Janne Ignatius from CSC elected as the new Chair of PRACE Council

Dr. Janne Ignatius, Adjunct Professor and Programme Director at CSC was elected as Chair of PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) Council for the term 2020–2022. The Council voted on the new Chair and Vice-Chair at the 37th Council meeting on the 17th of June 2020. Ignatius will take over the position from the previous Chair prof. Thomas Lippert.

PRACE is a European high-performance computing research infrastructure with 26 European member states. It aims to support the effectiveness of science and competitiveness of Europe by providing first-class data management and computing resources through a peer-review process. PRACE Council is the highest decision-making body of PRACE and it is composed of one representative from each PRACE member state. The Council is chaired by Board of the Council which consists of a Chair, a Vice-Chair and a Secretary.

Ignatius has been delegate for Finland in PRACE since 2013. In the previous two-year term, he acted as Vice-Chair of PRACE Council. In addition, he represents Finland on the Management Board of the PRACE-IP (Implementation Phase) Projects, and chairs the Optional Programme Committee on Tier-1/DECI cycle exchange.

– PRACE is deeply grateful to Thomas Lippert for steering PRACE during the past two years as Council Chair. As the new Chair, I will work for the benefit of PRACE, its members, and the European HPC ecosystem. We will work together and in fruitful collaboration with EuroHPC. PRACE continues to be of utmost importance in advancing science and industry in all areas where top-level HPC is the central instrument for research, says Ignatius.

Philippe Lavocat, President and CEO of GENCI, and delegate for France, was elected as the new Vice-Chair. Both Janne Ignatius and Philippe Lavocat have been members of the PRACE Strategy Working Group (SWG) since 2016.

More information:

Program Director Janne Ignatius, CSC: janne.ignatius(at)csc.fi

PRACE press release (18 June 2020)
More information on the organization of PRACE