Access to RIs including trans-national access

A long-time objective of Europe has been to open up and increase trans-national access (TNA) to national Research Infrastructures (of European interest) and to European Research Infrastructures, such as those prioritised by ESFRI. Nevertheless, this has not been as successful as originally envisioned. Some of the possible reasons may be related to lack of availability, e.g. when competing with national users for funding, e.g. when no specific funding of [additional] costs by home or host organisations are available. Horizon Europe and other EU-level programmes have been especially critical to funding transnational access when national rules pose limitations to funding RI access abroad. Furthermore, issues related to personal data, security or intellectual property often become more sensitive in a trans-national context. The bottlenecks however do vary depending on the scientific domain, the modality of access for a class of infrastructures, or the nature of costs and funding mechanism utilised.

A key element for defining the principles of RI access policy has been the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures. The Charter promotes the harmonisation of access procedures as well as the enhanced transparency of access policies adopted by Research Infrastructures with the final purpose of enabling users to access the best Research Infrastructure to perform their work, wherever it might be located. Assessment of the implementation of the Charter, and its potential review, would further reinforce the accessibility of Research Infrastructure services for European scientists and innovators.

One fundamental observation is that access models for centralised and distributed RIs can be different but the real key difference that dwarfs all others is that between physical¹⁸ 18. Physical access is “hands-on” access when Users physically visit an infrastructure, /facility/ or equipment. The available services or resources are not unlimited and a competitive process is required following a defined procedure and criteria for selection of Users., remote¹⁹ 19. Remote access is access to resources and services offered by the RI without Users physically visiting the infrastructure/facility. Similar to Physical access, the services or resources are not unlimited and a competitive selection is required. and virtual²⁰ 20. Virtual access means free access to Users provided through communication networks; the available services or resources can be simultaneously used by an unlimited number of Users and the Users are not selected. Virtual access typically concerns access to data and digital tools. access to RIs. For both physical access (e.g. using coastal vessels or telescopes on site) and remote access (e.g. using high performance computers), due to the limited and non-time-shareable resources of the corresponding RIs, it is typical to adopt models that partition access time into three components: standard access to members according to their proportion on some key parameter, e.g. financial contribution; competitive access to members based on excellence; and possibly a (usually small) fraction of competitive access open to non-members and/or feebased access to the market. There is a natural competition/tension between the three components, members vs non-members, scientific excellence vs quotas/geographical return, so identifying the right proportion according to the priorities of an RI is a significant challenge.