Professor Jean-Pierre Finance was the President of Henri Poincaré University, Nancy, France from 1994 to 1999 and from 2004 to 2011. For two years (2007-2008) he was the President of the CPU (The French Rector Conference). He actively participated to the project aiming to merge this 4 universities into the single University of Lorraine created in January 1st 2012.
He has been Board member of EUA (European University Association) from 2009 to 2013 and Council member from 2006 to 2016. From 2011 to 2015 he was the chair of the nomination committee of this association. Currently he is the Chair of the EUA’s Open Access Experts Group and of the Big Deal High Level Group. He has been President and still member of the Councils of various French organizations devoted to digital publications (COUPERIN & ABES)
He is also member of the Council of the Magna Charta Observatory; as well as President and to digital highspeed network (RENATER) and as member of the board of the new French Office for Scientific Integrity (OFIS).
Further to his Maths studies, Professor Finance opted for informatics, which specialised in programming language semantics and formal methods in software engineering. He got his PhD in 1974 and his “Doctorat d’Etat” in 1979.
From 1985 to 1994, he was the head of the Computer Science Research Centre of Nancy, so-called CRIN.