Governing Board Elections

Governing Board Elections Process & Schedule

As a part of an effort to establish a European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP) on Hydropower, the ETIP HYDROPOWER project is proceeding with the implementation of the ETIP's Governance structure. Following the open call to become a member of the General Assembly, the next step is to allow General Assembly member to apply (and to vote) to become a member of the Governing Board. Chairman and co-chairs will be elected in the first GB meeting by (and from) the newly elected GB members. This process will consist of the following steps:

The ETIP HYDROPOWER platform will serve as a hub for collecting applications and the submitted applications will be available to the General Assembly members for review and voting once the elections are launched in September.

See the Terms of Reference for the Governing Board for details of GB member duties and expectations.

Call for Governing Board Candidates

The ETIP Hydropower will bring together representatives from industry, academia, research centres, civil society and sectorial associations of the hydropower sector and consolidate them in a strong network ready to meet the current and future challenges the hydropower sector faces. Through this network, it will further align and coordinate the R&I strategies to provide a consensus-based strategic advice to the SET Plan covering analysis of market opportunities and research and development funding needs, biodiversity protection and ecological continuity. To reflect this, the Governing Board aims to represent a balanced view of operators on the one side and industry and research community on the other. To this effect, the Governing Board will consist of 17-25 members spread across 7 stakeholder categories, which were established to reflect and ensure representation of the whole hydropower sector. Each stakeholder category has a predefined number of seats on the governing board. These categories are:

1. Hydropower industry and technology (equipment suppliers and manufacturers, maintenance industry, etc.) 5 seats
2. Operators/owners of large hydropower plants and pumped storage power plants 5 seats
3. Independent operators/owners of small hydropower plants (< 10 MW) 2 seats
4. Design, planning and project development (Consultants, project developers, experts, etc.) 3 seats
5. Finance, business and insurance (Financial, legal & developing institutions, development, public or commercial banks, financial organisations, and private investors/investment funds, international monetary fund, insurance, legal advisors, etc.) 2 seats
6. Research, innovation and development (R&D institutions, research centres and institutes of universities, etc..) 5 seats
7. Environment and civil society (Environmental or conservation NGO’s, civil society associations, policy makers, water resources associations, project stakeholders, etc.) 3 seats

To ensure that the election process leads to diverse governing board having a wide geographical representation and gender balance, a two-step process will be used. 

1. Election of the maximum of 17 seats
   1. All the submitted applications will be considered and GA organisations will vote for candidates in each stakeholder category to fill the 17 seats
2. Selection process for up to 8 additional seats to increase diversity
   1. The diversity (geographical, gender diversity, and enterprise size) of the elected 17 seats will be reviewed and deliberated with the European Commission. If a second step is required (i.e. if the diversity is objectively insufficient), 5-8 additional seats will be allocated in order to increase diversity. For these additional seats, the ETIP HYDROPOWER Consortium Partners, after deliberation with the European Commission, will select the candidates among the non-elected candidates from the first election step. The primary selection criterion will be to increase the diversity (geographical, gender, company size, and others) with the second criterion being the number of votes received in step 1

The 17 elected seats and 5-8 selected seats will not be differentiated in the public announcement of the election result of the GB. The Governing Board also comprises of one representative per Working Group (with an observer status), one representative from the Scientific Advisory Board and the Member States Liaison Group.

Note that each registered member of the General Assembly can only apply as a candidate within one stakeholder category.

Voting

Voting rights will be based on organizations rather than individual professionals. Each organisation will have a number of votes allocated based on their number of employees (and associations based on their number of members) according to the official definitions below:

All individuals registered with the Consultation Platform may vote, and if needs be, the weight of votes will be adjusted to comply with the allocations above according to individual affiliations.

If you have any questions regarding the election process please contact us via info@etip-hydropower.eu

Submit your application to be a Governing Board Member

To apply for a position on the Governing Board please complete and submit your application form by 17:00 on 29th September 2023 CEST:

Download GB Member Application Form

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