COTCOS (Cooperative Technologies for Complex Work Settings) was a project funded by the European Union Training and Mobility Research Network (TMR) with partners from France, Eire, Denmark, UK, Italy and Belgium and ran from 1996-2000. Its main objectives were to enable researchers across Europe, from different backgrounds to learn and work together on the following topics: 

• critiquing and interrelating theories, conceptual frameworks and methodologies

• designing and evaluating systems for collaborative working

• carrying out ethnographic studies of complex work settings

• developing models and prototypes for new cooperative technologies

COTCOS brought together researchers from many different disciplines (eg. sociology, cognitive psychology, ergonomics, ethnomethodology, computer science, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, etc.) and countries (e.g. France, England, Ireland, Denmark, italy, Spain, USA, Italy, Sweden) who were interested in cooperative technologies in complex work settings. The academic partners worked closely with industrial partners from many diverse domains (air traffic control, museums, urban and freight transportation, emergency control centres and broadcasting, etc.).




COTCOS summer school, July 2000, Wiston House, E. Sussex.The partners included: