Article 7 Tasks of the Governing Board

United Kingdom

The Governing Board shall have overall responsibility for the strategic orientation and the operations of the Joint Undertaking and shall supervise the implementation of its activities. It shall ensure that the principles of fairness and transparency are properly applied in the allocation of public funding.

The Commission, in its role in the Governing Board, shall seek to ensure coordination between the activities of the Joint Undertaking and the relevant activities of Union funding programmes with a view to promoting synergies when developing an integrated supercomputing and data infrastructure ecosystem and when identifying priorities covered by collaborative research.

The Governing Board shall, in particular, carry out the following general administrative tasks of the Joint Undertaking:

(a)

assess, accept or reject applications for membership in accordance with Article 3(2) of these Statutes;

(b)

decide on the termination of membership in the Joint Undertaking of any member that does not fulfil its obligations;

(c)

adopt the financial rules of the Joint Undertaking in accordance with Article 15 of this Regulation;

(d)

adopt the annual administrative budget of the Joint Undertaking, including the corresponding staff establishment plan indicating the number of temporary posts by function group and by grade, the number of contract staff and seconded national experts expressed in full-time equivalents;

(e)

exercise the appointing authority powers with respect to staff, in accordance with Article 16(2) of this Regulation;

(f)

appoint, dismiss, extend the term of office of, provide guidance to and monitor the performance of the Executive Director;

(g)

approve the organisational structure of the Programme Office set up under Article 9(5) of these Statutes upon recommendation of the Executive Director;

(h)

approve the annual activity report, including the corresponding expenditure referred to in Article 19(1) of these Statutes;

(i)

arrange, as appropriate, for the establishment of an internal audit capability of the Joint Undertaking upon recommendation by the Executive Director;

(j)

establish the Joint Undertaking's communication policy upon recommendation by the Executive Director;

(k)

where appropriate, establish implementing rules to the Staff Regulations and the Conditions of Employment in accordance with Article 16(3) of this Regulation;

(l)

where appropriate, lay down rules on the secondment of national experts to the Joint Undertaking and on the use of trainees in accordance with Article 17(2) of this Regulation;

(m)

where appropriate, set up advisory groups in addition to the bodies of the Joint Undertaking referred to in Article 4 of these Statutes;

(n)

where appropriate, submit to the Commission a request to amend this Regulation proposed by a member of the Joint Undertaking;

(o)

approve the model hosting agreement to be annexed to the calls for expression of interest for the selection of the hosting entity;

(p)

define the general and specific access conditions to use the Union's share of access time of the petascale and pre-exascale supercomputers and of the access time provided by the national supercomputers in accordance with Article 13 of this Regulation;

(q)

monitor regularly the implementation of the hosting agreements with the hosting entities;

(r)

establish the level of the fee of the commercial services referred to in Article 14 of this Regulation, and decide on the allocation of the access time for those services;

(s)

be responsible for any task that is not specifically allocated to a particular body of the Joint Undertaking; it may assign such tasks to any body of the Joint Undertaking.

The Governing Board shall, in particular, carry out the following tasks related to the acquisition and operation of the petascale and pre-exascale supercomputers and generated revenues referred to in Article 14 of this Regulation:

(a)

adopt the multiannual strategic agenda for the acquisition of supercomputers referred to in Article 18(1) of these Statutes;

(b)

adopt the part of the annual work plan that is related to the acquisition of supercomputers and the selection of hosting entities and the corresponding expenditure estimates referred to in Article 18(2) of these Statutes;

(c)

approve the launch of calls for expression of interest, in accordance with the annual work plan;

(d)

approve the selection of the hosting entities for the pre-exascale and petascale supercomputers selected through a fair, open and transparent process in accordance with Article 8 of this Regulation;

(e)

approve the hosting agreement;

(f)

decide annually on the use of any revenue generated by the fees for commercial services referred to in Article 14 of this Regulation;

(g)

approve the launch of calls for tenders, in accordance with the annual work plan;

(h)

approve the tenders selected for funding;

(i)

decide on the possible transfer of ownership of the pre-exascale supercomputers to a hosting entity, their sale to another entity or their decommissioning, in accordance with Article 10(3) of this Regulation.

The Governing Board shall, in particular, carry out the following tasks related to the research and innovation activities of the Joint Undertaking:

(a)

adopt the multiannual strategic research and innovation agenda referred to in Article 18(1);

(b)

adopt the part of the annual work plan that is related to the research and innovation activities and the corresponding expenditure estimates referred to in Article 18(2);

(c)

approve the launch of calls for proposals, in accordance with the annual work plan;

(d)

approve the list of actions selected for funding on the basis of the ranking list produced by a panel of independent experts.