Brussels, 27/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - The new European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) set up on the initiative of Commissioner Philippe Busquin to provide the Commission with advice on the setting up of the European Research Area, held its first meeting on Wednesday. The EURAB used this opportunity to elect officials to represent the group. The Director of the Collegium Helveticum (Switzerland), Helga Nowotny, who is also a philosophy teacher, was elected as the Board's chair. The two Vice-Presidents are Horst Soboll, Research Policy Director at DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany) and Professor Ian Halliday, manager of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (United Kingdom). The list of the 45 members of the Board (20 proposed by the European Science Foundation, 20 by UNICE and 5 appointed directly by the Commission) was published in Official Journal C 268 of 22 September.