EURON Board Working Groups


WG1: Society and Membership


This Working Group is responsible for elaborating a proposal for the future organisation and operation of EURON, for final decision by the Board.


Current Proposal for EURON Society (September 30, 2008)


The proposal below outlines the current thoughts of the Working Group on the structure, form, operating procedures and policies of the New EURON organisation. Comments are very much encouraged! Please, send them to the Working Group discussion list . Group Coordinator is Fabio Bonsignorio.


Membership Criteria


Members should have: proven robotics R&D, academic or industrial; a website; a contact person.


Member Duties

Several (not mutually exclusive) alternatives exist:
  • in kind contributions: attendance to at least one official EURON event per year and/or visible contribution to a Working Group or a EURON initiative (summer school, reports, wikis). Without in kind contributions you can vote but you can't be elected to the Board.
  • monetary contributions (membership fees). The establishment of a legal entity is a necessary requirement for EURON to be able to accept and manage monetary contributions.
Both kind of contributions require some administrative overhead. Both should be adapted to the size of the member.


Member Benefits

Members should be interested in becoming and remaining EURON Member because membership provides some advantages:

  • (priorities in) sending PhD students to EURON-endorsed schools
  • participation in the Annual Meeting
  • access to students and PhDs from other members, allowing to find the most appropriate postdocs
  • visibility on the electronic archive of academic/research pre-prints (if this archive is ever selected for implementation!)
  • visibility on the EURON website
  • access to discussion groups
  • networking, to keep in touch with colleagues in European academia and industry

Legal Form of Organisation (if required)

Some initial thoughts:

  • "Not for profit" organization (e.g., a charity under UK rules).
  • In a transition phase towards a fully legal entity, one of the member institutes could collect the money through an audited accounting procedure.

Funding Sources

Multiple not-mutually exclusive options exist:

  • membership fees (see below)
  • EU grant: we could apply for a Coordination Action with the EC, possibly with a representation of member institutes as official partners (this is what happened with EURON I and EURON II!), and with the legal entity, as soon it is available, as Coordinator.
  • donations: are accepted from any kind of organization or individuals whose activities are legal in the EU and the donors are listed on the website
  • advertisements on the EURON website.

Voting and Elections


  • Each member institute has 1 vote. This vote can be cast by the official representative (or another person that received a mandate from the official representative).
  • The Board is elected every two years at the Annual Meeting and chooses the Coordinator.
  • The Board can initiate a binding or not-binding referendum electronically, or preferentially by vote at the Annual Meeting, on specific issues or proposals.
  • A group of 20%+ of EURON member organizations may likewise initiate referenda on proposals.
  • There are no quorums.
  • Results from votes are valid if 50%+1 of the members present (registered!) at the Annual Meeting take part in the vote.

Membership fees

Membership fees could apply as indicated in the table below:

Number of Researchers Member Fee per year (Euro)
1—10 250,00
11—20 500,00
21—50 1000,00
51—100 1500,00
101—200 2500,00
201 or more 5000,00


Special developmental areas, as identified by the EU, pay 50% fees.


The monetary fee class is based on self-assessment, guaranteed on the word of honour of the official representative of a member institute. The number of people to be counted are those working in the robotics research group of the member, not the total number of professors/researchers/PhDs of the member institute. Two or more labs of the same university may join as two distinct members.



  

Getting Involved


We hope that you will get involved in many of EURON's activities and encourage others to do so as well.


Attend Meetings


Attending meetings is an excellent way of making contacts and friends within the community. The Annual Meetings are the major instrument for this purpose.


Communicate


A lot of things are happening all the time in the European robotics community: conferences and workshops are being organised, projects are starting, job offers are announced, etc. The EURON mailing list is the place-to-be for all your communications around these topics.
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