to work towards a coordinated and standardized monitoring of permafrost response to climate change.
Through this unprecedented network of experts and early career investigators, the Action will specifically (1) identify key novel permafrost monitoring methods, homogenise (2) permafrost data acquisition standards and (3) permafrost data processing standards, (4) assess the state and evolution of permafrost in Europe and (5) promote the development of operational permafrost monitoring networks at national, regional, and European scales.
