LiteBIRD-Europe Phase-A Governance Structure

LiteBIRD-Europe Phase-A Governance Structure

This document is intended to establish the governance structure of the LiteBIRD-Europe team during the current Phase A of the project. In the following, we define a  partner as the group of members of the LiteBIRD collaboration from a single country. It will be revised when the project will enter Phase B in Europe, which could not exactly coincide with the JAXA Phase B planned for 2019, and which depends strongly on ESA’s and National Agencies’ potential commitment schedule. The LiteBIRD-Europe Phase-A team is supervised by a Steering Committee with work organised by a Chair, a Spokesperson, and a Deputy Spokesperson.  The composition of this triumvirate will be rediscussed every beginning of the year. <strong>1. Steering Committee (SC)</strong> <em>Role:</em> The role of the Steering Committee is to <ol> <li>Organise, build and coordinate Europe-wide support for LiteBIRD (manpower and fundings);</li> <li>Organise discussions and take decisions about the hardware contributions between European partners and the associated work-plan for the European contribution;</li> <li>Organise discussions with Japan and US on the organisation of the DA and DM efforts across the continents and countries;</li> <li>Organise the work within working groups of experts inside the European community in collaboration with JSGs;</li> <li>Interact closely with the System Engineer team;</li> <li>Coordinate activities needed to provide information/feedback to ESA;</li> <li>Propagate information from/to the LiteBIRD-Europe members through national representatives;</li> <li>Decide on the entry of new potential partner candidates.</li> </ol> <em>Composition:</em> The Steering Committee is composed of representatives from each European country member of the European-LiteBIRD team. In order to respect the involvement of all partners at the current date of the project, the following convention has been agreed: <ul> <li>partners with strong involvement in both software and hardware sides have two representatives on the SC;</li> <li>partners with strong involvement in only one aspect (software or hardware) have one representative on the SC.</li> </ul> Following this convention, the Steering Committee at the current date consists of representatives from: France (2), Germany (1), Italy (2), The Netherlands (1), Norway (1), Spain (1), and UK (2). The members of the Steering Committee are chosen internally by each partner within National members of LiteBIRD. These representatives can be replaced at anytime if requested by the partner. The composition of the SC can be re-discussed in case of major changes of involvement or commitment of National Agencies during Phase A. <em>Working organisation:</em> The Steering Committee will have regular calls every two weeks, with minutes circulated internally and general reports about LiteBIRD activities sent to the whole community when appropriate. All decisions taken by the SC will be based on voting with a two-thirds majority, in order to ensure an overall consensus. All SC members will be eligible voting members. Planned upcoming votes will be announced in advance via email and voting will be made during meetings or via email from those who were absent. Twenty-four hours after the meeting, based on the votes, the decisions will be considered ratified. [In case of a draw, further discussions will be organised.] [to be removed ?] <strong> 2. Spokesperson, Deputy Spokesperson, Chair</strong> The SC will elect with absolute majority a Spokesperson, a Deputy Spokesperson and a Chair, who will act for a 1-year term until the end of Phase A. <em>Spokesperson / Deputy Spokesperson:</em> They will be the single point of contact between the European Consortium and ESA / JAXA / NASA. They will <ol> <li>Represent the LiteBIRD-Europe team in meetings and discussions;</li> <li>Propagate information from ESA / JAXA / NASA to the SC;</li> <li>Transmit messages from the European SC to ESA / JAXA / NASA;</li> <li>Work closely together and share the responsibilities.</li> </ol> <em>Chair:</em> They will <ol> <li style="list-style-type: none;"> <ol> <li>Chair the SC;</li> <li>Organize the SC meetings;</li> <li>Ensure the conformity of the vote procedure;</li> <li>Circulate minutes of the meetings to the SC;</li> <li>Supervise the distribution of LiteBIRD activities reports to all LiteBIRD-Europe members;</li> <li>Coordinate with the Spokesperson and the Deputy Spokesperson.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> Suggested organigramme: <img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-385" src="https://www.litebird-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SC-organigramme-1024x684.png" alt="" width="584" height="390" />