The electronic voting process for the Senior Staff Consultative Committee (known as “the Nine”) closed at midnight on Sunday, 31 August 2025. A second ballot was closed at midnight on Tuesday, 9 September, to resolve the tie between two candidates.
The Senior Staff Consultative Committee was created in 1981 to serve as a channel of communication between the senior staff (grade 8 and above) and the Director-General. It is made up of nine members elected by the senior staff for a period of three years. The Nine share the ideas and feedback of the senior staff with the Director-General and offer advice on questions concerning scientific activities, organisational matters and use of resources. Elections for the Nine are held every year, ensuring an annual rotation of members.
In August and September 2025, out of the 542 senior staff members eligible to vote, 342 voted in the first round and 283 in the second. The participation in the vote was remarkably high.
Candidates stood for election for Electoral Group 1 (research physicists and applied physicists in the EP or TH departments), Electoral Group 2 (members of IT, RCS, SCE, HSE, ATS, EP and TH, excluding those with the following benchmark jobs: applied physicist, principal applied physicist, research physicist, theoretical physicist, principal research physicist and principal theoretical physicist) and Electoral Group 3 (members of DG, FAP, HR, IPT, IR and PF).
The terms of office of Maria Elena Angoletta, Clara Gaspar, Emma Sanders and Christoph Schwick will run from September 2025 to August 2028, replacing the outgoing members Marzia Bernardini, Markus Brugger, Cécile Curdy and Niko Neufeld.
Giovanna Vandoni has been appointed as the new spokesperson for one year, starting in September 2025. The Nine now consists of the four newly elected members together with [end of term of office shown in brackets]:
- Sophie Baron [2026]
- Giovanna Vandoni [2026]
- Klaus Hanke [2027]
- Ludovico Pontecorvo [2027]
- Thorsten Wengler [2027]
We wish to congratulate the newly elected members and warmly thank all the other candidates. Special thanks also go to our polling officers, Alberto Pace, Christoph Rembser and Christophe Delamare.
Markus Brugger and Giovanna Vandoni
outgoing and incoming spokespersons of the Nine
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The Nine seeks input for topics to be investigated throughout the year, so we encourage you to get in touch, either by sending an email to the-nine@cern.ch or by contacting one of our members. In 2025–2026, we meet every Tuesday from 12.15 to 13.45. You are welcome to attend the first 15–20 minutes of our meeting to present your topic in person – please contact us to know the venue. Details of previous topics are available on the Nine webpage. We plan to organise visits to different CERN departments to engage in discussions with senior staff; we therefore invite all interested senior staff colleagues to contact one of us, either in person or by phone/email, for more information or to schedule a visit.