ESFRI Support for Brisbane statement from ICRI 2024
The ESFRI Chair and several ESFRI delegates attended the wonderfully organized International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI2024) held in Brisbane, Australia on 3-6 of December 2024. Besides the fruitful discussions among international partners on RIs from ESFRI we would like to underline the Brisbane statement, one of the outputs that emerged from ICRI 2024. It contains several key messages that ESFRI supports and that resonate with some of our recent work.
Importance of long-term planning and consistent funding
The Brisbane statement emphasized that RIs require ongoing policy support and consistent funding to fully realise their full potential and the value of funding models that allow RI leaders to proactively initiate collaborative venture. To that effect ESFRI, jointly with the OECD recently organized a Global Science Forum-ESFRI Workshop on assessing public expenditures committed to RIs.
Importance of RI staff
As pointed out by the Brisbane statement the RI staff will need to be supported with career pathways, recognition of their achievements, and positive employment and workplace conditions. Furthermore, the RI workforce strategies will need to attract, retain and train the uniquely skilled personnel who manage, maintain and operate these facilities. ESFRI supports this statement and together, with Research Infrastructures, is working to address this issue.
Importance of international collaboration
The Brisbane statement encourages all RI stakeholders to actively consider the role of RIs in addressing global challenges, and how strengthening international RI collaborations can help solve them. ESFRI, in its recent Position Paper on Framework Program 10 recommended that this role should be further promoted by also considering RIs as a policy tool for European integration, international cooperation and attracting the best talents.
Importance of RIs in translational research
The Brisbane statement underlined the importance of bridging the gap between academia and the public and private sectors. Recent publications by ESFRI addressed the crucial role of cooperation between Research Infrastructures (RIs) and industry in achieving scientific excellence and fostering innovation potential (Cooperation of ESFRI Research Infrastructures with Industry).
Importance of Digital Research Infrastructure
The Brisbane statement stressed that Open science strategies depend on well-connected Digital Research Infrastructures to manage science and research data. ESFRI´s efforts on open science align with this idea as exemplified by the work of the ESFRI-EOSC Task Force (See ESFRI-EOSC Policy Workshop on "FAIR Data Productivity and Advanced Digitalization and the opinion paper on “FAIR Data productivity and advanced digitalization of research”).
