Governing Board
CARE
CERN, 21.11.03
Minutes of the Meeting of the CARE Governing Board
CERN, 21/11/2003
Present: R. Aleksan (CEA-Saclay), N. Angert (GSI), A. Blondel (Universite de Geneve), M.
Chorowski (WUT-Wroclaw), A. Den Ouden (Twente University), A. Faus-Golfe (CSIC), B. Foster
(Chairman of ECFA), S. Guiducci (INFN), H. Haseroth (CERN), P. Norton (CCLRC), J. Pater
(Manchester University), U. Ratzinger (IAP-Frankfurt University), M. Sadowski (IPJ Swierk), M.
Spiro (CNRS-IN2P3), J. Teichert (FZ Rossendorf), R. Toelle (FZ Juelich), D. Trines (DESY)
Brian Foster, the chairman of ECFA, welcomed the participants to this first CARE Governing
Board (CGB) meeting.
After the adoption of the agenda here attached, Brian Foster invited Roy Aleksan to describe
the role of the CGB.
1.
The role of the CGB
Roy Aleksan presented the role of the CGB as described in the draft Consortium Agreement
document (see transparencies, they can also be accessed through the agenda in the CARE
meeting web page). He said that the CGB, which is a body requested by the EC, was
discussed in the ESGARD. He then gave an overview of the management structure of CARE
and stressed that the CGB is the highest level body. It is composed of 24 members, including
22 voting members (the representatives of the participating institutes signing the contract with
EU) and 2 non-voting members (the CARE coordinator and the chairperson of ECFA).
He highlighted that the CGB is the decision-making body for strategic and scientific
orientation. He then listed its main tasks (see transparencies).
He pointed out the proposal according to which the decisions should be taken with a majority
of ¾ of the votes, each voting member having a certain numbers of votes reflecting the
financial involvement of its institute and the number of its associated partners. (see
transparencies for the algorithm). The table below gives the number of votes of each
contractor.
Participant number Participant short name Number of votes
1
CEA
5
2
UCLN
1
3
CNRS
5
4
GSI
1
5
IAP-FU
1
6
DESY
5
7
FZJ
2
8
TUM
1
9
FZR
1
10
INFN
7
11
TEU
1
12
TUL
1
13
IPJ
1
Governing Board
CARE
CERN, 21.11.03
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
WUT-ISE
WUT
CSIC
CERN
UNI-GE
PSI
CCLRC
ICL
UMA
Total
1
1
1
5
1
1
3
2
1
48
Roy Aleksan concluded by saying that the Chairperson of the Governing Board will also chair
the CARE Collaboration Council, which is an advisory body including the members of the
CGB and a representative from each associated institutes or industrial partners. Both the CGB
and the CCC have to meet at least once a year.
He then invited the CGB to select its chairperson.
Following Roy Aleksan’ presentation, M. Spiro asked to clarify who is the contact to EU for
CARE.
R.A. said that it is the CARE coordinator
Brian Foster raised the worry that with the rule of the ¾ of the votes necessary to take a
decision there would be a danger of not being able to do so since a minority can always block
things. This concern was shared also by several other members.
Decision: After a discussion, a consensus was reached to modify this rule in the following
way. Decisions will be made by seeking for a consensus amongst the members of the Board.
If a consensus cannot be reached, a vote will be made and the decision would be taken with
the simple majority of the weighted votes.
2.
CCC Chairperson
B. Foster proposed M. Spiro as the first chairperson of the CGB. He motivated his proposal
by the leading role of M. Spiro in launching this initiative a year ago. As M. Spiro agreed to
be candidate, he was asked to leave the room.
Decision: Following a short discussion in which several members of the board stressed the
important role played by M. Spiro and supported strongly the proposal, M. Spiro was elected
as the first chairperson of the CGB at the unanimity of the members present at the meeting.
From then on M. Spiro chaired the meeting. Although not decision was made, he suggested
that for the first year, a second meeting of the CGB might be necessary to ensure the good
start of the project. R. Aleksan stressed that the chairperson of the CGB can call for a meeting
anytime he deems necessary. Furthermore, such a meeting can be called if requested by the
CARE coordinator or if 50% of the CGB members.
Recommendation: The CGB agreed that, according to how the implementation of the CARE
program will proceed, a second meeting might be useful mid 2004.
CARE
Governing Board
CERN, 21.11.03
3.
The contract with the EC
Roy Aleksan presented the latest status concerning the contract to be signed with the EC.
He emphasized that it is very important to sign the contract before the end of the year. Beside
the fact that it will allow money to flow as soon as possible (i.e. end of February or beginning
of March), it is essential for our Swiss colleagues. Although Switzerland has signed an
agreement with EU for 2004, no fund can be paid by the EU to the Swiss institutes for
contracts signed in 2003. Instead the funding requested by our Swiss colleague will come
directly from the Swiss government. This rule does not apply for CERN. Since we were
selected by the EC to be amongst the first project to sign the contract, no provision was made
for EU fund toward Swiss institutes. Indeed, according to our scientific officer at the DG
Research, the CARE contract should be ready next week.
The contract is accompanied with the so-called Annex 1 document, which described the work
to be done in CARE. A version close to final was already sent some weeks ago. It is also
accessible from the CARE-web page. Some final cosmetics remain to be done. Olivier Napoly
is taking care of this with the help of the NA/JRA coordinators. The CARE coordinating
institute should first sign the contract and then the remaining 21 contracting participants
should sign it within the following month. Although the EC does not want to see it, it is
required that the consortium agreement is signed by the 22 contractors. The latest version of
the consortium agreement was sent to the institutional contact together with the name
(Caroline Gropallo) and e-mail ([email protected]) of the CEA legal officer who has
elaborated it.
Decision: Due to the time pressure, it was decided at the CGB that each institute will sent
their comment by December 1st. For fast convergence, it is asked to have the simplest possible
document and thus that only articles, which are absolutely necessary, are added to the one
already in the document. Furthermore, if modifications are requested, they will be considered
only if explicit text to be included in the CA is provided.