Research Infrastructures are significant for Open Science and Knowledge Valorisation – a reason why they are of importance for the upcoming Presidency.
The upcoming Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union will keep research infrastructures as one ongoing priority and, therefore, it can build on the work done by the Swedish Presidency that launched during the Lund conference on 20 June 2023, the Lund Declaration on Maximising the Benefits of Research Data. The declaration indicates that the EU needs to make better secondary use of data to enhance the research and innovation performance of the European Research Area (ERA). It also indicates a need to strengthen the outreach and impact on industry and society through FAIR and open research data in Europe within the scientific communities and through research infrastructures. Besides, it proposes to increase open science monitoring and practices with models rewarding and incentivising investments in FAIR and open research data. Moreover, it highlights that the coordination and interconnection between digital and research infrastructures has to be increased and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) strengthened. Furthermore, it asks to reinforce the adoption of FAIR and open principles in research infrastructures through networks of data stewards, relevant skills and training, career possibilities and support centres for research. Additionally, during the conference, it was announced that the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and EOSC have recently established a task force, including two representatives from ESFRI, two from EOSC and two from the EC, to coordinate actors of the ecosystems and respective activities and to bring the two communities closer together.
Additionally, in June 2023, the conference on Knowledge Valorisation: the role of research and technology infrastructures organised by the Swedish Presidency took place. It was emphasised that research and tech infrastructures and their communities should be more interlinked. Moreover, it was stressed that research infrastructures need to be closely connected to industry (e.g., as a supplier, co-creator, co-innovator or user) and in upcoming framework programmes, the innovation dimension of research infrastructures should be further expanded. This should guarantee the EU’s capacity regarding strategic autonomy, reducing dependencies and, where possible, using and creating local infrastructures, promoting investments in technologies and capabilities, and ensuring the availability of a highly qualified workforce.
The Spanish Presidency plans to launch the Tenerife Declaration on research infrastructures in the global dimensions, which aims to focus on international cooperation and its capacity to fund research infrastructures. This will be part of the organised presidency conference on research infrastructures on 25-26 September 2023. Besides, the Presidency will organise a Week on Infrastructures on 27-29 September 2023.
Moreover, it will also organise the International Open Science Fair 2023: Open Science for Future Generations in Madrid in September. In this context, the common understanding that Open Science should be built on responsible international cooperation based on reciprocity and shared common values, a fact that was highlighted during COMPET in May 2023 (see SwissCore article), needs to be underlined.