Danièle Rod is the Executive Director of the Swiss Polar Institute. She has a background in political science, administrative studies and economics. Before becoming the Executive Director of the SPI in 2017, Danièle Rod worked extensively on EU and international science collaboration programmes. She has worked for 10 years for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) for which she was notably posted in Brussels supporting the participation of Swiss scientists in the EU Framework programmes and as a detached national expert at the European Commission. Later, she was Head of Division at the Swiss National Foundation in charge of international collaboration, managing collaboration schemes and programmes with partners all over the world. Subsequently from 2011 to 2015, Danièle Rod was the Science and Technology Counsellor at the Swiss Mission to the EU in Brussels in charge of the participation of Switzerland in the EU research, education and space programmes.