The General Assembly of the ERCIM AISBL, held in Athens in November 2013, unanimously elected Domenico Laforenza, Director of the Institute for Informatics and Telematics (IIT) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), as its new President. Domenico succeeds Keith Jeffery who served as the President of ERCIM for almost ten years.
On behalf of the Assembly, Domenico thanked Keith greatly for his outstanding commitment to ERCIM over many years. Keith began his involvement in ERCIM in 1990 as coordinator of the Database Working Group, becoming subsequently member of the Executive Committee and then the Board of Directors. He was elected President in 2004. During his presidency, ERCIM has grown to become a widely recognized key player in European ICST. In particular, together with Michel Cosnard, INRIA, President of ERCIM EEIG, Keith has been responsible for steering the Consortium through an important set of structural changes, including the decision to open up membership to allow the participation of multiple members per country, thus encouraging excellent ICST research institutions to be involved in ERCIM activities directly rather than via a national intermediary.
Domenico began his activity in ERCIM in 1993 contributing to the creation of the ERCIM Parallel Processing Network (PPN), serving on the PPN Steering Committee (1993-1998), and as chairman in the period 1994-1996. He has represented CNR on the Board of Directors since 2006. His three-year term of office as ERCIM AISBL President began on 1 January 2014.
