The electronic voting process for the Senior Staff Advisory Committee (known as “the Nine”) closed at midnight on Tuesday, 10 September 2024. This time a second round of voting was held, as two of the candidates received the same amount of votes during the first round.
The Senior Staff Advisory Committee was created in 1981 to serve as a channel of communication between the senior staff (grade 8 and above) and the Director-General. It is made up of nine members elected by the senior staff for a period of three years. The Nine share the ideas and feedback of the senior staff with the Director-General and offer advice on questions concerning scientific activities, organisational matters and use of resources. Elections for the Nine are held every year, ensuring an annual rotation of members.
In August and September 2024, out of the 561 senior staff members eligible to vote, 310 voted in the first round and 186 in the second.
Candidates stood for election for Electoral Group 1 (research physicists and applied physicists in the EP or TH departments) and for Electoral Group 2 (members of IT, RCS, SCE, HSE, ATS, EP and TH, excluding those with the following benchmark jobs: applied physicist, principal applied physicist, research physicist, theoretical physicist, principal research physicist or principal theoretical physicist).
The mandates of Klaus Hanke, Ludovico Pontecorvo and Thorsten Wengler will run from September 2024 to August 2027, replacing the outgoing members David Barney, Christophe Delamare and Christoph Rembser.
Markus Brugger has been appointed as the new spokesperson for one year, starting in September 2024. The Nine now consists of the three newly elected members together with [end of mandate in brackets]:
- Sophie Baron [2026]
- Giovanna Vandoni [2026]
- Marzia Bernardini [2025]
- Markus Brugger [2025]
- Cécile Curdy [2025]
- Niko Neufeld [2025]
We wish to congratulate the newly elected members and warmly thank all the other candidates. Special thanks also go to our polling officer, Alberto Pace.
Christoph Rembser and Markus Brugger,
outgoing and incoming spokespersons of the Nine
______________________________________
The Nine seeks input for topics to be investigated throughout the year, so we encourage you to get in touch, either by sending an email to mailto:the-nine@cern.ch or by contacting one of our members. We meet every Thursday from 12.15 to 1.45 p.m. In 2025, our weekly meetings will move to Tuesdays (same time slot). You are welcome to attend the first 15–20 minutes of our meeting to present your topic in person. Details of previous topics are available on the Nine webpage. Furthermore, we are aiming to organise monthly visits to different CERN departments in order to engage in discussions with senior staff; we therefore invite all interested senior staff colleagues to contact one of us, either in person or by phone/email, for more information or to schedule a visit.