At the 23^rd General Assembly of the ‘6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association’ (6G-IA), Dan Warren of Samsung R&D Institute UK (SRUK) was successful in being re-elected for a second term on the 6G-IA Governing Board. 6G-IA is the private partner in the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS-JU), which is the funding body for Telecommunications research in Europe under Horizon Europe. SNS-JU includes the European Commission as the public side partner, and the situation for UK organizations to gain funding from SNS-JU and other Horizon Europe constructs has been significantly complicated by Brexit.

In his first term on the Governing Board, Dan acted as a liaison point between the EC and the UK Research and Innovation body of the UK government, ensuring that UK status for funding was well understood, to enable as many UK partners as possible to gain funding. Scepticism on the UK’s position has been high, but SRUK were successful in two consortia in the firsts SNS-JU call for proposals and are actively engaged in multiple consortia for SNS-JU call 2. With the evolving situation around UK association to Horizon Europe, Dan stood on the basis of a continued need for a UK presence on the Board, and receiving considerable backing. Dan is also currently the Steering Board Chair of the 5G-PPP, which will close and handover activity to SNS-JU during 2023, so Dan’s dual role will be important to facilitate that smooth transition.

Upon announcement of the results of the election, Dan noted that ‘a UK presence on the governing board is important for both UK and European understanding as we move towards UK association to Horizon Europe’ and that he hoped the process would be completed quickly now that the The Windsor Framework had removed the obstacles to association being achieved.

The 6G-IA announcement of the election results can be found at https://6g-ia.eu/single_post/?slug=6g-ia-election-of-new-governing-board