The EOSC Association’s General Assembly filled three positions on the EOSC-A Board of Directors, and re-elected Sara Garavelli to a second three-year term.
The three new directors are Kamran Naim of CERN and Roxanne Wyns of LIBIS – KU Leuven Libraries, who will both serve three-year terms, and Licia Florio of NORDUnet, who will fill a one-year position. The Directors will take up their responsibilities on 01 January 2025.
The elections took place online in the context of the 9th EOSC-A General Assembly on Friday, 22 November. The GA meets twice yearly, typically with an in-person meeting in the spring and an online meeting in the fall. The Director positions were filled by a double-majority vote in accordance with the Association’s Articles of Association, which stipulate a 2/3 majority of votes from Members present and represented, and a 2/3 majority of votes from the EOSC-A Mandated Organisations present and represented.
EOSC-A Directors Bob Jones and Wilhelm Widmark have each reached their two-term limit, having both served one-year and three-year terms consecutively from 2021-2024. Their mandates will conclude on 31 December 2024. Director Sarah Jones passed away in 2023, and thus her position is being filled on a one-year basis.
Strong mandate
An unprecedented nine candidates, each a delegate from an EOSC-A Member organisation, competed for the four positions. The Association would like to thank each one of them for gamely participating in this closely contested election.
The strong mandate required to be elected as a board member gives the new Directors a wind at their backs as they begin their terms in January. Each of the new Directors will be duly onboarded in the new year and will soon take up the challenges associated with the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation, the discussions on the future governance and funding models for EOSC post-2027, and the development of the EOSC Partnership’s SRIA 2.0, among many other topics and activities central to the Association’s mission.
Meet the newly elected Directors
“The Association is in a unique position to advance Open Science and FAIR via the establishment of the EOSC Federation but also via supporting focused Task Forces and other collaborative efforts.“
Licia Florio
NORDUnet
- Senior Strategy and Policy Officer at NORDUnet
- More than 20 years of experience in coordinating international R&E projects and initiatives to enable secure access to online resources
- Coordinator of the AARC-TREE project
- Lead Service Delivery and Quality Assurance for the LOT2 and LOT3 consortia in the delivery of the EOSC EU Node
- Former Senior Trust and Identity Manager at GÉANT
- Recipient of the Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour (2018) for leading most of the initiatives that make up the current European and global authentication and authorisation landscape for research and education
- Past external expert for the European Commission as proposal evaluator under Horizon Europe (Cybersecurity calls)
“My motivation is to build a meaningful EOSC that brings benefits to its stakeholders and contributes to advance and support research in Europe.“
Sara Garavelli
CSC – IT Center for Science
- Manager of the Strategic European Engagement and Coordination team at CSC – IT Center for Science
- EOSC Program Manager at CSC – IT Center for Science
- Member of the EOSC Association Board of Directors since 2022
- Current Coordinator of the EOSC Finnish Forum, the Finnish mechanism to coordinate EOSC at national level
- Current Member of the European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) Advisory Board, the coordinating framework for European ocean observing communities
- Current Member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Council
- Current Member of the Core Expert Group on Higher Education Interoperability of the European Digital Education Hub (EDEH), the endeavour to develop a European Higher Education Interoperability Framework to foster a seamless digital teaching and learning experience
- Former Shareholder and Project Manager at Trust-IT Services
“My personal career mission and core motivation to be more involved in EOSC is to be part of the transition to a more open, more equitable, and more effective and responsive global scientific system.”
Kamran Naim
European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN)
- Head of Open Science at CERN, leading development and coordination of OS policy and programs at the world’s largest laboratory
- Strategic Partnerships Advisor at TeachAids
- More than 20 years of leadership experience, including as an Open Science Policymaker and practitioner
- Former Director of Partnerships & Initiatives / Strategic Development Manager at Annual Reviews in Palo Alto, CA, USA
- Former Program Director, Global Ring Network for Advanced Application Development at USAID
- Doctorate, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
- Equitable Open Access model pioneer
- Past advisor to the World Bank and the Gates Foundation & Open Society Institute
“My motivation extends to the reach of Open Science beyond data sharing, to ensure that researchers fully engage with and benefit from EOSC services and resources.”
Roxanne Wyns
LIBIS – KU Leuven Libraries
- Innovation Manager at LIBIS, a scientific service provider of KU Leuven
- More than 15 years of professional experience managing complex and large-scale digital infrastructure projects in Research Data Management and Open Science as part of LIBIS
- Member of EOSC-A Task Force on Long-Term Data Retention
- Past co-chair of the EOSC-A Task Force on Long-Term Data Preservation
- Past member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ESFRI Landmark DARIAH-EU
- Past member of the KU Leuven RDM Steering Committee
- Past member of the Flemish Open Science Board (FOSB) Metadata Working Group
