CHANGES IN THE EMFL BOARD OF DIRECTORS – GEERT RIKKEN STEPS DOWN AS LNCMI DIRECTOR

Since January 1, 2021, there have been some changes in the composition of the EMFL Board of Directors (BoD). Geert Rikken has stepped down as director of LNCMI and is succeeded by Charles Simon, who will join the EMFL BoD. Peter Christianen, director of HFML, fills the BoD chair position. Changes in the EMFL board do occur more regularly, as the chair position rotates every 2 years, but with Geert Rikken stepping down, a period ends. Geert is one of the founders of EMFL and has been involved in the European collaboration of the high magnetic field facilities from the early start. The first collaboration was the Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3) project EuroMagnet I (2004-2008), which was continued by EuroMagnet II (2009-2013, coordinated by Geert). The great success of these projects resulted in the EMFL –project (2011 2014), finally culminating in the foundation of the legal entity EMFL-AISBL on January 27, 2015. All that time, Geert has been present at the board meetings, the user meeting and schools and supported, wrote and coordinated many European projects. EMFL is in an excellent position and welcomed 3 external members, the University of Nottingham, representing the UK user community (2015), the University of Warsaw, representing the Polish user community (2019) and CEA-IRFU (2019) strengthening the collaboration on magnet technology. The EMFL-AISBL is also participating as partner in 2 European projects ISABEL and SuperEMFL. Geert has actively managed many of those activities, being chair of the EMFL BoD for 2 periods and successfully paved the way for the expansion of EMFL. As Geert is the coordinator of the H2020 ISABEL project that stands for ‘Improving the Sustainability of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory’, he will be closely involved in the further development of EMFL. Fortunately, EMFL can continue profiting from his knowledge, new ideas, and determination to further advance the high magnetic field community.