Executive Board

The Executive Board is the main decision making body of EISMD, setting the goals and making the necessary decisions, taking into account the advice of the Advisory Board.


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Michelangelo
Baracchi Bonvicini

President, European Institute for Science, Media & Democracy – Atomium

Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini was born in London and grew up in Italy, where he completed his classical studies. He graduated in History at the University of Bologna.

After pursuing journalism within the field of foreign correspondence initiated at the age of eighteen, which brought him to Kosovo and Albania (1999), Israel and Palestine during the second Intifada (2002), Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran (2003), he dedicated himself to historical research, with special attention given to the European issues.

Scholar of European integration, his latest research on the subject is on the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe where the accounts of the private meetings with the President of the European Convention Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and with the Italian Vice President Giuliano Amato are included (2003-2004); a comparative study on the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe and the Constitution of the United States of America (2004); the reconstruction policy of Republican Italy,with special reference to the political -and European Policy- thinking of Alcide De Gasperi, where his interviews with the Italian Senator Giulio Andreotti are included (2005).

From April 2004 to December 2005 he planned an independent, supranational and non-profit organization for exchange and dissemination of research among different sectors (universities, media and businesses). In January 2006, Atomium – European Institute for Science, Media and Democracy was formally founded.

For three years from 2006, with the former President of France Valéry Giscard d’Estaing promoted and coordinated the start-up of Atomium – European Institute for Science, Media and Democracy that was kept confidential until the public launch on 27 November 2009, when they presented the Institute to the European Parliament in Brussels, during its first annual conference.

Baracchi Bonvicini and Giscard d’Estaing were awarded, in 2011, the medal “Plus Ratio QuamVis” from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow for “their contribution to the European academic community by founding Atomium”.

More recent publications include the appeal “For a European Consciousness, For a More Competitive Europe” signed in September 2012 together with V. Giscard d’Estaing and the former Prime Minister of Spain Felipe González Márquez, as new Chairman of the Advisory Board of Atomium – EISMD, during the negotiations regarding the EU budget for 2014-2020. The appeal was published by numerous European newspapers including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, El País, Il Sole 24 Ore and The Irish Times.

From 2013, Baracchi Bonvicini has worked together with the computer scientist Massimo Marchiori (creator of Hyper Search that has been the first published technique to introduce link analysis for search engines), Chief Technology Officer of Atomium-EISMD, to design and set-up REIsearch, a non-profit European platfom co-funded by the European Commission, Nokia, Elsevier, and other Atomium partners. REIsearch intends to demonstrate how a technological tool, coupled to a broad network of leading media, research institutions, researchers, civil society organisations, and citizens, can help policy makers to make better use of current scientific research.

REIsearch launched on February 15, 2016. This platform is designed to connect citizens, researchers and policy makers on topics linked to scientific research and to societal challenges that Europe will face in the years to come.

Currently Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini is President of Atomium – European Institute for Science, Media and Democracy and Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of REIsearch, together Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

(Italian version)


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Felipe González Márquez

Chairman of the Advisory Board of EISMD, Former Prime Minister of Spain

Behind his astute leadership skills and political acumen, Gonzalez was elected to an unprecedented four consecutive terms as Prime Minister of Spain. During his tenure in office, he pushed the nation into an era of economic growth it had not seen for over half a century, culminating in a successful integration into the European Union.

Felipe Gonzalez was born in Seville, Spain in 1942. While enrolled at the University of Seville in 1962, where he would eventually earn a degree in law, he joined the Spanish Socialists’ Party (PSOE), which had been an illegal organization since the Spanish Civil War had returned power to the Tradionalist Conservatives in 1939. Soon after his graduation, Gonzalez found success teaching law in Seville while also representing workers in litigation cases.

With the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975, the PSOE’s legality was restored and, behind the leadership of Felipe Gonzalez, assumed 118 (of 303) seats in Parliament and 29.2% of the vote in Spain’s first post-Franco general election. Once reinstated into the National government, Gonzalez pushed rid the PSOE of their Marxist doctrines to appeal to all classes. He succeeded in 1979, and was named the party’s Secretary General.

In the 1982 general election, the PSOE gained 48.3% of the vote and Felipe Gonzalez was named Prime Minister of Spain at the age of 40, making him Europe’s youngest Head of Government. He went on to hold the office through four more elections until the Popular Party commanded control in the 1996 general election. During this 16-year span, Gonzalez pushed for liberal reforms and a restructuring of the economy, which had been long stagnant under the guidance of the old regime. The economic conditions of Spain saw vast improvements under the guidance of Gonzalez, including a landmark inclusion within the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, in 1986.

Felipe Gonzalez was awarded the Charlemagne Prize for distinguished service on behalf of European Unification in 1993 and in 1997, and was honored with the Great Golden Cross for Merit by the Republic of Austria.

Gonzalez resigned as the leader of the PSOE in 1997, though he still remains involved in its processes. He currently heads the Madrid based Global Progress Foundation (FPG), and enjoys tending to bonsai trees, many of which he has donated to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Madrid.


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Bruno Le Maire

Secretary General

Bruno Le Maire was the French Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries from 2009 to 2012.
After graduating from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, he studied at Sciences Po, and then graduated from the National School of Administration.

He began working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a career diplomat, and in 2002, he joined the cabinet of Minister as adviser to Dominique de Villepin. He joined the Ministry of the Interior in March 2004, and Matignon in 2005 when he became the Political Advisor to the Prime Minister.
In December 2008, Bruno Le Maire was appointed Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs in the François Fillon government, replacing Jean-Pierre Jouyet.

He was a member of the National Assembly of France from 2007 to 2008, where he represented the Eure department. Since March 2008, he is also a city councilman for the city of Evreux, Eure.

He is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.

Atomium-EISMD