8TH Steering Committee Meeting of the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, March 12 — The 8th Steering Committee meeting of the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) took place online last Friday, March 12, 2021, chaired by Prof. Herwig Schopper, advisory Member of the SEEIIST Steering Committee, former Director-General of CERN. Representatives of seven South-East European countries were present – six official members with voting rights (Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia) and one country member ad-referendum (Croatia).
The main topic of the meeting was the election of the new Chair of the SC. According to the accepted rules, a two-step procedure took place. Step one, a straw vote was held, at which the only nominated candidate, Prof. Leandar Litov from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria, obtained the absolute majority of the voting. In a second step, Prof. Litov was formally elected Chair of the Steering Committee with two years term of office.
Prof Litov is a prominent physicist with strong record of excellent results in the field of particle physics, high performance computing and computational and theoretical biophysics. He has extended experience of work in big international collaborations and international organizations – 11 years in JINR Dubna and more than 30 years at CERN. He has been member of different committees, scientific councils and managing bodies among them Chair of the CMS-RPC Institution Board, member of the European Strategy for Particle Physics Group, member of the CERN Financial Committee, member of the CERN Council, Vice Chair of the CMS Collaboration board. Prof. Litov participates in the SEEIIST from the very beginning of the project and is one of the most active members of the SC. He is Chair of the SEEIIST Association board.
The six present Member States out of eight (representatives of Albania and Kosovo*didn’t attend the meeting) officially confirmed their positive votes publicly at the end of the election procedure. The chair also expressed his satisfaction that the new delegates reported the continuous support of SEEIIST by their countries.
The next, 9th SEEIIST Steering Committee meeting will be held online on March 15th 2021 at 14.00 CET.
About SEEIIST
The South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) is a new International Research Infrastructure to be based in South East Europe, proposed in 2016 by Prof. H. Schopper, a former Director General of CERN. The idea of SEEIIST is both, to develop new opportunities for cutting-edge research and technology for the benefit of the region, and to help in the building of mutual trust, as has been successfully demonstrated in the cases of other international research laboratories like CERN in Europe and SESAME in the Middle East.
The SEEIIST is based on a Declaration of Intent signed on 25 October 2017 by Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia at a Ministerial meeting held at CERN. Croatia and Greece took an observer status.
The Declaration of Intent was followed by a stronger Memorandum of Cooperation signed on 5 July 2019 by six Prime Ministers of the SEE region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo*, Montenegro and North Macedonia) at the Summit of the Berlin Process in Poznan, Poland.
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If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Mrs Petya Georgieva, petya.georgieva@cern.ch
* ‘This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSC 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.’
