The nature of Dark Matter is one of the most intriguing open questions in cosmology. The DAMIC-M experiment, under construction at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) under the French Alps, will search for Dark Matter particles with unprecedented sensitivity, improving over previous experiments by several orders of magnitude. The 3-year IIRP grant will cover a crucial phase for DAMIC-M, when the detector will be installed, commissioned and start data taking. We propose to establish DAMIC-M "headquarters" at the IIRP at the Center in Paris, which will serve as the base for activities of the international collaboration, with a strong European component. The Center will host long-term visitors and focused meetings to prepare activities at the LSM, to exploit the first science data and to spearhead the next-generation experiment, ten-times bigger than DAMIC-M.