MAGNET · COST Action CA25124
Action Description
Connecting disciplines, building skills and turning distributional methods into usable practice.
The Action at a glance
IDENTITY
MAGNET · CA25124
Multidisciplinary Adaptations of GAMLSS NETwork.
DURATION
12 October 2026 – 11 October 2030
A four-year COST Action supporting research coordination, networking and capacity building.
MAGNET aims to advance the routine use of flexible distributional regression, particularly GAMLSS, where decisions depend on centiles, thresholds, extremes, zeros and predictive uncertainty.
Three connected scientific domains
POH
Public and One Health
Linking human, animal and environmental health through domain-specific questions, reference curves, risk thresholds and interpretable distributional evidence.
IDM
Infectious-disease modelling
Supporting surveillance and epidemic analysis with attention to changing variability, exceedance alerts, forecast intervals and operational needs.
PRM
Predictive risk modelling
Using environmental, behavioural, clinical and socioeconomic information to describe risk distributions and produce predictions that can be evaluated in real settings.
How MAGNET works
Methodologists, domain researchers, clinicians, agencies and other stakeholders will exchange expertise through workshops, training schools, short-term scientific missions and other networking activities. Shared case studies will help connect practical questions with appropriate modelling choices.
The planned outputs include reusable workflows, guidance, benchmark resources, open software and training materials. No-code routes are intended to lower entry barriers while retaining attention to interpretation, validation and reproducibility.
The Action focuses on coordination, knowledge exchange and capacity building. Participating teams can build on this network through their own research programmes and further collaborative funding.
Four Working Groups
WG1
Public and One Health
Brings together application needs in human, animal and environmental health, identifies gaps and contributes domain guidance and use cases.
WG2
Infectious-disease modelling
Connects surveillance and epidemic questions with distributional methods, forecasting requirements and policy-relevant thresholds.
WG3
Predictive Risk Modelling & Software
Translates methodological expertise into usable software and workflows, with attention to benchmarking, reproducibility and interpretability.
WG4
Networking and knowledge sharing
Supports stakeholder engagement, communication, training exchange, open resources and continuity of the community.
Planned impact and continuity
The MoU sets targets of at least four reusable workflows by Month 24 and routine workflow use by at least two partners by Month 48. These are Action targets, to be assessed through implementation and uptake.
Open resources and community stewardship are intended to support use beyond the funding period. The sustainability plan includes developing a lasting interdisciplinary community around GAMLSS and distributional modelling.
Sources and further reading
CA25124 — official COST Action page
MAGNET MoU COST 038/26 and Technical Annex (PDF; university-hosted copy)
