With great sadness, we are informing the CESSDA community and partners across Europe that Hans Jørgen Marker (1950-2020), former director of two of our Service Providers (Danish and Swedish Data Archives) passed away on Friday, 6th November 2020.

A historian by training, Hans Jørgen started his early career at the Danish Data Archive (DDA) in Odense, becoming a director in 1997. In 2009 he moved on to lead the Swedish archive (SND) in Gothenburg where he stayed until his retirement in 2015.

Hans Jørgen greatly valued pan-European and international cooperation ensuring both of his home institutions, DDA and SND, played active roles in a number of EU funded projects and European and global organisations like IFDO, RDA, and DDI.

For CESSDA, he played a pivotal role in building it as both an international and a formal institution. His enthusiasm guided him in serving CESSDA first as the Secretary of CESSDA network of data archives for more than 11 years, then as its president from 2010 to 2013, when CESSDA became a formal institution under Norwegian Law.

At that point in CESSDA's history, Hans Jørgen became a member of the CESSDA Board of Directors, thus further stirring developments and efforts for CESSDA to become a formal European Infrastructure. Early dreams became a reality when CESSDA was pronounced an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) under the auspices of the European Commission in June 2017.

Hans Jørgen’s legacy is deeply embedded in the CESSDA community. Our deepest condolences go to his family and loved ones.

Ron Dekker,

CESSDA ERIC