The sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental SEEIIST Steering Committee was held on 19 September 2019 in Budva, Montenegro, the day after the special SEEIIST Kick-off event which marked the start of the SEEIST design phase. The transition from a conceptual to a design phase was made possible thanks to the financial support by the European Commission.
The SEEIIST Steering Committee focussed on a number of important points.
One was the implementation of the present Phase1 of the SEEIIST Design Study, for which the European Commission has allocated EUR 1 million, while CERN and GSI have decided to hoist this phase.
Another point concerned the next step to follow. The SEEIIST Project has obtained a temporary legal entity status in August 2019, becoming an Association under Swiss law with a seat in Geneva. The temporary status of a non-profit organisation is important because it enables SEEIIST to directly apply for EUR 3 million under a EU H2020 Call ‘Design Study Phase’ in a consortium with renowned European institutions and companies. The Call is open until mid-November. These funds are necessary for finalizing the Design Study Phase, primarily to develop
a technical specification of the Project (TDR) that will be more technologically advanced than the 12 existing centres.
As a still further step, a draft of the Convention of the SEEIIST project was discussed. In order to proceed with the Convention, the importance of the involvement of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs was strongly emphasized.
Although the issue was initially not included in the agenda, the members of the Steering Committee decided to extend the term of office of Minister Damjanovic as the Chairperson of the SEEIIST Steering Committee, previously envisaged to expire in January 2020, by January 2022.
