Einstein Probe Science Management Committee

Science Management Committee (SMC)

The Science Management Committee (SMC) includes members appointed by the Parties to manage the overall science exploitation of the EP mission. The SMC consists of an Executive Board and up to 10 members. The Executive Board comprises the mission Principal Investigator (Chair), the ESA Project Scientist (co-Chair), the MPE team lead (co-Chair), and one additional scientist proposed by CAS. The Executive Board oversees and manages the SMC activities, approves topics of the Science Topical Panels (STPs), and approves the STP chairs and co-chairs.

The other members of the SMC are the Science Topical Panel chairs (max 8), one independent scientist appointed by MPE and one independent scientist appointed by ESA. The independent scientist appointed by ESA has been selected through an Announcement of Opportunity after which Paul O’Brien, University of Leicester, United Kingdom was appointed.

CAS shall maintain the majority (>60%) of the members of the SMC.

Responsibilities of the SMC are:

• Manage the activities of the Science Team overall;
• Advise the EP Science Centre on operations aspects related to science performance;
• Monitor science projects proposed by the STPs to ensure 80-10-10 split of the EP operational time (ROT + ToO);
• Monitor the long-term average proportion of EP science return (based on operational time during the proprietary period) to evaluate whether this is satisfactory with respect to the 80-10-10 model, taking corrective action if necessary;
• Define science management policies on publications, data rights, duration of proprietary period, exploitation strategies, etc.;
• Establish agreements with external facilities for follow-up activities. The agreements are to be signed by the EP PI;
• Decisions within the SMC should be taken by consensus; in case of disagreement, issues shall first be discussed by the Executive Board, before being escalated to the Steering Committee.