Search begins for next head of the European Research Council

Former Italian prime minister Mario Monti is to lead the search for a successor to European Research Council president Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, after being appointed by the EU’s research commissioner, Carlos Moedas, to lead a star-studded recruitment committee.

The six other scientists who will help Monti, who is now president of Bocconi University in Milan, are: Fabiola Gianotti, director general of CERN; Carl-Henrik Heldin, chair of the Nobel Foundation; Jules Hoffmann, 2011 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine; Helga Novotny, former ERC president Helga Novotny; Alice Gast, president of Imperial College London; and Maciej Zylicz, president and executive director of the Foundation for Polish Science.

The committee will make recommendations to the Commission in time for the next ERC president to take up duties on 1 January 2020, when Bourguignon’s tenure expires.

The French mathematician stepped into the role of president in 2014, after the research funding body received a 60 per cent increase in funding, to €13 billion. His mandate was extended in 2017 for two more years.

The new head will serve for a term of four years, renewable once. The recruitment process and the candidate selected will need the approval of the ERC’s 22-person Scientific Council.