Key persons description

The NEWCOM++ Coordinator
Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) will be the Coordinator of NEWCOM++, in charge of almost all the management activities. It has a wide experience in coordinating European Projects, and, particularly, it has been the successful coordinator of NEWCOM.

The NEWCOM++ Scientific Director
The NEWCOM++ Scientific Director will have the responsibility for the scientific content of the project, including Integration and Spreading of Excellence activities. He will chair the Executive Board, the Scientific Board, and will act as an interface to the Advisory Board and the European Commission. The Scientific Director of NEWCOM++ will be Prof. Sergio Benedetto from ISMB. Prof. Benedetto has a broad experience in managing large projects. He has successfully managed NEWCOM, whose 59 partners have been a challenging endeavour. Among tens of scientific projects, he has also managed the large Italian Project PRIMO (11 million Euros for three years with 7 academic and industrial partners) on reconfigurable platforms for 4th generation cellular networks. As a scientist, he has published fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of turbo-like codes, and paved the way to the concept of fully iterative digital receivers.

The NEWCOM++ Administration and Management (A&M) Director
The NEWCOM++ A&M Director will have the responsibility for the administration and management of the project, including timely and accurate reporting to the EC, and internal auditing of the partners’ activities. He will also manage the NEWCOM++ office. Prof. Marco Luise will be Administrative and Management b Director. Prof. Luise was one of the most active members of NEWCOM, leading all the integration activities there, and was a member of its Executive Board.

Vice-Directors for Research
The two Vice-Directors for Research will be responsible for the continuous monitoring of activities performed within the research WP’s and will coordinate all such activities, with the aim to create the highest possible level of synergy between the various WPs. They will identify possible gaps and needs for manpower re-distribution, or inclusion of new partners. Each Vice-Director will specifically deal with a thematically homogeneous set of research WP’s. They will be nominated by the Scientific Director and elected by the General Assembly.

Vice-Directors for Research nominated: Pierre Duhamel, Sergio Palazzo

Heads of Integration and Spreading of Excellence
These two persons will be responsible for the continuous monitoring of the Integration and Spreading of Excellence activities, with the aim of creating the highest degree of integration for the different NoE activities, and to give the highest visibility to the outside world of the NEWCOM++ activity and scientific prominence. Their presence in the Executive Board will ensure close coordination with the Joint Research Activities. The Head of Integration is Prof. Luis Correia and the Head of Spreading of Excellence is Prof. Hikmet Sari, both very experienced, distinguished and devoted professionals in the field.

NEWCOM++ Local Scientific Representatives
One local representative per partner will act as an interface between the diverse NEWCOM++ governing bodies (in particular with the NEWCOM++ Office) and the group of local researchers/PhD students. He/she will monitor the local research activities, will broadcast locally the information received from the central bodies in a timely manner, and generally take care of timely and accurate reporting. In essence, that person will be responsible for all local scientific operations. Ideally, this person should be the same as the partner’s representative in the General Assembly in order to avoid overlapping and/or conflicting responsibilities.

NEWCOM++ Local Administrator
Each partner in the network will also indicate an administrative contact person with whom the NEWCOM++ Office will maintain regular contacts, primarily through electronic mail, and when appropriate through telephone and videoconference. The Local Administrator, with the cooperation of the above-mentioned Local Scientific Representative, will prepare Quarterly Activity Reports and Cost Statements for the NEWCOM++ Office in order to facilitate effective monitoring of the progress of the project. Ideally, the local administrator should not be the same person as the Local Scientific Representative, in the spirit of the overall structure of this proposal.