cc: Valérie Masson-Delmotte , simon.tett@metoffice.com, stephen.juggins@ncl.ac.uk, k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, Rick Battarbee , joos , Eduardo Zorita , Gilles Ramstein , oyvind.paasche@geo.uib.no, Michael Diepenbroek , Rainer Zahn , rainerzahn@hotmail.com, trond.dokken@bjerknes.uib.no, guiot@cerege.fr, chappellaz@lgge.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr, Heather Binney , Tim Osborn , Johann Jungclaus , ralph.schneider@u-bordeaux1.fr, Jochem Marotzke date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:42:42 +0200 from: Jochem Marotzke subject: IMPRINT Management to: Eystein Jansen Dear all, Leaders and co-leaders of WP's would bring the steering committee up to 13 members. I am afraid that a steering committee of 13 puts us squarely between two stools and fails to meet either of two crucial management requirements. These are, first, an efficient group to actually manage the project and, second, provide a representation of all players in the fundamental decision making process. The medium-size committee now proposed is too large to be efficient (I can attest to that from my experience on the UK RAPID Steering committee) but still disenfranchises a number (half?) of the partners. A model that would fulfill both purposes, inclusion and efficiency, could consist of a two-layer structure with a scientific steering group of all PI's (suitably defined), which meets about annually (at project meetings?) and decides over the the major strategic issues. In between, responsibility is delegated to an Executive Committee, which should consist only of the WP leaders (and 9 is already a large number for that, but I see no way of reducing that number). Would this work as a compromise? Cheers, Jochem -- ======================================================== Professor Jochem Marotzke Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Bundesstr. 53 D-20146 Hamburg GERMANY Tel.: +49 (0)40 41173 - 440 Tel.: +49 (0)40 41173 - 311 (secretary) Fax: +49 (0)40 41173 - 366 marotzke@dkrz.de http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/ ========================================================