Antje Keppler elected for a second term as ERIC Forum Chair

We are pleased to announce that Euro-BioImaging Bio-Hub Section Director, Antje Keppler, was unanimously elected for a second term as ERIC Forum Chair by the twenty-six voting members of the ERIC Forum Executive Board.  She will be supported in her role again by Allen Weeks, Director General of ELI-ERIC, who also has been re-elected as Vice Chair of the ERIC Forum Executive Board. 

The ERIC Forum brings together the 28 European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERICs) to strengthen its coordination and enhance its collaborations, exchange best practices and address critical challenges.

“I am truly excited and very grateful for the opportunity to serve this special, interdisciplinary community for an additional year,” says Antje Keppler. “It’s been a true pleasure to work with this community to position ourselves on the European stage, so I’m pleased to have the opportunity to consolidate these efforts and continue to demonstrate the strategic importance of ERICS in the European Research Area and internationally, in the coming year.”

A successful first term as Chair

Highlights of her term include ensuring that the financial sustainability of ERICs is sufficiently considered within a future FP10 funding programme and demonstrating that ERICs are one of its most effective instruments of Europe for achieving scientific, technological, and societal impact. This important work has been recognized at the conference on Research Infrastructures in a Changing Global, Environmental and Socio-economical Context under the Belgian Presidency  in June 2024 and captured in a position paper on the The Role of ERICs in the 10th Framework Programme (FP10). 

In addition, as ERIC Forum Chair, Antje Keppler is participating in and contributing to various ERA relevant initiatives including an Expert Group that supports the EC in defining user access to Technology Infrastructures (TIs) taking into account Research Infrastructure (RI) experiences. And, the ERIC Forum 2 project kicked off during Antje Keppler’s term, launching a new era of cooperation amongst the ERICs, and fortifying the ERICs’ position on the European and national stages.

About Antje Keppler

Antje Keppler has been a member of the ERIC Forum Executive Board since February 2022, representing the Life Sciences ERICs. Since 2009, she has been involved in building the Euro-BioImaging research infrastructure, managing the planning, implementation and operation phases. As Director of the Euro-BioImaging ERIC Bio-Hub, she leads an international team, which coordinates and operates services for biological imaging, as part of the tripartite headquarter of Euro-BioImaging ERIC, which has its Statutory Seat in Turku, Finland, and the Med-Hub located in Torino, Italy.