Partners

There are project consortium participants who have been supporting e-IRG for many years, and thus have gained extensive experience and knowledge in the required activities. They also have broad experience in the field of e-Infrastructures and Research Infrastructures, as well as excellent knowledge of the related policy environment. The project will thus build on such individual strengths of the participants and their members to continue to offer high-level support to e-IRG across all the WPs.

Innovation Acts Limited (Innov-Acts Ltd.) is an SME company established in Cyprus in 2016. Innov-Acts is an ICT and business consulting firm. It offers (among others) software development and business consulting services linked to electronic Infrastructures, Internet of Things, Big Data/Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity technologies, including business modelling, business planning and techno-economic analysis services. Members of the company have worked in the e-Infrastructure area since 2000 and have extensive experience in related policies that require good understanding of the technological, organisational and political challenges. Fotis Karayannis has been a member of all the e-IRG Support projects. Since 2009 he has been acting as a deputy project manager of the support projects. He has acted also as an e-IRG delegate for more than 4 years (2003-2007). He has worked at the e-IRG secretariat since e-IRGSP2 and also contributed to the policy support activities, where he has been one of the main editors of several of the e-IRG White Papers. In addition, he has also contributed to the liaison activities with the e-Infrastructure projects and with ESFRI. The e-IRG delegates unanimously appointed Fotis Karayannis to form a consortium and submit a proposal for next support project of e-IRG. His role in the project will thus be to act as the new project director and contribute to the secretariat (WP2), policy support (WP3) and liaison activities (WP4). He will be supported by an assistant on administrative and financial aspects of the project.

Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) is a renowned university located in Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany. The L3S Research Center is a joint research institute of several universities in Germany located at Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH). The L3S researchers develop new, innovative methods and technologies that enable intelligent and seamless access to information on the Web, link individuals and communities in all aspects of the knowledge society – including science and education. L3S has very successfully participated in the series of German National Grid Initiative Infrastructure projects and several EU-funded project. The L3S will carry out all required managerial and coordination tasks required to achieve the overall project aims. Jan Wiebelitz is a senior researcher at LUH with long experience in the e-IRG support projects, acting project director in the last 3 projects. He has led the Policy Support in e-IRGSP3, e-IRGSP4 and e-IRGSP5. He has also contributed to many e-IRG publications. He has profound knowledge in the area of policies for e-Infrastructures based on long time, detailed experiences from working in e-Infrastructures. In the project he contributes to all WPs, leading the policy support work. He will also contribute to the e-IRG secretariat (support the Chair and EB) and also the e-IRG communication task.

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) is the largest University in Greece, comprising of 50,000 students, 2000 faculty members and 42 different departments, covering the entire spectrum of the sciences, the humanities and the arts. The AUTH IT Centre is responsible for operations, development and maintenance of the IT infrastructure. Its goal is to provide modern, cutting-edge electronic services to the academic community of AUTH. Among other services, the AUTH IT Centre hosts and operates and medium sized institutional HPC cluster. Michail Maragakis is an Assistant Professor in the field of Computational Physics. He has been a member of the e-IRG support projects since e-IRGSP4. He has been active in the project in both day-to-day operations and the policy support activities, contributing to several publications. Given his previous experience, he will be involved in WP2 (e-IRG workshop support), WP3 (Policy support) and WP4 (Communications).

Technical University of Vienna (TU-WIEN) is the largest technical university in Austria. It was founded as the Imperial and Royal Polytechnic Institute in 1815, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2015. It sees itself primarily as a research institution. As a university of technology, TU Wien covers a wide spectrum – from abstract pure research and the fundamental principles of science, to applied technological research and partnership with industry. The Research Unit on Information and Software Engineering (ifs) performs both foundational and applied research as well as development in the confluence of information and software, with a focus on providing means to allow us to trust the complex socio-technical systems we create and interact with. TU-Wien is a new partner in the project, however, they have a long and significant experience in the e-Infrastructure area with several relevant projects including currently running ones such as EOSC-Life, EGI-ACE and EOSC-Secretariat. Thus, they can help the consortium not only with their technical and policy expertise, but also with their links in the area of Research Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures. In the project, TU-WIEN will be the new WP4 leader, responsible for the communication activities, and especially for the migration of the e-IRG website to a new one hosted in Vienna. They will be assisted by other partners in quickly ramping up and delivering to the project. TU-WIEN will also be involved in WP3 (policy support).

The consortium consists of 4 beneficiaries, which provide complementary capabilities and expertise to successfully perform and deliver the objectives of the project. Each beneficiary is involved in multiple work packages. Through this collaborative organisation of the various tasks the consortium as a whole is able to guarantee fail-safe and continuous support to e-IRG. The consortium consists of an SME (INNO), and 3 universities (AUTH, LUH and TU-WIEN), which have extensive experience in EU-funded projects and profound knowledge in the European Research Infrastructure and e-Infrastructures’ landscape. 3 out of 4 beneficiaries (AUTH, INNO, LUH) have been involved in previous e-IRG support programmes in key positions (including project director, deputy and e-IRG secretariat, policy support), ensuring continuity and experience in the supporting activities. The new partner (TU-WIEN) is well-integrated in the e-Infrastructure landscape with broad involvement in e-Infrastructure projects, such as the EOSC-Secretariat and future upcoming projects. In this way, they will swiftly ramp up and come up to speed with the rest of the consortium. Furthermore, TU-WIEN is also connected to the e-IRG Chair, which is a big advantage for the project. Another e-IRG delegate’s organisation is part of the consortium (AUTH), and this will also ease the connections between e-IRG and the project. Anyhow, the e-IRG Chair, EB and delegates already have strong links with the key members of the new consortium, and these will be strengthened further. Each of the partner has also a clear and complementary role, i.e., INNO in WP1 and WP2, LUH in WP3, and TU-WIEN in WP4, while AUTH has a distinct role within WP2 leading e-IRG workshop support and the user satisfaction. There are of course areas where all partners need to be working closely together such as WP3 and WP4. Strong links are also required with e-IRG and the diagram below shows the overall management and interactions with e-IRG and the EC.