EuroHORCs
EuroHORCs is an acronym, which stands for European Heads of Research Councils. It is an association of the Heads of public national research funding and research performing organizations in Europe. EuroHORCs was established in 1992 as an informal association of national research councils of EU member states. At present it consists of 24 organizations from European countries. Czech Science Foundation has been the EuroHORCs member since 2002, it was accepted on the 20th EuroHORCs Meeting in Athens.
The last few years EuroHORCs has become an active player in the field of European research policy by promoting and enhancing inter-council cooperation and serving, amongst others, as advisory body for the European Commission. EuroHORCs seek to enhance the role of the national research funding and research performing organisations in Europe through creating a platform for discussion, initiating joint activities and strengthening their influence on European research policy.
One of the EuroHORCs main task is to act as a platform for strategic discussions and to formulate policy documents that can be used both as recommendations for the member organizations, for external bodies as well as being of value in creating European Research Area (ERA).
The main aims of EuroHORCs are:
- strengthen the European Research Area
- mutual cooperation of national funding schemes
- increase the number and quality of researchers
The EuroHORCs structure:
The President, who is assisted by two Vice Presidents, representatives of research funding and research performing organizations.
The president of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Dieter Imboden has been new EuroHORCs President since January 1, 2009. For next two years he will be
responsible for strengthening cooperation between European research funding and research performing organizations.
Vice Presidents are representatives of research funding and research performing organizations.
Leszek Borysiewicz, MRC – Medical Research Council, Great Britain
Arnold Migus, CNRS, France
The Steering Committee consists of the President, the Vice Presidents and up to six Heads of Research Organizations.
The Assembly. Each country is represented by the Heads of up to three Member Organizations. The Assembly elects all members of Steering Committee, President and Vice Presidents.
The Management Committee consists of one officer from each organization represented in Steering Committee. It is responsible for preparation EuroHORCs meetings, materials and draft documents.
The Secretariat deals with all administrative issues and is always located at the current President’s country.