ESFRI White Paper – a new European research infrastructure vision for post-2020

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) White Paper 2020, prepared by European research infrastructure policy-makers, sets out an innovative vision for European research infrastructures in post-2020. It emphasizes the importance of research infrastructures for the development of excellent science in the EU. At the same time, it points out their contribution to strengthening the competitiveness of European industries and role, which the research infrastructures play in addressing grand socioeconomic challenges, and therefore the impact they have on the daily lives of European citizens.

"Let me emphasize that research infrastructures are an essential pillar of the European Research Area. They form a backbone of an ecosystem that is striving for scientific excellence, provides first class services to scientists, represents a natural meeting place for scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators, contributes to education and have an indispensable role in finding answers to socio-economic challenges," says ESFRI Chair Jan Hrušák from the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35lPM_P7CM [VC1] 

Stronger contribution of research infrastructures to European policy objectives

Responding to the changed policy context, in particular the new emphasis on the socioeconomic goals – such as digitisation of European industries; ensuring of energy security; mitigation of climate change; preservation of biodiversity; development of innovative medicines and treatments against infectious diseases; securing water supply and healthy food production; and facing societal challenges, like aging or societal inequalities – the renewed European Research Area envisions stronger contributions of research and innovation activities to EU’s wider policy objectives, such as increasing Europe’s competitiveness and identifying significant solutions to grand societal challenges. These goals cannot be fully achieved without new, joint strategic efforts of the European research infrastructures themselves. Given these circumstances, ESFRI will support the research infrastructure ecosystem in optimizing its alignment with the European strategic agendas, across borders of sectoral domains. This will also imply a culture change in the entire research infrastructure domain.

Reinforcing the socioeconomic benefits of research infrastructures

The new ESFRI vision is intimately related to achieving the following objectives:

• Research – maintain an absolute edge globally in research infrastructure capabilities to serve ambitious, curiosity- and demand-driven, societally relevant, scientific and technological research, thereby increasing the attractiveness of the ERA for researchers, industrial users and international partners;
• Innovation – accelerate the exploitation of European research infrastructures as knowledge and innovation hubs, boosting their role as drivers of economic growth, social and environmental transitions, and place-based innovation;
• Education – engage research infrastructures and higher education institutions in specialized training of students, young academics and industrial scientists on next-generation technologies, inter-disciplinary methodologies and data management skills;
• Policies – increase coherence between European, national and regional priorities and policies for research infrastructure development and funding, and effective synergies with other European policies and funding instruments;
• Data – exploit the data science and data engineering expertise of research infrastructures for the development of the European Open Science Cloud.

For more information visit the dedicated ESFRI White Paper 2020 website.

About ESFRI:

Over the past two decades, within the framework of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and ESFRI Roadmap processes, EU Members States and Associated Countries have worked together, in a close partnership with the European Commission, to provide scientists and innovators with state-of-the-art facilities, and to foster mutual collaboration and networking among them. This procedure has led to the establishment of over 50 European research infrastructures, mobilising investments of approximately €20 billion across the whole EU.

 [VC1]Jan Hrušák, ESFRI Chair, presenting the ESFRI White Paper 2020