On September 14-15, 2023, we had the TOPOCOM kick-off Meeting in Groningen, Netherlands.

It was really great for all beneficiaries to meet in person and to get into action. We are all looking forward to welcoming the Doctoral Candidates and begin with the training, networking, and joint research activities. As part of the kick-off meeting, the governing structure of TOPOCOM was established and elections were conducted to fill important roles, including the Equal Opportunities Committee (EOC).

Governing structure

The overall project management of TOPOCOM is democratic and implemented on two levels: The Supervisory Board (SB) is responsible for the strategic and broader scientific management. The day-to-day management is in the hands of Dennis Meier (Scientific Coordinator, CO) and the Marianne Lenes (Project Manager, PM). The Training Manager of TOPOCOM is Mathias Kläui

Supervisory Board

Chairs

• Dennis Meier (CO)
• Beatriz Noheda (representing academia)
• Hubert Pernull (representing industry)

Beneficiaries

• Dennis Meier (NTNU)
• Mathias Kläui (JGU)
• Beatriz Noheda (UG)
• Jorge Íñiguez (LIST)
• Giovanni Finocchio (UNIME)
• Hubert Pernull (IFAT)
• Jürgen Langer (ST)
• Stavros Komineas (UOC)

Associated Partners

• Maris (Giovanni Finocchio)
• Bert Offrein (IBM)
  Additional representatives from the other Associated Partners will be added before the first SB meeting.

Two Young Research Board (YRB) members are to be elected after the YRB is established.

Equal Opportunity Committee (EOC)

The EOC oversees the actions to promote gender and diversity equality practices.

Elected members of the EOC:

• Marianne Lenes (NTNU)
• Davi Rodrigues (UNIME, SpiNet)
• Johannes Güttinger (IFAT)