The Governance Structure of EUROP

A new governance structure for EUROP was put in place during the last EUROP General Assembly on 30 October 2008, based on new terms of references.

The guiding principle is that the initiative will be open and can be joined by all commercial and academic research organisations involved in research and innovation in the field of robotics, based in Europe. 

 > EUROP-key people

The governance structure of EUROP is intended to ensure the realisation of its mission and objectives and consists of:

The Board of Stakeholders (BoS) is the main decision-making body of the platform. The BoS defines, pursues and implements the objectives of EUROP, elects the Chairman and SME representative of the Executive Board, empowers the Executive Board, establishes and discontinues Working Groups, appoints or excludes BoS members, receives and approves the annual activity report from the Executive Board, Working Groups and the Secretariat and decides about EUROP Membership issues and the Terms of References.

The Executive Board (EB) is the managing body of the platform. Its tasks include the coordination and execution of the platform operations, preparation and implementation of the BoS decisions, the external representation of the platform and control of the EUROP Secretariat. The EB consists of the Working Group Chairmen, a SME representative and the EUROP Chairman. The Working Group Chairmen are elected by the Working Group members, the EUROP Chairman and SME representative are nominated by the BoS.

The President is appointed by the Executive Board to represent EUROP at high-level meetings.

Working Groups (WGs) are the main centres of activities within the platform. They will define R&D interests, research and technology priorities, industrial and scientific objectives and the actions to be taken in order to achieve these goals.

Mirror Group: ensures the participation of public authorities at national, regional and European levels in their function as policy makers, regulators and funding bodies. The aim of this group is to develop synergies between national and European programmes and policies, gather resources to support the implementation of the Strategic Agenda and promote a fertile innovative environment as well as a state-of-the-art research infrastructure for Robotics in Europe.

National Experts: National contact points to disseminate the EUROP strategy and information to national bodies; decision making support based on scientific analysis and ensuring the participation of the scientific community (public research institutes and universities) excelling in Robotics research.

The EUROP Secretariat: provides organizational and operational support to the BoS, EB and WGs and public relations support for EUROP.

> Governance Structure & key people (pdf)