Right on cue

Lemaître’s appointment to crucial research post comes just in time

The top official post in the European Commission’s research and innovation department is probably the most important European-level role for the research sector, alongside the political figurehead that is the EU R&I commissioner.

So it will have been a relief to many when the Commission announced on the first of this month that the post—which has been without a permanent holder since the departure of Jean-Eric Paquet last summer—would be filled from 16 February by Marc Lemaître, currently head of the regional and urban policy department.