Letter to AE and YAE members and guests from the President Sierd Cloetingh#

January 2016#

Dear fellow members of the Academia Europaea, members of the Young Academy and guest readers,#

Let me wish you all a late but heartfelt happy new year. I hope that all of your research will be groundbreaking, productive and will provide the best possible impact metrics!

2016 will be a very busy year for the AE. We are approaching the final stages of preparation of our H2020 consortium project bid for European Science Advice (alongside our partners ALLEA, EuroCASE, EASAC and FEAM); the Regional Hubs are planning some exciting events and initiatives (see their own websites that are all accessible via our own home page and from the links at the end of my letter).

The 28th Annual conference and AGM will take place in Cardiff 27 – 29 June. This is the official launch event for the Cardiff Hub and will take place much earlier than in past years, so please put these dates into your diaries now. The draft programme and schedule are already available on the Cardiff Knowledge Hub home page.

There will be a HERCuLES symposium in September (29-30), sponsored by the Volkswagen Stiftung and organised locally by our colleagues at INCHER (International Centre for Higher Education – University of Kassel). The topic is very relevant to all of us – "UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE: IMPEDING OR FACILITATING CREATIVITY?". So, please come along to the Schloss Herrenhausen in Hannover.

You will all receive a more general AE newsletter by email later in the week and regular Hub newsletters throughout the year. A Barcelona Hub newsletter has already been sent out. Please contact your local Hub for any help or information about regional activity. They are all there to assist AE and Young Academy members.

The Board have agreed to publish a limited 2016 call for proposals for new initiatives under the Hubert Curien Fund. Details will be announced in the next general newsletter and on the website.

I would like to thank our colleague and member Hermann Maurer who has now retired from the board of Trustees. Hermann has made a massive contribution, most visibly seen in our corporate website for which he was responsible and which is very kindly hosted at TU-Graz, courtesy of Prof. Frank Kappe the current Director of the Informatics Institute and newly appointed Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering. Dana Kaiser and the team (Helmut Leitner and Robert Hoffmann) are providing us all with an essential service, so if you have any questions about your personal webspace, accessibility issues or want to publicise events or announce your news – contact Dana. Don’t forget by logging in to your AE account, you can amend your profile and your personal webspace; set up blogs and discussion groups and also access your free online subscription to our Journal, The European Review.

I have now officially stepped down from my role as a Vice President of the ERC after having served on the scientific council for almost seven years. This does not mean a period of leisure – rather, even more time for the AE! We do continue to have very strong links with the ERC through Prof. Eva Kondorosi who is a member of the scientific council of the ERC and chair of the ERC working group on Widening European Participation and who I am pleased to announce, has joined our Board of Trustees from 1 January this year.

Can I remind you all, that nominations of new members can be made online ONLY until the 15th of March. So there is not much time left. Members can nominate candidates for consideration in any field (Section) and Class. The important thing, is to complete the online forms accurately and fully. The candidates will be assessed during May and new 2016 members elected by the Council at the Cardiff meeting. You can find all the information on the website (ae-info.org), list of Section chairs and the committee members.

The Young Academy of Europe (YAE) have specifically asked all AE members to nominate at least one possible candidate for election to the Young academy. Their nominations criteria, process and deadline can be found on the YAE website.

I am looking forward to your active engagement with colleagues in the Sections and with our regional hub staff. I also hope to meet with you over the coming months and in particular, in Cardiff in 2016.

Sierd Cloetingh
President

LINKS:

Barcelona Knowledge Hub
Bergen Knowledge Hub Region Bergen
Cardiff Knowledge Hub
Wroclaw Knowledge

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