Dear EUNIS members and community,
I hope you all had a great Christmas and a good start to the New Year. This letter serves two purposes, the first is to let our members know of a change of President and the second is to outline some of the key events planned for 2016.
In December 2015, Mr. Pekka Kähkipuro, resigned as President of EUNIS to take up a new role in the United Kingdom as the Chief Information Officer at Brunel University. I was elected by the EUNIS Board to take on the role of President from January 1st 2016 and I am extremely honoured to take on the role and I look forward to meeting with you at some of our upcoming events. I have served on the EUNIS Board for nearly six years now, three of those as Secretary of EUNIS.
At the online Board meeting on 13th January 2016, Mr. Michele Mennielli (CINECA, Italy) was elected to the role of the Secretary to the EUNIS Board. Also at the online meeting Mr. Yiannis Salmatzidis (Aristotle University, Greece) was co-opted to the Board untill June 2016. Board elections will be held at the EUNIS Congress 2016 and all EUNIS members can put forward a candidate and are also entitled to vote in the Board elections at the General Assembly. Details will be available nearer the Congress on www.eunis.org.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude and gratitude on behalf of the EUNIS Board to Mr. Kähkipuro who was a very committed and dedicated member of EUNIS and for his involvement in many initiatives. May I take this opportunity to wish him all the best for the future and we have already welcomed Brunel University as a new member of the EUNIS community.
EUNIS as an organization is also gearing up to a new year and a year of change. As a Board we will be working hard to promote EUNIS across Europe and to focus more on our members both past and present. This will involve some re-organisation at Board level and more communication in the form of updated information on our website, greater use of social media and a newsletter (e-zine).
As we enter 2016 with a sense of momentum, let me highlight some of the upcoming EUNIS events. In 2016, the EUNIS focus will be to enhance the offerings to the Higher Education IT community.
It would be great to meet with some of you at our forthcoming events and get your views on EUNIS activities and events such as the Rectors’ Conference (14th – 16th April 2016, Cracow, Poland), the Annual Congress EUNIS 2016 (8th – 10th June, Thessaloniki, Greece), the Task Forces workshops, the ERAI initiatives, webinars, surveys and projects that we run in co-operation with our partners. Details of all the above are available on our website:http://eunis.org
We are committed as a Board to making the Eunis Congress 2016 the biggest and best yet and I firmly believe that you will appreciate the content and also enjoy contacts with the European HE community.
As EUNIS members I look forward to your involvement in all or some of the above, and I am eager to hear your comments on our current initiatives and your views on what new initiatives we should be pursuing and look forward to meeting you at EUNIS events!
Yours sincerely,
John Murphy
EUNIS President