ESFRI highlights the contribution of research infrastructures to fighting Covid-19 and their role in the future ERA, and points out need for greater coordination.
Research infrastructures are important in providing data and services for scientists to conduct research in almost all scientific fields and for businesses to develop new products and services. The Croatian Presidency, who was at the helm of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2020, thus dedicated an entire conference to “European Research Infrastructures for a Smarter Future” on 15 May. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) now published the conclusions of the conference in a report.
Aimed at exploring whether and how European Research Infrastructures can make an impact on European strategic agendas, the conference gathered an audience of over 600 participants in an online setting, due to the current Covid-19 crisis. The reach to stakeholders could be broadened even further through full recording of the sessions and making videos available on ESFRI’s own YouTube channel.
The conference consisted of four individual sessions and a concluding panel, which identified directions for the future of European research infrastructures’ policy. The first session discussed the link between research infrastructures (RIs) and the European strategic agendas, such as the European Green Deal and Energy Transition. It concluded that RIs are a main pillar in creating an impactful European Research Area (ERA), and that when organised well in an ecosystem enabling excellent science and ground breaking innovation can provide an important contribution to the EU’s strategic agendas. The European Green Deal and the Energy Union offer many opportunities for the development of RIs.
A second session elaborated on the contribution of RIs to regional development. To utilise the potential of RIs fully, panellists considered it important to provide harmonised research, development and innovation strategies and funding systems at regional, national and European level. In turn, regional development strategies can be based on local innovation ecosystems of research institutes, universities and private players with RIs at their centre. For a competitive Europe, it is crucial to see RIs as a core of the research and innovation (R&I) capacity of the continent and to achieve pan-European cooperation in coordination and investment. With reference to the current Covid-19 crisis, regionally anchored RIs may even offer a solution for a revitalisation of the local economy, if their knowledge generation capacity is utilised to create sustainable R&I networks and new value chains.
A dedicated session focussed on RIs in the fight against Covid-19 itself. RIs have made a significant contribution to the effective response to the outbreak by keeping instruments in operation and realising quick-access programmes to help researchers and industry advance their investigations into the virus and potential remedies. However, to gain greater resilience and better responsiveness in the future, coordination needs to be improved, sustainability fostered and internationalisation increased with links to relevant international organisations in health and beyond.
Finally, the fourth session discussed RIs as a base to make science happen. An integrated, interoperable ecosystem of RIs and supporting their excellence across the whole of Europe ensures that the continent has the research capacity to deal with future challenges and strengthen the economy for a knowledge-driven recovery from the pandemic. The report recognises the potential of universities as hosts of RIs and engines of scientific excellence and the importance of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable) datasets. FAIR data will contribute to data sharing and use beyond individual RIs or disciplines, thereby supporting a coordinated recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. In conclusion, the report again refers to a renewed ERA, which needs to increase efforts in building up European R&I capacities and promote RI excellence.
The need for greater cooperation and coordinated investment into RIs, as identified in the ESFRI conference report, is recognised widely in the scientific community. The majority of RIs are funded, managed and operated within national systems, and provide services to national research communities. However, with increasingly large and complex RIs and limited budgets, governments and funders often reach the ceiling of what is possible. Science Europe has thus teamed up with the OECD Global Science Forum to analyse how to optimise RI operation and use. Jointly, they have developed a set of guiding principles, which will help policy makers and infrastructure managers, and summarised these principles into two dedicated guiding models.