The MANRS Steering Committee Needs You!

The MANRS community is looking for volunteers to serve on its new Steering Committee and will open the call for nominations on 1 October 2021 in anticipation of a November election. The Steering Committee will lead the community toward collective responsibility for the resilience and security of the Internet’s global routing system.

Background

MANRS participants collectively set and develop the principles and standards for joining the initiative and hold each other accountable for adhering to good routing practices. The MANRS community currently has over 700 participants representing over 750 autonomous systems and continues to gain attention, interest, and credibility from operators around the world.

Administered and funded by the Internet Society since 2014, the short-term goal is for MANRS to establish its own community and governance structure. Toward that goal, the community formed the MANRS Advisory Group in early 2020 to provide oversight of the MANRS application and auditing processes, to enhance the MANRS Actions by developing ongoing conformance criteria, and to participate in the selection of the MANRS Ambassadors and Fellows. It also drafted the MANRS Community Charter, which provides guiding principles for the future governance of the initiative. 

In accordance with the Community Charter, the Advisory Group will now transition to a Steering Committee comprised of individuals elected by the MANRS community. The Steering Committee will be seated in November 2021.

About the Steering Committee

The Steering Committee will have seven (7) positions, and the Call for Nominations will open on 1 October 2021, remaining open until 23:59 UTC on 28 October 2021.

Anyone is eligible to serve on the Steering Committee, including current members of the Advisory Group. Prospective candidates from MANRS participants may nominate themselves. Candidates from other companies or organizations are welcome to apply but must be nominated by a MANRS participant.

Steering Committee Responsibilities

The role of the Steering Committee is to coordinate and develop the MANRS initiative. Members will hold regular meetings once per quarter, and the duties of the members include:

• Reviewing and making recommendations to the MANRS community about the MANRS Actions and minimum conformance criteria.
• Supervising the auditing process for new applicants, including making decisions on applications where conformance with the established criteria is marginal or unclear, or where unanticipated circumstances occur that are not covered by the documented auditing process.
• Handling the appeals process from applicants that have been refused approval.
• Making recommendations to the MANRS community on the suspension and termination of organisations from MANRS participation that fail to meet the minimum conformance criteria.
• Supervising the incident handling processes.
• Appointing the MANRS Advisors who can offer specialist advice or act as liaisons with other important communities.

Steering Committee Election

MANRS participants will vote in an online election from 3-5 November 2021.

One-third of the Steering Committee will come up for re-election each year. To stagger the initial election terms, the candidate receiving the most votes will be elected for a three-year term (i.e. 1 November 2021 – 31 October 2024). The three candidates receiving the 2nd to 4th highest number of votes will be elected for a two-year term (i.e. 1 November 2021 – 31 October 2023), and the three candidates receiving the 5th to 7th highest number of votes will be elected for a one-year term (i.e. 1 November 2021 – 31 October 2022).

Members of the Steering Committee may serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Getting Started

If you would like to volunteer to take a leading role in an initiative that’s important to the resilience and security of one of the critical components of the Internet infrastructure, please fill in the nomination form on or after 1 October. You can also nominate others.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the Advisory Group who guided the development of the MANRS initiative, and we also encourage them to put themselves forward for election to the Steering Committee.