by Björn Levin
I always find it inspiring to talk to people from the ERCIM member organisations. These are highly skilled people with solid experience who both create advanced theoretical knowledge and come up with practical and immediate ways to address challenges. Right now, the coronavirus pandemic is on all our minds. We all need to adapt and do our best to help. As ERCIM members we can share knowledge and solutions and we can use ERCIM as a channel for this.
I realise that it can be hard to look beyond the immediate issues, but nevertheless I want to share my thoughts on the future of ERCIM. To my mind, the ERCIM member organisations contribute an absolutely essential piece in the jigsaw puzzle of innovation. The ERCIM organisations have managed to create a space where wild ideas can blossom without the restraints of thinking about back compatibility or competitor advantages, a space that also succeeds in hosting endeavours where precision and restraint are key to deliver reliable service or advice. The fact that we are both creative and trustworthy means that we get access to the real unmasked details of problems and real data, which in turn attracts extreme talent to work at ERCIM organisations. Real data and real experts! Of course we rock!
How do we maintain this and help it to grow? This is ERCIM’s challenge. Perhaps we can find solutions to help mobility for talent between the ERCIM members; perhaps cross border start-up support or a place for entrepreneurs to cultivate ideas when they are between ventures; perhaps continuous learning for professionals; perhaps data repositories. I look forward to brainstorming these ideas with the ERCIM community.
I am honoured to have been elected President of ERCIM AISBL for the next term of office and I am looking forward to serving this exciting organisation.
The General Assembly of the ERCIM AISBL, held on 31 October 2019 in Rome, in conjunction with ERCIM’s 30th anniversary celebration, unanimously elected Björn Levin, Business Manager of RISE-SICS in Sweden as its new President for a period of two years as of January 2020. Björn succeeds Jos Baeten from CWI who served as President of ERCIM since January 2018. The assembly also elected the board for a new term of office. From left: Gabriel David, INESCTEC/University of Porto, Secretary General; Fabio Martinelli, IIT-CNR, Dimitris Plexousakis, FORTH-ICS, Science Task Group chair, Christos Koulamas, ISI, Treasurer, Monica Divitini, NTNU, Human Capital Task Group chair; Jos Baeten, CWI, former President; Claude Kircher, Inria, former chair of the Human Capital Task Group; Björn Levin, RISE, President; Han La Poutre, CWI, Strategy Task Group chair, Jerzy Tiuryn, University of Warsaw, former Secretary General.
