News

CeMM has been a proud member of the EU-LIFE alliance since its creation in 2013, actively contributing to activities, working groups, projects, and events that advanced the EU-LIFE's agenda. CeMM, represented by the Directors Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender, served as EU-LIFE co-chair (2022–2023) and chair (2024–2025), being supported by EU-LIFE Executive Director Marta Agostinho and her team based at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain. The CeMM leadership role comes to an end. However, the EU-LIFE partnership is stronger than ever. 

Through EU-LIFE, CeMM learned so much: The constant exchange of best practices in research governance, evaluation and training, the advocating for sustainable research funding and open science, the fostering of collaboration and societal impact, and the fact that research institutes can have a strong voice in European science policy when building an alliance and friendly partnerships. 

Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender have a lot of positive memories of their EU-LIFE leadership role to be mentioned. 

• EU-LIFE is a partnership of common trust. The effort of 17 life science member institutes, including their directors, main representatives and working group members is a success. It is based on personal commitment and a passion for science and research management.
• With Marta Agostinho, an expert in science policy, EU-LIFE became a well-known and appreciated organization that is involved in important decisions on EU level.
• EU-LIFE published position papers (https://eu-life.eu/newsroom/publications) on guiding principles for FP10 and a vision for the European Innovation Council (EIC), as well as EU-LIFE recommendations for MSCA Actions, to only mention a few examples. The alliance also developed an EU-LIFE Charter of Independent Life Science Research Institutes with 10 principles to inspire the establishment of new institutes. Research institutes have important things to say.
• EU-LIFE initiated interesting scientific conferences, better together discussion platforms, an assay contest, workshops and task forces. But as importantly, the institutes had a wonderful time in social interactions, e.g. going to Rock and Reggae concerts in Vienna, and celebrating the first “Science Vision Talk Contest” in Brno. Creativity and passion are part of our mission, and inspire new ideas in research and collaborations.

CeMM is a rather small and with its 20 years of existence a pretty “young” member within the EU-LIFE consortium. We thank our partners - EU-LIFEers - for the trust, patience and openness they put in us, and wish the new Chairs and Co-Chairs from IIMCB and BRIC all the best for their future endeavors! 

Giulio and Anita