Stakeholder Contributions to Landscape Analysis

ESFRI Landscape Analysis (LA) provides an overview of the European RI ecosystem since 2016, by identifying the main RIs operating transnational access in Europe, in all fields of research, and major new or ongoing projects, as well as an outlook to the global landscape of relevance.ESFRI has recently decided to de-couple the LA from the Roadmap, aiming to publish a more strategic LA report in 2023, which must provide the framework for the next ESFRI Roadmap, contribute to the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, and promote the development of new research infrastructure services.

To prepare such an ambitious report, with a more consolidated gap analysis based on user needs, ESFRI has decided to involve directly the RIs and core stakeholders which could provide the relevant information for this report.

Accordingly, relevant stakeholders were invited by ESFRI to provide publishable strategic considerations about the functioning of the current ecosystem of RIs and its future development, along with their thoughts on the following topics:
 
 1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?
 2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?
 3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:
      i. Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy
     ii. HEU Missions
    iii. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation
 

Please find below the feedback from the stakeholders invited to provide publishable contributions on the Landscape Analysis. It should be noted that invited non-publishable contributions from ESFRI Stakeholder Forum members will also be taken into consideration during the preparation of the LA report.​

APPEC Consortium

 

The astrophysical community in Europe operates large and diverse observatories and experiments for its research, often in rather inaccessible and harsh locations on Earth. Here we describe the status and development of those research infrastructures that are already listed in the ESFRI roadmap or could be potential candidates for the roadmap in the near future.

1. APPEC

Astroparticle physics is the fascinating field of research at the intersection of astronomy, particle physics and cosmology. This field, which employs cutting-edge technology instruments, saw many successful observations of impressive cosmic events, like the coalescence of black holes and neutron stars or flaring blazars. Thousands of researchers are joining their capacities to make these observations possible. APPEC is the Astroparticle Physics European Consortium, a consortium of 22 funding agencies, national government institutions, and institutes from 18 European countries, responsible for coordinating and funding national research efforts in astroparticle physics. It operates in close cooperation with society, with astroparticle physics related activities outside Europe as well as with neighbouring research fields via its strong connections to Astronomy (ASTRONET), Particle Physics (ECFA), or Nuclear Physics (NuPECC).

Over the past decades, the consortium and the community has been able to grow steadily in number of members, scientists, budget and operating research infrastructures. APPEC’s strategic objectives are to a) provide a forum for the coordination of European Astroparticle Physics; b) develop and update long term strategies (roadmap); c) develop closer relationships with neighbouring communities to express collective views on Astroparticle Physics in international fora; and d) provide a fruitful education and training ground for next generations of scientists. Its implementation objectives are to a) facilitate and enhance coordination between existing as well as developing national activities; b) develop a common action plan for large-scale Astroparticle Physics Research Infrastructures; c) foster the digitalisation of the research field and support dedicated e-infrastructures; d) facilitate the convergence of future large-scale projects and facilities; e) provide organisational advice for the implementation of large-scale projects and facilities; f) launch common actions and measures and g) initiate and guide activities funded by the European Commission.

2. Strategy

APPEC published a science vision, coined the ‘European Strategy for Astroparticle Physics’, in 2008 and its first prioritised roadmap in 2011. This strategy was succeeded by the APPEC European Strategy for Astroparticle Physics 2017-2026 https://www.appec.org/roadmap. Since then, the field rapidly made further progress, with one of the highlights being the multi-messenger observations of a neutron star merger, leading to important new insights in where and how chemical elements originate. Marking the rapid progress in the field, the landscape of experiments and observatories changed since 2017, possibly making some reprioritization warranted. APPEC therefore decided to conduct a mid-term review of the European APPEC Strategy for Astroparticle Physics 2017-2026, leading - with some delay due to the Covid 19 pandemic - to an updated strategy for the second half of the 2017-2026 period, to be published in summer 2023.

In this brief document we discuss the status and relevant developments as well as future plans and strategy for the large-scale, often international Research Infrastructures important to reach the science goals of Astroparticle Physics. An index of success of astroparticle physics can be that all seven priorities set up in the first roadmap 2008 (Gravitational Waves, High-Energy Photons and Neutrinos, Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays, Dark Matter, Neutrino Mass and Properties, Cosmology and Dark Energy) considered at the time as high-risk high-gain enterprises, are now considered mainstream fields in its full development. The infrastructures of the CTA, KM3NeT, Einstein Telescope have become part of the ESFRI Roadmap. These projects relate to the "Multi-Messenger Astro(particle)physics" theme and the corresponding instruments, tools and methods developed are breakthrough, highly innovative and benefit many other domains of fundamental science from Astrophysics to Nuclear and Particle Physics and Cosmology.

Other major topics in astroparticle physics are the search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy and the determination of the properties of the neutrinos. These topics are a rapidly growing field of research which need next-generation – i.e. larger and more innovative – infrastructures. Europe is at the forefront of these promising research fields also thanks to the EU support. To keep this position and foster new breakthroughs it is important to continue European coordination in all aspects and levels as well as find support for organising an effective global coordination.
Last but not least, we would like to note an extra argument for the topicality of the Astroparticle thematic in a climate urgency era, mirroring itself in many EU and global priorities. It has become common knowledge that in the last years, there appeared many areas of natural synergy between Geoscience, Climate Science and Astroparticle Physics who share a mutual scientific culture based on common objects of methods and approaches. The Geosphere is both the target and the detecting medium for Astroparticle observatories. Both deal with complex natural large-scale systems, sometimes in extreme environments (sea, desert, underground, space), use long series of precise observations acquired over long time scales and develop models relying on the state-of- the-art in fundamental physics, chemistry, biology and computer sciences.

In summary, the strategy of the astroparticle physics community for the development and operation of research infrastructures and in connection with the society is in accordance with the goals of the new ERA Action 8.

3. Ongoing and potential future ESFRI projects

• In the following we first address the three Research Infrastructures from the field of Astroparticle Physics that have already been included in the ESFRI roadmap:

KM3NeT – the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope for high-energy neutrinos (ESFRI)
In the Southern hemisphere, IceCube’s first observation of PeV-scale cosmic neutrinos in 2013 has opened an entirely new window onto our Universe: neutrino astronomy. This, together with the opportunity to resolve the neutrinos’ mass ordering by studying atmospheric neutrinos, led ESFRI to include the Northern hemisphere observatory KM3NeT 2.0 in its 2016 roadmap. Construction has started and operation is starting up in a phased approach. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC fully endorses the goal of the KM3NeT collaboration to complete the construction of the large- volume telescope optimised for high-energy neutrino astronomy ARCA, and the dedicated detector to resolve the neutrino mass hierarchy ORCA.

CTA – the Cherenkov Telescope Array for observation of high-energy gamma rays (ESFRI)
Recent discoveries, particularly at energies greater than 100 TeV and contemporaneous with gravitational wave detections, have underlined the importance of high-energy gamma-rays for the exploration of the extreme Universe. The next European-led project, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), is under construction and is expected to start operation in the next few years and will cover gamma-rays with energies from a few 10s of GeV to a few 100 TeV. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC fully endorses the construction and subsequent long-term operation of CTA in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Einstein Telescope – the 3rd Generation Gravitational Wave Detector (ESFRI)
Gravitational-wave astronomy is a newly emerging field of research that has enabled us to probe the most energetic transients in the universe, such as the merger of binary systems of black holes and neutron stars. Gravitational-wave observations had a gigantic impact on many fields of research, from fundamental physics to astrophysics, from nuclear physics to cosmology. It is expected that the next generation of gravitational wave observatories will trigger a revolution in at least some of these fields. The Einstein Telescope, included in the 2021 ESFRI roadmap, will make precise gravitational-wave astronomy possible and will access all cosmological scales back to the early universe. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC strongly supports actions to enlarge European countries’ participation in ET, to acquire funds for ET construction and operations, and to develop the ET scientific community.

• There are a number of European underground laboratories that provide essential infrastructure for key astroparticle physics projects. The owners and operators of these laboratories are considering structural coordination to provide a common framework for the appropriate experimental facilities:

DUL – European Deep Underground Laboratories (European coordination of distributed RIs) Among the important infrastructures for astroparticle physics are the deep underground laboratories. Shielded by up to about a kilometre of rock they provide the low background condition that is crucial for a variety of astroparticle physics experiments trying to observe extremely rare events, such as neutrinoless double beta decay, dark matter interactions with detectors, or neutrino interactions with detectors. Achieving very low backgrounds took many years of experience and maintaining them takes a significant effort. Different European deep underground laboratories can fulfil different sets of requirements for experiments and the diversity of infrastructures is a significant asset. Exchanging expertise and bundling forces, e.g., in maintaining low background measurement and screening equipment and in documenting and exchanging radio-pure and extremely low background materials, will further reinforce the unique European underground Laboratories infrastructures for astroparticle physics. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC strongly encourages the European Underground Laboratories to maintain, and expand when necessary, their ability to facilitate low background experiments. APPEC encourages the European Underground Laboratories involved in astroparticle physics to establish a Virtual Coordination Office that establishes a robust cooperation in key services and support for experiments, coordinates future investments in deep underground infrastructures and establishes a trans-national access policy.

• Finally, projects are listed below that are central to APPEC's strategic planning, but are either too far in the future to already initiate the accession process to the ESFRI roadmap, or may not be seen as research infrastructures in their own right, but as experiments within large research infrastructures such as an underground laboratory:

GCOS and GRAND – the next-generation cosmic-ray observatory
To understand the origin and acceleration of the highest-energy cosmic rays and their interaction with the earth atmosphere, knowledge of their nucleus type is the key. The AugerPrime upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory, including the now matured radio detection, will considerably improve determining the particle type. There is a need for a next generation very large ultra-high- energy cosmic ray observatory, for which among others the European-led multi-site ground-based detectors GRAND and GCOS and the space-based POEMMA fluorescence telescope have been proposed, which still require significant R&D and will be constructed earliest in the 2030ies. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC encourages continued R&D on new cost-effective detector technologies for a next-generation observatory.

XLZD and ARGO – the future of WIMP Dark Matter search
The nature of Dark Matter (DM) is one of the most important questions of contemporary physics. The current generation Xe direct Dark Matter detection experiments came online in 2020-2022, with active target masses of 4-7 tonnes. The next stage is to build and operate the DARWIN observatory at the 50-ton scale by the end of this decade. DARWIN might eventually be realised via the XLZD consortium formed by the XENON, LZ and DARWIN collaborations in 2021. The Ar detector community has joined in the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration to build DarkSide-20k, planned to start operation in 2025, with 50 tonnes of active target. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC strongly supports the European leadership role in Dark Matter direct detection with the aim of realising at least one next generation xenon (order 50 tons) and one argon (order 300 tons) detector, respectively, of which at least one should be situated in Europe.

LEGEND – the next large-scale experiment to study neutrino properties
Current neutrino oscillation experiments demonstrate neutrinos to have very special properties. Some of the key properties are not known yet. These include, above all, the very small neutrino mass values and whether the neutrino is its own antiparticle (Dirac/Majorana). These two questions can be investigated by studying the (double) beta decay of selected isotopes. The search for the neutrinoless double beta decay will primarily test the particle character of neutrinos, since this Beyond the Standard Model and lepton number-violating process is only possible if the neutrinos are Majorana-type. The ongoing and planned experiment with strong European participation LEGEND (76Ge) is among the most competitive. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC strongly supports those double-beta decay experiments that are selected as part of the ongoing US-European strategy process.

4. Connection to society
In addition to scientific advances in astroparticle physics and in fundamental research in general, which often change our perspectives, society as a whole is changing. This has led to profound changes in the way our research field functions socially and the contribution it should and must make to society. In particular, this is also reflected in a greater emphasis on the connection to society of large research infrastructures:

• Environmental Impact

Current experiments have to mitigate adverse ecological effects as much as possible, whereas future experiments should enshrine minimising ecological impact in the design from the start. The research field has a large negative impact on ecology from travel. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has taught us better how to minimise travel and optimise remote meeting tools. Detector R&D can lead to establishing techniques and ideas that can be applied in society to mitigate or avoid negative ecological impact. APPEC Recommendations: APPEC encourages experiments to assess their ecological impact and report their findings publicly and to mitigate adverse ecological impact as much as possible. APPEC encourages the monitoring of environmental parameters where possible and to apply R&D results to mitigate ecological impact in general.

• Digitalization and Computing

Several of the future large observatories dedicated to multi-messenger studies of our Universe will require massive computing resources for data simulation, template matching and data storage and analysis. In parallel, awareness is growing that much can be gained by the sharing of the large data sets, Machine Learning and AI algorithms, and best practices between experiments and communities. The use of computing resources also adds to a negative ecological impact and better data management and more efficient software can help to mitigate this in part. Training in data intensive science for the next generation of astronomers and physicists is crucial for the success of current and future large projects, where training in data science also provides opportunities outside of academia. Data policies also touch on Open Science and Citizen Science. APPEC Recommendation: APPEC requests all relevant experiments to continue to have their computing requirements scrutinised. Appropriate training in data science should be provided for astroparticle physicists.

• Societal Impact

Astroparticle physics and astroparticle physicists have had and are having a positive impact on society in many ways. Many technical and methodological developments initiated by our research have been beneficial for other research areas and industrial applications, and the training of scientists, from bachelor's and master's students to PhD students and postdocs, is essential for the science- and technology-based foundations of our society and economy. The fascination of our field evokes a special commitment in our young scientists, which translates into outstanding skills and abilities. Moreover, the science we do is of great interest to the public, including schoolchildren and teachers, as it encompasses fascinating concepts such as dark matter, neutron stars, black holes, or neutrinos. APPEC Recommendations: APPEC encourages experiments to continue to seek applications for their work which will benefit wider society.

 

ARIE - Analytical Research Infrastructures in Europe

 

Please see the ARIE Position Paper for detailed feedback from the Consortium. 

ARIE – Analytical Research Infrastructures in Europe is a consortium of seven Research Infrastructure (RI) consortia: RADIATE (ion beams), Laserlab Europe (lasers), Inspire (proton beam therapy), EMFL (high magnetic fields), e-DREAM (electron microscopes), LEAPS (photon sources), LENS (neutron sources)

ARIE RI range from distributed collections of individual scientific instruments located in universities and institutes (e.g. electron microscopes) to large single-site international research facilities (e.g. the ESRF synchrotron). In total ARIE represents over 100 different RI that support the work of more than 40,000 researchers from academia and industry across a range of domains: the physical sciences, energy, engineering, the environment and the earth sciences, as well as medicine, health, food and cultural heritage. They are a core part of the European Research Area.

Priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem

• ARIE responds to Europe’s commitment to jobs, sustainable growth and improving the living and working conditions across Europe. ARIE is a multidisciplinary network of RI, which are able to respond to the evolving needs and global challenges. Increased research capacities bring opportunities to develop new innovative avenues, enriching the workplace and attracting more talent. 
• National and European priorities continue to shape the activities of RIs. RIs remain a cornerstone of research strategies and therefore participation in policy strategy negotiations at both levels remains a priority. Priorities across domains are also vital to take into account.
• Maintaining and upgrading the unique cutting-edge scientific facilities keeps Europe at the forefront of research, sustaining the capacity of RIs to respond to increasing demands for their use and to keep pace with technical progress and more complex scientific questions.
• Data availability, storing, analysis and sharing are developed as far as possible to enable RIs to address complex questions requiring multiple sources of information and various instruments. 
• Working towards efficiency and effectiveness goals remains complex, considering that breakthroughs and innovation across disciplines can be unpredictable. Scientific applications of knowledge remain a priority, along with other important actions in terms of training, outreach and adding societal value through the knowledge and innovation chain which encompasses a full spectrum of socio-economic aspects in their complexity and provides a better understanding of the value of RI in and to society.
• A commitment to scientific excellence remains a priority. 

How RIs could contribute to finding solutions to the crises:

i. RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy?

The Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIEs) provide unique windows into the workings of the world around us. 

- RIs could take advantage of synergies to further develop unique research opportunities. A mechanism to support the development of synergies would be long-term funding to sustain IR network activities.

ARIEs include powerful photon sources, such as synchrotron storage rings, laser systems and free-electron lasers; sources of neutrons, ions and other particle beams; and facilities dedicated to advanced electron-microscopy and high magnetic fields. 

In 2020, the varied and complementary analytical techniques of ARIEs, coupled with the strong scientific networks established in Europe, made it possible to coordinate efforts to combat the unexpected challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

ARIE’s capacity ranges from investigations at near atomic level (required for understanding the molecular mechanisms of infection and the structure-based design of antimicrobial and antiviral therapeutics) to developments in detection, treatment and prevention.

- RI achievements include the provision of a range of capacities. This creates opportunities to find multiple solutions to complex problems for different stages of intervention.

ARIE responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by quickly overcoming the challenges of operation under social-distancing measures while making themselves available to those researchers seeking to study the novel virus and its effects. Dedicated rapid-access programs for COVID-19 research were immediately initiated by several of the ARIEs (e.g., see here). These have allowed scientists to develop innovative methodologies for pathogen detection and therapy, and to better understand the effect of COVID-19 on lung tissues. Meanwhile, the protein-production capabilities at the ARIEs have directly supported blood-serum and structural studies, providing key insights into virus-host interactions.

- RIs are capable of reacting in a flexible way to enable a rapid response and dissemination of results that further scientific understanding.

The HE-funded project ReMade@ARI will have a significant impact on the advancement of the circular economy. Overall, 40 partners of the ARIE network are involved in the project. The linear manufacturing pattern offers few incentives to make products more sustainable. This research infrastructure project, which deals with innovative materials for key components in various areas such as electronics, packaging or textiles, wants to change this: The goal is to develop new materials with high recyclability and at the same time competitive functionalities. The ReMade@ARI platform will be the central hub for all sectors and research areas in which new materials for a circular economy will be developed.

- RIs have the potential to recreate practices to bring about lasting change 

ii. HE Missions

Please see the ARIE Position Paper for further details on the HE Missions.

iii. How RIs could contribute to Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

Experiments at the ARIEs are leading the development of novel materials and processes, including sustainable and recyclable materials and are already serving a huge spectrum of societal needs. Introducing a new level of collaboration enables the ARIEs to provide an even more collective and complementary approach. An integrated approach towards the green transition is essential with ARIEs playing a crucial role with their unique analytical capabilities.  

Data mining approaches are some of the key ingredients in making data, information and knowledge from ARIE RIs more readily accessible to the scientific community and industry. 

- RIs could improve data reuse and accessibility

A close collaboration between different RI communities is ongoing in this area for the photon and neutron facilities in the strategic context of EOSC. The main objective of efforts towards data accessibility is to make FAIR data a reality in Europe by supporting the adoption of FAIR data policies, FAIR data (through standardized metadata and ontologies), data services (Jupyter notebooks and remote analysis), simulation and training. 

- RIs could ensure the uptake of EOSC to the best of their ability (harmonisation options are however limited and not possible across all facilities) and to support the FAIR data policy as far as it is possible. 

ASTRONET

 

The Astronomy community in Europe includes a wide range of sub-disciplines focussed on understanding the Universe, its evolution and our place within it.  By necessity, discoveries rely on access to the latest capabilities, from ground- and space-based infrastructures to  high performance computing, laboratory geophysics and analytical networks.  Whilst many of these are located within Europe, the most powerful telescopes are often in remote locations, where skies are both dark and quiet. The scale of many facilities dictates a multinational and increasingly global cooperative approach to enable creation and operation. Alongside this, there is a continued need to work with colleagues in related disciplines (Astroparticle Physics, Earth and Environmental sciences, Particle and Nuclear Physics) to ensure all aspects of the highest priority questions in astrophysics are addressed and the widest application of results and the technology required to deliver them. Listed here is the status of research infrastructures relevant to astronomy that are already listed in the ESFRI Roadmap or candidates for the Roadmap in the near future.

1.    ASTRONET
ASTRONET is a group of European funding agencies, community representatives and infrastructures working together as a forum for coordination for all aspects of European Astronomy.
Formed in the early 2000s with EU support, it was responsible for the first European Science Vision and Infrastructure Roadmaps (2007/08) and their revisions (2013/14).  It currently includes representatives from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).  The European Astronomical Society (EAS), European Space Agency (ESA) and Square Kilometer Array (SKAO) are Observers, and it has strong connections to the Astroparticle Physics European Consortium (APPEC), the Opticon Radionet Pilot (ORP), the AHEAD2020 Project and the Europlanet Society.
Since 2016, at the EU’s request, ASTRONET has been self-funded and in the last three years it has focussed upon delivering a new Science Vision and Infrastructure Roadmap for Europe (ASTRONET, 2023) which sets out the status of the science, identifies the key science challenges alongside the infrastructures available and required to enable progress over the next decade.
In constructing its report, ASTRONET utilised inputs from a wide range of European scientists and experts and organised its priorities across: computing and data management, new ground-based facilities, new instruments and upgrades, new space-based facilities, laboratory astrophysics, technology developments for future capabilities, sustainability, accessibility, skills and public engagement.
The report references and engages with a number of other influential strategies and roadmaps, including ESFRI but particularly those created in the last couple of years by ESA (Voyage 2050, Terrae Novae), APPEC and by the US (Decadal Survey).  This reflects the necessity to access the widest range of facilities to progress the science (for example, much of which cannot be undertaken or undertaken effectively from terrestrial capabilities), the clear overlaps in science (for example in gravitational wave and gamma ray astronomy, cosmology and dark energy) with other disciplines and the need to cooperate as broadly as possible to allow the most challenging (and expensive) facilities to be realised.  The SKA is a good example of this where European national investments are complimented by those from a range of major astronomy nations ( South Africa, Australia, China, India, Canada etc.).
Whilst inclusion within the ESFRI Roadmap in undoubtedly an advantage for many facilities, Astronomy also requires a range of intermediary-scale capabilities to provide test beds, vital follow-up and broad community access (where access the largest capabilities is focussed upon those who have contributed to their construction or operation) and training. Laboratory facilities for geophysics (including planetary and inter-planetary material analysis, atomic physics and computing) and high performance and high throughput computing are also essential.

2.    Ongoing ESFRI projects
The 2021 ESFRI Roadmap lists within Physical Sciences the European Solar Telescope (EST), the Einstein Telescope (ET), KM3 Neutrino Telescope 2.0 (KM3NeT 2.0) and EuPRAXIA (plasma research – not considered further here). However, Astronomy also has links to EISCAT_3D with respect to solar terrestrial physics and existing projects: Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO). Most of these were entered in 2006 or 2008 editions, highlighting the very long lead times for these large infrastructures to move from concepts to construction projects. Some are still in the development stage.  Of the existing projects the following are the highest current priorities, supported by ASTRONET are:

• ELT - The ELT is under construction by ESO in Chile with an expected technical ‘first light’ in 2028.  This 1.2bn euro project is funded by the ESO Member States and will deliver the world’s largest ground-based telescope operating in the optical and infrared wavelengths. ESO’s headquarters is in Germany. Most of the construction is led by European commercial contractors, together with significant academic leadership in the design and delivery of its scientific instruments. The ELT remains one of the highest priorities in European (ASTRONET) and national strategies for Astronomy and will be delivering world-leading science into at least the 2050s. ELT science will benefit considerably from support and integration with facilities focussing on other wavelengths (radio, x-ray, gamma ray etc.) and in space ( JWST, Euclid etc.)
• SKAO - The SKAO will deliver the worlds’ largest radioastronomy arrays cited in South Africa and Australia later this decade, with a headquarters at Jodrell Bank in the UK. This new intergovernmental organisation has a global partnership which is still growing and includes significant financial and in-kind contributions from partners both within and outside Europe. Like the ELT, construction relies on a mix of commercial contractors and academic groups to deliver the mix of antennae and the computing capability. The total cost of the facility is currently around 2bn euros, funded by its Member States. The science from the SKA will benefit considerably from integration with other wavelengths (optical, IR, x-ray etc.) and other radio capabilities (for example the European VLBI network and LOFAR).
• CTA - The Cherenkov Telescope Array is commencing construction in the Canary Islands and Chile and is expected to start operation in the next few years. It will observe gamma-rays with energies from a few 10s of GeV to a few 100 TeV for the exploration of the extreme Universe. The project expects to operate as an ERIC and has the support of a broad European partnership but includes some non-European interests. The CTA is expected to open up new pathways in gamma ray science, with strong links to the programmes of both Astronomy and Astroparticle Physics.
• EST -  The European Solar Telescope is expected to become a world-leading solar physics capability, sited in the Canary Islands. Most of the development work to realise this 4m diameter, adaptive optics controlled, telescope has been completed, in part supported by EC funds.  The partnership has recently formed a Canarian Foundation to progress towards an expected ERIC status for the construction phase. Its capabilities will complement those of the US-led DKIST facility in Hawaii and current and proposed space-missions targeting solar physics (Solar Orbiter, Solar-C etc.).
• Km3Net 2.0 - The KM3NeT facility will hugely advance our understanding of neutrino physics and is currently in the run up to commencing operations once construction is complete. This  large-volume telescope optimised for high-energy neutrino astronomy ARCA, and the dedicated detector to resolve the neutrino mass hierarchy ORCA has broad community support and is an example of a common interest between Astroparticle Physics and Astronomy.
• Einstein Telescope (ET) - The confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves and their sustained detection by facilities such as LIGO, VIRGO and KAGRA has opened up this new field of physics around understanding high energy events.  Linked to this is the need for a multi-messenger approach, to combine information from a range of facilities to fully understand the physics behind observed events. The ET and the LISA mission in space will be the next generation of infrastructures vital for progress.  Development and building partnerships is underway, but unlikely to see operation until the 2030s.  Gravitational Wave science is a further example of a cross-over area with Astroparticle Physics and potentially Particle and Nuclear Physics.

3.    Future ESFRI proposals
ASTRONET also identifies a number of future opportunities across the science.  Many of these are aligned to future priorities in space (both science, such as the study of dark energy via Euclid, and exploration such as the proposed missions to the Moon and Mars) and will require significant investment by European partners to secure leadership in missions led by ESA or in partnership with NASA, JAXA and other international space agencies. There is a long and successful European heritage here, and huge future potential across all areas of Astronomy, to include commercial return, computing and technology, training and outreach. 

For ESFRI, at the largest scale, and alongside the facilities currently preparing for construction (CTA, EST) ASTRONET highlights the development of a general purpose, wide-field, high multiplex, spectroscopic facility for a telescope of 8-10 metre class.  One vision for this is the MSE (MaunaKea Spectroscopic Explorer), though at this time other concepts are being explored. This capability will help capitalise investments in JWST and Euclid in space but also the ELT and US-led, Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) ground-based facilities.
There will be upgrades and additional capabilities require for the present and upcoming large facilities including ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in which ESO is the European partner), the ELT instruments (such as PCS), SKA Phase-2 etc. but it is less likely that these will expect to feature within the next ESFRI Roadmap.

A more likely candidate for ESFRI would be the next development to  explore the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Current projects with significant European involvement  (such as the Simons Observatory in Chile) are seen to be the precursors to the next big facility: CMB-4  to explore large-scale polarisation in parallel with space-based approaches (such as LiteBIRD, led by Japan but with ESA engagement). This area is another cross-over with Astroparticle Physics and would be supported as a priority by ASTRONET.

4.    Other Aspects

Computing
Astronomy is a data-intensive endeavour and increasingly so with every new facility (see SKA for example).  The 2008 ASTRONET Roadmap highlighted gaps in the provision of necessary infrastructure to process, manage and make available the vast amounts of data generated by the current and proposed suite of facilities alongside the development of theory and laboratory experiments. ASTRONET emphasises the need for computing to be included within mission and facility planning, a tiered approach to Data infrastructures and a collaborative, open and synergistic view of the Astronomy-computing ecosystem  - as has been explored by the recent ESCAPE network.

Sustainability and Accessibility
A strong priority of European Astronomy should be to include sustainability, ethics, equality and diversity as part of any decision-making process. This may well include environmental footprint assessments and reduction plans for construction, management of facilities (travel, power, computing etc.) towards carbon-neutrality. This needs to be accompanied by greater efforts in related education. Diversity and inclusion need to be at the heart of funding strategies and plans. ASTRONET also highlights the key need for the European community to work with national and international regulatory bodies and with industry to ensure the protection of the dark and radio-quiet skies essential for the science and the benefit of the wider public.

Training and Public Engagement
Science relies on access to highly skilled and motivated workforce as to a large extent does the perceived national benefits of investing in large national and international infrastructures. Astronomy is no different here and ASTRONET strongly endorses efforts to further develop training programmes, in close cooperation with industry, the exploration of ways to enhance career pathways and promoting astrophysics within national education curricula. Astronomy has a huge role to play in fostering the wider community’s excitement and engagement in the wonder of science and public engagement needs to be given sufficient support to enable this within infrastructure plans.

CESAER

CESAER - the strong and united voice of universities of Science & Technology (S&T) in Europe - welcome the invitation to provide input to the ESFRI Landscape Analysis to set the framework for the next ESFRI Roadmap and to contribute to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).

Background and publications

Universities of S&T and their researchers, staff and students are at the forefront of the scientific case of infrastructures: as users, frontier (lead) scientists, designers, reviewers, advisors, managers and governors. Universities of S&T have a central role in educating, training and delivering key scientific, managerial, operational and support staff for all kinds of facilities. Our association has therefore been deeply involved in the European landscape, including exemplified by the publications listed below and through our Envoy to ESFRI Stakeholders Forum, Sally Chambers.

Similarly, universities of S&T are at the forefront of delivering the science, technology and talent that underpins the EOSC, and our association has taken a leading role including by joining EOSC Association as a founding member and our EOSC Envoy Karel Luyben was elected for second term as President of EOSC Association in November 2022.

Below is a list of key publications from our association in the last few years related to the broader landscape around infrastructures and EOSC, and this input note is developed to complement these publications.

• Input (2023) - Strengthening the EU framework programmes for research and innovation
• Position (2022) - Scientific & technological infrastructures to help tackle local and global challenges
• Position (2022) - Boost synergies in research and innovation funding
• Position (2022) - Contributions of Universities of Science & Technology to
• implementing the European Research Area
• Position (2022) - Boosting disruptive innovation by fostering new mindsets and co-creating innovation
• Statement (2022) - Scientific knowledge must be protected to ensure a Europe fit for the digital age
• Position (2022) - Guiding principles for the Global Framework for S&T Cooperation
• Position (2020) - Lead for research, education and innovation in recovery and to build resilience
• White paper (2019) - Universities of S&T as Engines of Excellence, Talent and Innovation - Roles in Research and Innovation Infrastructures
• Statement (2018) - Innovation infrastructures

Introduction

As the strong and united voice of universities of S&T in Europe, our association has consistently advocated for S&T infrastructures which cover the entire missions of universities of S&T and the knowledge triangle - i.e. research, education and innovation. We are dedicated to help strengthen the sustainability, accessibility and resilience of such infrastructures in the European Research Area, as well as helping to boost their impact in tackling local and global challenges.

As such, we underline the need for a comprehensive and inclusive approach to infrastructures in Europe and to embrace an inclusive understanding of science & technology infrastructures. Such vital facilities should play a key role in helping to boost the transition to open science, for example by advancing modes for access for S&T infrastructures, optimising models and covering integral costs, and thereby creating more impact at all levels, as outlined in our position.

Below we provide considerations and input related to the prompt questions provided in the invitation letter dated 17 February 2023.

What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?

In addition to the broader priorities elaborated in the list of publications above, we here provide additional dedicated feedback on the ESFRI science clusters. Firstly, we consider it important to strengthen awareness-raising of the five thematic ESFRI Science Clusters1 (EOSC-LIFE in the biological and medical sciences; ENVRI-FAIR for the environmental sciences; ESCAPE astronomy and particle physics; SSHOC for the social sciences and humanities and PANOSC for the photon and neutron sciences) which carry out a vital role in bringing together over 70 world-class RIs from the ESFRI Roadmap and beyond. This work is currently not sufficiently known or recognised by the wider community, even amongst researchers and university staff, which could be detrimental to long-term collaboration between RIs on cross-disciplinary open science - especially as most RIs on the ESFRI roadmap are at the cutting-edge of open science practices.

Secondly, while the Science Cluster coordinators meet regularly to discuss joint activities and exchange views on technological choices, service provision and sustainability, we see a need for increased collaboration between RIs within and between the Science Clusters (for example to discuss possible collaboration once the projects end). Again, this would be beneficial for longer-term cross-disciplinary collaboration between RIs on important issues around open access to data.

Thirdly, we would advocate for the inclusion of new RIs on the ESFRI Roadmap within the Science Clusters, for example in the Social Sciences and Humanities there are a number of promising RIs (OPERAS, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, to name but two) which bring real added-value to the SSH Open Cluster. Finally, it will be important to ensure that the Science Clusters are supported with appropriate and consistent funds so that they can reach full maturity in due time.

What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

Building on our response to the previous question, we consider that the development of Cluster-level Services and FAIR Data Source portfolios are vital for RIs to work properly together as part of a coherent landscape in Europe, and if they are to achieve impact.

Secondly, it is also crucial to support continued onboarding and integration of RI services (as service providers) into the EOSC, as we currently see a varied uptake of EOSC services across the thematic Science Clusters. One example of a shared resource within EOSC is the SSH Open Marketplace, in which researchers in the social sciences and humanities can find new resources including tools, training materials and datasets.
Thirdly, we urge the further development of composable FAIR Data and Analysis Services between RIs and to fully engage researchers in this effort in order to encourage uptake and solicit concrete feedback. Most research infrastructures produce data, and given the massive growth of data in recent years, we need to see a coherent and ambitious strategy that addresses infrastructure capacity as well as their associated services and, more widely, a rethinking of the place of research data.

How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:

1. Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy;
2. Horizon Europe Missions
3. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

In finding solutions to current crises and anticipating future ones, it is clearly important to learn from existing/recent crisis situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Research infrastructures can effectively support crisis management work in a targeted way, as has been done in federating relevant data and materials following the fire in Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019 or in saving and digitising Ukrainian cultural heritage online through the SUCHO project.
 
In contributing to the EU missions, it is important to raise awareness of the missions - currently there is not a widespread understanding amongst the research community or the general public about what the missions are doing - and understand how each RI can contribute. If a primary objective of the missions is to act as a communication tool between specialist research communities and non-specialist communities, then we need to reinforce this perspective.

In finding solutions to help drive the green and digital transitions, it is important to advance RI policies and research themes that support these twin transitions and to define clearly what RIs can do operationally to help drive the changes we need to see. Training and educational materials in order to achieve this should, equally, be at the heart of each RIs’ mission.

EASSH - European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities

Introduction
The European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities (EASSH) is the largest umbrella organisation for research institutions and European-wide disciplinary associations. The alliance functions as a forum for the interface of researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and the national and European science policy institutions.

Today EASSH has over 70 members across Europe, and it is represented in key policy roundtable, as stakeholders, like EOSC, ESFRI, and ERA Forum. We have also signed emerging initiatives like the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and believe in how the research ecosystems today have been profoundly changed by the impact of technology and better practice of evidence-based policies.

EASSH is also engaged in large global platforms (e.g. the TransAtlantic Social and Behavioural Sciences) to encourage and disseminate more innovative practices for research and innovation in SSH.

We welcome the invitation to provide our feedback on the ESFRI Landscape Analysis about the functioning of the current ecosystem of Research Infrastructures (RIs) and its future development.

EASSH Priorities.
Include RI within the R&I ecosystems: the value of federated and interoperable data collections

1. Position RIs within the R&I ecosystem.

A particular challenge is to better position RIs as an integral and essential component of the wider Research and Innovation (R&I) ecosystem. Such alignment is required both thematically – within specific scientific domains such as SSH – as well as at the level of optimising national and European R&I priorities. Within the emergence of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in the R&I ecosystem, this positioning becomes even more urgent as the Member States and Associated Countries must also report on their EOSC contribution (the EOSC partnership assumes that the 500 M EC budget will be matched by the countries). The current R&I landscape is currently rather fragmented and incoherent across the different countries. At the same time, although research infrastructures tend to feature in many national strategies, their focus is not always aligned with European aims and purpose. It will also have a considerable relevance if research infrastructures could be part of national research assessment or evaluation of the research ecosystem, where such evaluations are implemented, as well as recipents of national research funding being strongly encouraged to make use of the RI offer. Such a change could offer to national institutions an incentive to engage and contribute to the activity and use of the research infrastructures.

2. Integrating local and regional datasets into the European RI landscape.

Whether federated or more integrated, the RIs operating in the SSH space can provide valuable support and expertise to ensuring that data held at single locations, or at nodes in a wider network are collected according to similar methodologies to improve data interoperability. The RIs are a significant resource for the research community, however, their contribution will become more significant as data is more readily networked by improved consistency in data collection and data quality.

Particularly in SSH disciplines, research happens in a far more distributed manner and data are often collected locally and regionally, even more than nationally. In order to improve European-level research infrastructures, it may be useful to encourage the uptake of standard parameters for the collection of SSH-specific data or the access of social data, heritage and similar SSH related records so that eventually single nodes, not currently integrated within the RI ecosystem could share access and become interoperable, even when a national node is missing. Of course, there is a fundamental hurdle which is how to finance such hubs if they lack large national investment and only funded by foundations, charities or local governments. A separate analysis of existing datasets with such characteristics could indicate how pressing this issue may be in the near future. The aim will be to make timely provisions to support the emergence of scattered, local and different funded infrastructures.

The distributed or networked infrastructures which could be created out of the Europe wide collection of smaller facilities can easily become ‘greater than the sum of the parts’ for researchers if brought together under the coordination of an RI. For example, the number and spread of ‘behavioral labs’ (rather than living labs) which exist across Europe, if coordinated under an RI, could provide a significant resource to European Social and Behavioural Sciences. In particular, in research design innovation, research subject availability,research subject diversity, and ethics standards are all critical in appropriate subject sampling and at present these and other resources remain fragmented. Structural support of such ‘core facilities (1)’ could provide a significant boost to their sustainability.

3. The EOSC platform and Cultural Heritage Cloud born within the cluster 2

Over at least the next 5 years, Horizon Europe will fund a new Cultural Heritage Cloud. The new digital infrastructure will provide access to data, artefacts, and other digital cultural heritage objects from museums, libraries, archives and other institutions across the Member States. Such digitised and born-digital cultural heritage is the primary research data of the humanities (2). Although the development of the technical infrastructure is important, it is crucial that better attention is given to the development of a coherent data strategy, in close collaboration with both the cultural heritage institutions and the research communities who will use the data.

Futhermore, from a management perspective, how this new Cultural Heritage (CH) Cloud will interrelate with existing RIs, particularly in the SSH, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and other related initiatives such as the common European data space for cultural heritage (3) is yet to be seen. It is crucial that for a rational allocation of funding, this emerging CH cloud is reconnected to the EOSC and in close dialogue with the Science Clusters (e.g. SSHOC) and the wider RI landscape.

Gaps & Needs.
R&I landscape and gap analysis: how to capture infrastructures at the EU level which are not designed through national nodes (eg behavioural labs)

1. Longer term investment
Lack of long-term financing. Instead of 5 or 10 years, one should plan 25 years – also for the smaller networked infrastructure nodes (not only the CERN, DESY, ESS-Lund ones). A characteristic of the ESFRI list is that ca. 80% are distributed RIs, which require a different approach than the single-site RIs.

2. Better resources for European research clusters
We recommend an increased effort towards sustaining research clusters related to specific scientific domains, such as SSH. This would both create greater critical mass and enable the aggregation and showcasing of data sources, tools and services relevant to a wider set of research fields in a coordinated platform, such as the SSH Open Marketplace (4) . Such research clusters could build further on the ESFRI Thematic Cluster projects (5) and also be connected with the ESFRI Strategy Working Groups (6), such as Social and Cultural Innovation. They would also support the domain-specific curation of resources for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). We anticipate that creating a critical mass through clustering will both help to prevent further fragmentation of distributed communities, such as SSH, foster interdisciplinary research both within and between clusters as well as creating greater sustainability through higher visibility.

3. Wide engagement of the research community and research users in RI (training, education, access...)
The RIs present a significant opportunity for SSH research across Europe. However, there are still signs that RIs are not yet sought out and used fully by researchers across the scientific community. One of the issues is interoperability as discussed in the previous answer, but still there remain issues of visibility, training and access. Where researchers are aware of the RI and relevance of resources held for their own work, many will need additional training and we would support investment in reaching out to researchers to prepare them to fully exploit the resources that RIs offer. The same applies to ‘access’. We have anecdotal evidence that not all researchers find the data easy to access through the RI. We need instruments that can empower umbrella organisations to disseminate best practice for researchers, and support the efforts that research infrastructures are doing in terms of training and education. Such efforts could build further on the training materials developed in the context of the SSH Open Marketplace (7) and DARIAH Campus (8).

SSH RI Contribution
How and why SSH RI contribute to all those mentioned below points.

1. A strong and viable RI ecosystem. EMBL/ELIXIR could respond quickly on Covid because they were already organised, had databases and people with expertise that could be (re)directed to the issue. Hence long-term investment in a sound and broad foundation of research is key when crises emerge which demand both flexibility and speed of response.
2. On Missions, one could connect to Data Spaces that should combine academic, governmental, administrative and company data. This would enable RIs to prepare better for crises, as well as better connect science with innovation and society at large. EASSH also believes that although it could be a useful exercise it may not be necessary to evaluate Landmarks and especially the ERICs – the latter will be evaluated by their members. Instead, put effort in making the connection with missions, collaboration (e.g. metadata alignment such as in the BY-COVID project). RIs have achieved much of the stage 1 ambitions. Now the challenge is to ensure they become front-line resources in research to contribute to the major research challenges prioritized in a programme like HEU.
3. Green and  are very big/abstract topics – everything is, or is becoming, digital and we must comply with Green regulations (e.g. on power use). In a way this should be 'by design' for the RIs. More importantly, if we refer to the previous point around federated and connected databases, it will be possible to understand impact of the twin transition in a more geographically focused way – local and regional - in addition to national and EU resources. Big cities and small communities are impacted differently and respond in a very different way to the transformation imported by the digital and especially green transitions. Locally held social data here offer key insights about how to adapt to the European diversity, especially on crucial areas as labour relations and labour markets, market behaviour and social standards. Policy could benefit greatly from a better understanding of a diverse European society with locally sourced data augmenting the larger national and pan-European datasets.

1. See for example: Core Facilities at Ghent University: https://www.ugent.be/en/research/research- ugent/corefacilities.htm
2. See for example: Toma Tasovac, Sally Chambers, Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra. Cultural Heritage Data from a Humanities Research Perspective: A DARIAH Position Paper. 2020. https://hal.science/hal-02961317 
3. https://pro.europeana.eu/page/data-space-deployment
4. https://marketplace.sshopencloud.eu
5. https://eosc-portal.eu/esfri-thematic-cluster-projects 
6. https://www.esfri.eu/working-groups
7. https://marketplace.sshopencloud.eu/search?categories=training-material 
8. https://campus.dariah.eu

EOSC Association

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a developing environment supporting the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability of research digital objects (research data, software and methods). The implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) began in 2015, with support by the European Commission, coordinating the progressive alignment of the European research community stakeholders. 

In June 2021, the Co-programmed Partnership for EOSC was established, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), between the European Union (EU) and the EOSC Association (EOSC-A), to establish a coordinated approach in investments and initiatives for the realisation of EOSC, under the current governance framework, formed by the EC and the EOSC Association, with the inclusion of the EU Member States (MS)/Associated Countries (AC), in the context of a Tripartite Collaboration. The EOSC-A and its members, 168 Member and 81 Observers (tbc), of which 21 are on the ESFRI Roadmap, commit to deliver 500MEur in activities that are additional to the European Commission instruments for the realisation of EOSC; and: to progress the Partnership towards the General, Specific and Operational Objectives (GOs, SOs, OOs) of the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation agenda (SRIA) . 

As acknowledged by the conclusions of the Council of the European Union on the Research Infrastructures (02/12/2022), the role of the RIs is critical and fundamental in contributing to the implementation of EOSC and open science policy, in producing, collecting, processing, storing and providing quality certified scientific data in accordance with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles, thus facilitating the use of such data across a broad range of disciplinary domains and internationally. 
The EIC further: i) recognises a key role of ESFRI and thematic RIs working together with EOSC core developers and operators to speed up the implementation of open science policy and the FAIR data management, and to promote interdisciplinary R&I in Europe; and: II) encourages Member States and the Commission to promote investment in education and training of scientific data curators; and: iii) calls on Member States to federate their regional and national data and e-infrastructures within EOSC.

The RI and EOSC domains are key priorities to develop the ERA Policy Agenda and implement the ERA Actions and EU Missions. The EOSC is recognised by the Council of the European Union among the 20 actions of the policy agenda 2022-2024 of the European Research Area (ERA) with the specific objective to deepen open science practices in Europe. It is also recognised as the "science, research and innovation data space" which will be fully articulated with the other sectoral data spaces defined in the European strategy for data”. Full deployment of the EOSC will lead to higher research productivity, new insights and innovations, as well as improved reproducibility and trust in science.

In order to support the achievement of the ERA policy actions, in a synergistic manner, the EOSC Association has established an ESFRI-RI Operational Working Group with the ESFRI RIs that are members of the Association. With the aim to ensure a comprehensive approach, the EOSC Association is also in a formal dialogue with the Science Clusters, to secure a broad reach of the actions undertaken, to the level of RI disciplinary communities.​

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?

In line with ERA Policy Action 1: “Enable Open Science, including through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)”, our priorities regard:
-  Joint actions for research and innovation in Europe; and 
-  Deepening a truly functioning internal market for knowledge

In particular, the EOSC-A objectives, aligned with the EOSC SRIA, and related to the relevant actions and priorities of the ERA, are:

• General Objective 1 (GO1) - Enable the definition of standards, and the development of tools and services to allow researchers to find, access, reuse and combine results

According to the EOSC Partnership monitoring Framework, this should result in (SO1) an increased number of relevant research objects that are made available, as openly as possible, by researchers performing publicly funded research, aiming at 70% of the share of research objects to be available in open access by 2025.
To realise this objective, the ESFRI RIs are expected to contribute with the design of adequate access policies, requesting that research objects obtained through the use of the ESFRI RIs are FAIR and openly accessible (as much as possible).

• GO2 - Ensure that Open Science practices and skills are rewarded and taught, becoming the “new normal”

According to the EOSC Partnership Monitoring Framework (OO8), this should result in the co-design and adoption of a rewards and recognition framework for FAIR and open data practices in research, aiming at  the recognition of open science activities in research career assessments (i.e.: FAIR and open data practices are linked to researchers’ online records, publications are linked to a researcher; open data practices and FAIR data practices are linked back to the researcher who can get credit for this).  At the same time, Open Science skills should be nurtured in European RIs, including through the adoption of curricula and training frameworks related to data stewardship. 
To realise this objective, the ESFRI RIs are expected to contribute with adequate career recognition policies that would enable: 
i) training and education in open science practices, e.g., open access to publications and research data management; ii) promotion or implementation of advanced degree programmes of new professional profiles in the area of data handling technologies; iii) development and training of data-intensive computational science experts; iv) data stewardship skills
 (SO2_02).

• GO3 - Establish a sustainable and federated infrastructure enabling open sharing of scientific results

According to the EOSC Partnership Monitoring Framework (SO5), this should result in:
i.    The adoption of the EOSC Interoperability Framework by major research infrastructures, enabling their data to be federated into EOSC. The aim is to have at least five major Research Infrastructures in Europe, enabling their data to be federated into EOSC. 
ii.    The realisation of a growing number of inter and cross-disciplinary case studies, on data sharing practices, using EOSC services, with the aim to demonstrate the engagement of diverse research communities in cross-disciplinary data sharing using services onboarded into EOSC, in a minimum of five case, by 2025.
iii.    The indexing of relevant data and services from all major fields of science and technology (Frascati Nomenclature-Level 1) is available through EOSC.

To contribute to this objective, the ESFRI RIs should develop standards for metadata interoperability, standard for personal/sensitive data interoperability, build federated big-data storage capacity, metadata and data standards across techniques and disciplines, and overcome issues of data transfer across borders (data sovereignty challenge not yet solved).
The provision of case studies demonstrating the engagement of diverse research communities in cross-disciplinary data sharing using services onboarded into EOSC would be a targeted contribution,​

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

EOSC aims to make digital scientific resources available across disciplines by including all major research communities. The main six ‘fields of science and technology’ are, according to ‘level one’ of the Frascati Nomenclature Manual :

• Natural Sciences; 
• Engineering and Technology; 
• Medical and Health Sciences; 
• Agricultural Sciences; 
• Social Sciences; 
• Arts and Humanities.

Considering the ESFRI RIs as proxies for the reference fields of science and technology and related communities, the EOSC partnership MF baseline survey 2022 shows that all fields are represented, with the exception of Agriculture Sciences; Natural Sciences (40%) and Medical and Health Sciences (30%) are the most represented. 

• It would be useful to stimulate a more varied representation of the ESFRI RIs claiming to make digital scientific resources available, across disciplines.
• It would be useful that all RIs were familiarised to the activities of the EOSC Association and could contribute to co-design policies for the uptake of open science practices and the use and provision of resources to EOSC. An early engagement into the practices stimulated through the EOSC partnership would facilitate the uptake of RIs’ services and research objects into the EOSC Data Space.
• National contributions to the sustainability of the RIs will be required to ensure that anything developed will remain available for the foreseeable future; this may be a pre-requisite for onboarding any service or product to EOSC.
• Education and training of the next generation of RI managers will be essential, to ensure the upskilling of the workforce, also in research management and FAIR data management. 

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:
 

i. Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy
ii. HEU Missions
iii. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

The ESFRI RIs are key actors in the implementation of the elements underpinning the realisation of the EOSC, such as: the adoption of FAIR principles to research data/artefacts/software either generated or utilised in their operations; the realisation of the infrastructure that would support the EOSC operations; the definition of interoperability frameworks for data sharing, and: the upskilling of a qualified workforce in data stewardships practices. The ESFRI RIs are also valued indicators of the level of involvement that scientific disciplines undertake in the EOSC implementation and their uptake of FAIR principles. 

ERIC Forum

 

25 European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs) have been set up officially by the EC. As key pillars of the European Research Area (ERA) they are providing their services to researchers across all scientific domains as well as operational users and industry. ERICs are financed by their member states for their basic implementation and upgrades, operation and service provision. ERIC Forum represents a very diverse community: some ERICs provide physical access to facilities while others rely largely if not exclusively on virtual access. Similarly, in contrast to others, some ERICs provide all data in Open Access, cannot deliver any direct service to industry, or may have to sustain operational monitoring duties. ERICs may therefore have different expectations and requirements regarding their position and role in the European ecosystem of RIs.

Since 2017, ERIC Forum has ensured the coordination of activities of joint interest for the ERICs with the aim of strengthening coordination across ERICs, advancing ERICs’ implementation and operation, collectively tackling common challenges, and sharing best practices and knowledge to support both established ERICs and ERICs-to-be. The ERIC Forum has also effectively interacted with the EC and other key stakeholders of the ERA (including ESFRI, EOSC-Association, ERA Forum, and others) and strategically contributed to the development of related policies, making it one of the leading science policy voices in Europe. On March 15th ERIC Forum was informed by the EC that the ‘ERIC Forum 2.0 Project’ proposal has been accepted, which enables the Forum to work on important topics for ERICs, including for example their implementation and ensuring synergies and compatibility with European political priorities. Many topics raised in your questions will be addressed extensively by the upcoming project and we are interested in an on-going exchange and cooperation on these.

For ERIC Forum’s contribution to the ESFRI Landscape Analysis we send you this document which is based on two recent and relevant EF position papers. From these two papers we highlight here strategic considerations to the ESFRI specific questions.

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?
ERIC Forum wishes to strategically contribute to the development of the European R&I arena. We recognize ERICs to be long-lasting Research Infrastructures in the ERA, providing cutting edge service and thereby enabling excellent research, while having a strong user base. In view of this ERIC Forum expresses its interest also to co-design the policy aspects of the research and innovation developments in Europe. ERIC Forum continues to strengthen the operations of ERICs via the clusters and would like to approach in a proactive way cross- cluster collaboration, especially to be able to address the key societal challenges. In the long- term ERIC Forum wishes to have strategic links also to key science-policy actors beyond Europe, in order to support the international activities of ERICs in an overarching way.

ERIC’s contribution to Open Science
ERICs are key enablers of Open Science and their quality-managed services facilitate FAIR research data and outputs. From their outset, ERICs are deploying Open Science principles and are best practice examples. Therefore, ERICs and their users are key stakeholders for the EOSC, as infrastructure providers, developers, and users, populating EOSC with research data, software tools and workflows. ERICs are digitising their data life cycles through standardisation, automation of instrumentation and operational procedures, employing and training of FAIR data stewards, provision of open access data repositories, and more. ERIC Forum recommends further supportig and scaling collaborations between RIs and their users on the one hand, and EOSC as well as the European ‘Data Spaces’ on the other. This can take place by further interlinkage between existing data resources of the different ERICs as well as resources that are developed in different projects in which ERICs take part (e.g. science cluster projects and sustainability of their outcome), and more support for data mobilisation and digitalisation of ERICs. Support for FAIR data stewards as a young profession also is key. FAIR data stewards are helping RI users to acquire and make openly accessible their FAIR research data. The increasing demand exceeds the available expertise, and built-up of education, training and other career support mechanisms is crucial.

The role of clusters in integrating resources
Scientific clusters of ERICs are formed within ERIC Forum. This is a good way forward. The drawback of this activity is the fact, that European priorities require multidisciplinary approaches (e.g., combining SSH with ENVI and HEALTH for solutions around the Green Deal). Beyond clustering, integration of ERICs (and other RIs) among themselves given the variety and specificity of missions, expertise and resources, is difficult. Yet, given the complementarity of some ERICs for addressing, for instance, specific societal challenges, there is room for improvement at the level of collaboration frameworks and, hence, the governance of the system.

Eligibility for national funding is crucial for ERICs’ long-term sustainability
Both single/multisite ERICs and distributed ERICs were built by combining national, European, and cohesion policy resources. They are an example and a flagship case of combining resources for the preparation and construction of research infrastructures in Europe. ERICs’ operations are supported from contributions of their Members, Observers and partners. In addition to this, project financing is to be applied for specific purposes. This is possible only by combining resources from different providers. The eligibility for national funding is crucial for the sustainability of ERICs - for both, the Nodes and the Hubs. By combining national resources into a pan-European RI, ERICs increase the value of national investments. There are several examples of impacts reported by ERICs in terms of national and regional benefits (e.g. increased visibility, more participation in European projects, etc.). Allowing ERICs to participate as direct beneficiaries in national projects can increase its interaction with national RIs, and therefore the benefits for the members states.
The distributed ERICs hubs/central units are connected to tenths of national nodes many times constituted by even more national research infrastructures and labs. The central hub is usually supported from Members ́ contributions and some European projects, the nodes by a combination of resources specific for the state they operate in. This makes an integrated management rather difficult for the ERIC. Therefore, more needs to be done to raise visibility of ERICs on the national administrative level, i.e. beyond the ministry in charge of ERIC, but also at other ministries and with authorities on regional and local level. More visibility and connection could be also achieved nationally on connecting different ERIC's Nodes and thereby reaching across clusters on the national level. Improved reach out and visibility among research institutions, researchers, and users will also be crucial to generate both better efficacy, impact, and return on investment from the ERICs. National and European Roadmaps need to be more aligned and the implementation of Roadmaps in National and European funding needs to be ensured.

Identifying and launching future RIs
Having more ERICs (and other European research infrastructure projects) underway, for the future there needs to be a check whether the scope of ERICs to be created could not be integrated in existing ERICs. As this is a very central question for many ERICs as well as their member states, ERIC Forum is suggesting being more formally included in this specific question of the landscape analysis by ESFRI. In addition, ERIC Forum offers to provide relevant contacts and information e.g. via its future public online platform which will provide detailed information on existing ERICs.

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?
ERICs are key facilitators of excellent science by providing a vast variety of cutting-edge services to the European research community, strengthening and contributing to the international positioning of Europe’s research and innovation capacity and the potential of having a strong socio-economic impact. Furthermore, the reach of services that ERICs offer often goes well beyond supporting ‘just only’ research, but having much broader socio- economic impact in all fields, whether it is life-sciences, social sciences and humanities, environmental or physical sciences. Thus ERIC services are to be seen as being fundamental and benefitting all of Europe’s citizens and therefore need to be supported and tapped by a much broader group of stakeholders. However, despite the tremendous assets and strongholds of the ERICs, and the efforts invested by the ERICs to promote their visibility, still most researchers are unaware of their existence, due also to the relatively short time they have been established. Their visibility must be significantly enhanced, first among scientists, then as well among public health care and community service organisations, not only to enhance research and provide tools to tackle scientific questions, but also to underpin policy and societal issues.

Therefore, ERIC Forum recommends that

• Future European as well as national funding programmes better enhance and highlight use of ERIC services, and thus increase the coherence and impact of ERICs in the ERA.
• This can be achieved by integrating the ERIC services into call texts, not just as an eligible cost within successful projects, but as an encouraged resource which should be utilised wherever possible in alignment with the proposed research project.
• Applicants should be encouraged to describe the ERIC services they would require and make use of at the application stage. Greater prominence should be given to the use of the ERICs as ERA instruments, not just in the Research Infrastructures work programmes, but across the Pillars and other relevant policy programmes.
• Future EU Operational Programmes should acknowledge ERIC services as public services and accordingly provide funding, so that they become available to the broadest possible community. This will further increase their wider impact on society in the ERA.
• Attention should be paid to the possible funding gap between development of services and implementation/operation of services.

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:

i) Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy:

The critical role of robust, interconnected and sustainable pan-European access was further showcased during the COVID crisis underscoring their contribution as strategic assets for tackling critical global scientific and societal challenges. Increasing Europe’s preparedness and resilience based on RIs in support of crisis management can be achieved by i) further consolidation of ERICs’ integration in the ERA, ii) addressing fragmentation, and reinforcing coordination, governance and sustainability of ERICs, iii) improving links with society, economy and competitiveness, and iv) strengthening the global approach.

ii) HEU Missions:

Covering the five ESFRI roadmap research domains (energy, environment, health & food, physical sciences and engineering, and social and cultural innovation) at a leading international level, the ERICs hold a tremendous asset for covering the needs in all these research domains as well as addressing global grand societal challenges of humankind, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and research questions related to those. Importantly, the ERIC capacities are extremely relevant and well-positioned to respond to the five Horizon Europe Mission Areas. Remarkably, while the ERICs and ERIC-driven projects (e.g. canSERV and AgroSERV from among the INFRASERV-projects) are referred to in some of the Mission Calls of the current Horizon Europe Mission Work Programme, these links are still very limited, thus inadequately reflecting the potential and importance of the ERICs in achieving the Mission goals.

Therefore, ERIC Forum recommends that

• ERIC capacities are further integrated into the Mission Work Programme both in terms of direct ERIC involvement, as well as by connecting existing RIs to the relevant Mission programmes.
• Visibility of the ERICs is essential at all levels and is further increased significantly; towards the researchers and the national-level communities ensuring the ERICs expertise to be onboarded in activities supporting the realisation of the Mission areas (e.g. in the National Cancer Mission Hubs).
• ERICs are recognized as important partners in the Missions, and that the ERICs should therefore be involved in contributing to the development of the Missions (e.g. through the Mission Assemblies / Boards / Working Groups, or any other suitable means) to facilitate the ERICs’ alignment and contribution towards the Mission objectives.
• If ERICs are foreseen as essential operators of the Missions and even considered as building blocks they ought to be closely associated with the Mission planning in order to ensure that they can respond to the expectations.

iii) Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

There are three areas where the twin transition can happen in many ERICs. First - in particular for new, single-sited ERICs -, during construction and upgrade, measures to reduce energy consumption and enhance digitalisation can and should be taken. Second, during operations, such technologies and instrument modes can be chosen to reach the same goal. Third, it is important to understand that the research and scientific strategies of ERICs do, and in the future should take into account the fulfilment of societal priorities including twin transition. ERICs are indispensable for reaching the goals of twin transition and solving other societal challenges of our times. Therefore, we suggest starting a broad discussion on assessing the development in these three areas for ERICs, also taking into consideration their broad diversity of set-up (single-versus multi-sited; size) and mode of operation.
In the pandemic situation in 2020-2021, rapid measures were taken to ensure access to the "critical research infrastructure" in Europe. It is important to leverage this experience to learn how to make remote access a routine tool, while again respecting the different types of ERICs and their individual needs. We feel that awareness of the associated increase of cost to enable and maintain (digital) remote access must be appreciated and future programs need to integrate the aspect of staff and user training. These moves will also have a positive impact on the CO2 footprints of the European RIs.

The relevant ERIC Forum position papers are available here: 
1. Comments in view of the third Commission Report to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of the ERIC Regulation (April 2022)
2. ERIC Forum Position Paper to EC public consulation on Framework Programmes 2014- 2027 (February 2023)

ESUO - European Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser Users Organisation

The European Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser Users Organisation (ESUO) is a user voice in this Landscape Analysis, representing the collective interests of all users of synchrotron and free-electron laser (FEL) research infrastructure (RI) facilities in Europe. There are as many as 35,000 users of these RI in Europe today. ESUO is composed of user’s representatives and national delegates drawn from 31 European member states and associated countries (including Israel and Turkey), nominated by national user organisations (NUOs), facility user organisations (FUOs) or the equivalent national user committee in each member country. ESUO’s executive board is elected from within this general assembly of delegates. ESUO is an international non-profit organisation registered in Belgium (AISBL).

ESUOs vision is to:
support a thriving (European) synchrotron and FEL user community with equal opportunities of access and participation for all scientists based solely on the scientific merit of their ideas. 

To this end our missions include, but are not limited, to the following:
•    Representing interests and needs of all users of synchrotron and FEL facilities in Europe; 
•    Supporting facilities in creating equal access opportunities for scientists;
•    Enabling strategies for equal trans-national access by scientists to appropriate synchrotron and FEL facilities;
•    Fostering contacts with users in widening and European neighbour countries, and sharing knowledge and expertise;

Users as a stakeholder: To aid in these missions ESUO are contributing to this Landscape Analysis as a Users’ voice amidst the funding agencies, facility consortia and international organisation stakeholders who are also contributing. Ultimately it is users who populate the Landscape and thus users are a key stakeholder in the European RI ecosystem. ESUO represents the largest organised cohort of users of RI within Europe and seek to contribute on their behalf.

ESUOs strategic considerations about the functioning of the current ecosystem of RIs and its future development:

1.    What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem? 

The priority of ESUO is the provision of merit based transnational access to Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser RI for users from across Europe including widening countries and associated states for all science inclusive of both applied and curiosity-based science. This envisages the elimination of geographic barriers to access which include financial barriers.

ESUO represents all users of synchrotron and free electron-laser RI facilities in Europe. Such state-of-the-art facilities enable various kinds of experiments in fields ranging from physics through life sciences to cultural heritage to be conducted not otherwise possible without these facilities. These RI in question are located in 10 countries. At present, users from 31 European member states and European associated countries are represented by ESUO national delegates / representatives. (https://www.esuo.eu/), and ESUOs priorities reflect the needs of all of these national user communities. Hence our emphasis on access to RI without barriers.

2.    What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains? 

There is currently a lack of national access funding for users in many countries without a national synchrotron (SR) or free electron laser (FEL) RI. There is an urgent need for European funding to make fair and open access to RIs. National scientific funding is not typically aligned to fund access to international or external RI even within Europe, thus there are geographic barriers to access RI. Users in nations within Europe that have national synchrotron or FEL RI typically, but not always, have national access funds to allow users to benefit from these RI. 

Surveys within the ESUO organisation of national delegates in late 2022 are summarised in Figure 1, and illustrate current nationally funded access to external synchrotron and FEL RI, i.e. the existence of a national equivalent to previous Framework and Horizon 2020 funded Trans-National Access. In summary, there are very few national equivalents, though for users in some ESUO member nations there is international membership of ESRF and EuXFEL, which provides for user access from subscribing country members. However, these are only two RI facilities from amongst the 19 light source RI comprising the League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources (LEAPS). 

Thus, the existing financial support for user access to SR and FEL facilities throughout Europe is currently very fragmented and piecemeal, even though public open user access programmes exist at the national facilities. Typically, funding is available for national users to access their national facilities, but the survey indicates where that national access support is absent. In addition to the funded access via subscribed membership of the ESRF and EuXFEL international facilities, there are other regionally limited, limited or thematic access programmes via CERIC-ERIC, NFFA and targeted challenge-driven access via ReMADE@ARI – addressing the Circular Economy, and other such challenge-driven targeted programmes with TNA funding will likely follow, such as one addressing nanoscience and nanotechnology. Otherwise, there is not a broad curiosity-driven TNA mechanism to LEAPS RI facilities, the most recent being the H2020 CALIPSOplus for LEAPS which ended in October 2021. 

Thus, as ESUO sees it, the gap which prevents the most efficient and equitable use of European RI across all domains, and for our ESUO members interests specifically the domains facilitated by synchrotron and FEL RI within the LEAPS consortium, is the gap in addressing the geographic and financial barriers for many users to access these RI facilities. 

It should be noted that in a survey conducted within LEAPS, it was found that 69% (11 of 16) of the LEAPS nationally funded facilities were constrained by either legal imperatives or funding limitations in not being able to offer any financial support to foreign users in terms of access provision, such as TNA. Thus, although the direct costs in supporting, travel, accommodation, and subsistence (T&S) for users via TNA are a very small fraction of facility budgets or unit costs for the time allocated to a user, this T&S financing is precluded from occurring directly through the RI facilities via their nationally funded budgets. 

Thus, to address the needs of the users that ESUO represents, it is apparent that a transformational change in national funding programmes in all nations to access external RI facilities across all of the European Research Area is needed. 
Policy recommendations can help in this regard, and multiple user voices in the Landscape Analysis and within ESFRI as stakeholders are required. 

Recently, ESUO are attempting to contribute to addressing this gap and answering these needs having worked closely with LEAPS, with our sister user community organisation the European Neutron Scattering Association (ENSA), and their facility consortium for the neutron RI the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS). This has been through the submission of the NEutrons and PHotons Elevating Worldwide Science (NEPHEWS) proposal in answer to the Commission’s HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01-03: “Research infrastructure services advancing frontier knowledge: co-fund pilots with pan-European RIs and/or national RIs”. The NEPHEWS proposal seeks not only to provide curiosity driven trans-national access (TNA) to users across the ERA but to further the European users and their national user community’s interest in a transformational change that would result in sustainable nationally funded trans-national access (TNA) programmes in each country of the ERA, while acting in the present to reduce the knowledge and potential energy barriers in accessing these RI. 

However, eliminating geographic and financial barriers to these RI in the present and sustaining this into the future, can only occur through concerted action of all stakeholders and must be through a transformational change in national funding programmes in all nations to access external RI facilities across the ERA.

3.    How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to: 

i. Finding solutions to the crises:  
RIs can act in support of crisis management in finding solutions but also must be supported for their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy. The ecosystem for efficient use of these RIs must be structured such that all potential users whose research work could contribute to solutions, by using RIs, should be able to access them from wherever they are within the ERA.

ii. HEU Missions: 
The excellence of the world-class synchrotron radiation (SR), free-electron laser (FEL) infrastructure, inclusive of both national and international RI facilities, are in no doubt as these encompass one of the world’s broadest suite of the most advanced, complex, state of the art research tools with a huge diversity in the available characterisation methods, instrumentation, experimental techniques, sample environments and expertise, which are available to external researchers anywhere in the world, not only within the European continent. The fields of study at LEAPS facilities encompass not only the materials sciences, physics, chemistry, and life sciences but are continuously diversifying into new and important areas such as cultural heritage and medicine. The continuous development of these techniques will be in response to the needs of the moment and of the future which are well matched to the EU missions. 

iii. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation: 
There are a number of photon and neutron initiatives (PaN) in EOSC working towards FAIR Data. ESUO supports these including LEAPS and LENS initiatives DAPHNE4NFDI and the Open Reflectometry Standards Organisation (ORSO). 

EU-LIFE

 

EU-LIFE, the alliance of independent research institutes in the life sciences is an active voice advocating for a strong research infrastructures landscape across Europe. EU- LIFE welcomes ESFRI’s consultation on the strategic development of the Research Infrastructure (RI) landscape and provides hereby its contribution. An overview of EU- LIFE position and actions on European research infrastructures can be found here.

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?
A strong RI ecosystem is essential for Europe. Europe has overall excellent RIs at the European level and at national, regional and local levels. However, it is essential to raise awareness about the importance of RIs for advancing research, especially in those countries where this support is weak, in order to further promote innovation and foster the development of research across Europe1. In addition, the recognition and support for RIs which cater to national, regional and/or local research communities should be stronger. In order to achieve this there should be more (financial) support for national, regional and/or local RIs.

In our opinion, the ESFRI Roadmap landscape – with over 60 Projects/Landmarks - is already quite elaborate and has become very complex and bureaucratic. We strongly advocate for simplification of the European approach to the support of RIs.

There is an important added value of a European dimension regarding standardisation and optimization of procedures and regulations to enable more agile national, regional and local RIs and interoperability of data across the different EU countries.

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?
As indicated above, the main gap is the absence of (financial) support to national, regional and/or local RIs and the main need is for simplification.

In addition, we feel it is important that the EC and ESFRI give full clarity about what it is considered an RI and include in its definition not only ESFRI Roadmap Projects and Landmark collaborations between countries, but also larger and smaller international, national and institutional collaborations between organisations and facilities. This is of particular importance for applying for HEU-funding.

Furthermore, we think that the strategies to address the needs and gaps of RIs should be simple and less bureaucratic; the process is now so long that RIs cannot easily adapt to new technologies and crises.

Finally, there should be collaborations between RIs beyond the digital and the creation of new tools, i.e., bringing different RIs together to create ecosystems that support experimental procedures that require unique integrated pipelines from different scientific and/or technologic domains [(especially relevant for the life sciences). In due course, to think about alternative models where different RIs serving the scientific community (public and private) are clustered at institutional or local level.

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:

i. Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and human-made hazards such as health, environment and energy

Agility is needed for RIs to respond to crises. This requires simple and fast procedures and standardised and open data. This can provide policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders with timely and accurate information needed to make informed decisions and respond to crises effectively. And it allows RIs to redirect their focus when a crisis manifests itself. The corona pandemic has shown that RIs can make these essential contributions. Obstacles like the GDPR should be addressed.

ii. HEU Missions

The challenges identified in the HEU Missions require new knowledge that can only come from discovery research. RIs have a very important contribution to the HEU missions as they provide the technological and methodological basis for addressing the missions through discovery research. Through HEU funded research projects, researchers will use the RIs to address the challenges.

iii. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

RIs can transform to a more sustainable operation mode by reducing their own carbon footprint and resource consumption by adopting sustainable practices in their operations. This can include measures such as energy-efficient buildings, waste reduction and recycling, and sustainable procurement. However, this requires investments in people, buildings, infrastructure and equipment. The most important contribution of RIs is the centralisation of personnel and equipment which leads to better and more efficient research, which is optimal in a model where different RIs are clustered at institutional / local level.

RIs are also central to the digital transformation and the FAIR principles as the RIs become the main sources of data. Organising data in a FAIR manner should be done at the source and RIs can organise that provided they are supported adequately. RIs are also ideally suited to train the next generation of scientists for the use and management of digital data.

References
1. On the role and recognition of small and medium scale research infrastructures and its staff:

• Institutional core facilities: prerequisite for breakthroughs in the life sciences
• Acknowledging and citing core facilities
• How tech-savvy employees make the difference in core facilities

 

Europlanet AISBL

 

Europlanet welcomes this opportunity to contribute to ESFRI’s ongoing review of Research Infrastructure landscape.

Established in 2009, the Europlanet Research Infrastructure (RI) supports Transnational Access (TA) to laboratories and field sites and Virtual Access (VA) to a range of databases and tools supporting research in planetary and space science. Successive projects, funded by the European Commission through FP7 and Horizon 2020, have enabled Europlanet to grow from a starting community to a mature RI. Currently, Europlanet 2024 RI offers access to over 40 laboratory simulation and analysis facilities distributed around the world, 5 planetary field analogue sites and over 100 data services, creating the largest distributed RI for planetary science.

Over the past 10 years, Europlanet has investigated a number of models for creating a sustainable structure and legal entity. In 2018, it set up a Society for the advancement of planetary science as a self-sustaining body to support the community and networking activities, including the organisation of the largest annual meeting on planetary science in Europe, the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC). In March 2023, Europlanet established itself as an Association Sans But Lucratif (AISBL), headquartered at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA) in Brussels. Europlanet AISBL is governed by an Executive Board, elected by members of the Europlanet Society, and gives a permanent legal structure for Europlanet’s overarching activities to support planetary research in Europe.

Independently, Europlanet AISBL is piloting and developing models for sustainable access to planetary research infrastructure e.g. through reciprocal access programmes and service provision to agencies.

In recent months, Europlanet has worked with other space-focused RIs to submit the Space Science Research Infrastructure (SpaceSci-RI) proposal in answer to the call “HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01- 02: Research infrastructure services advancing frontier knowledge”. The proposal builds on a heritage of 29 EU-funded programmes dating back to 2000 and represents a total investment of over €175 million by the EU in space science projects through FP5-Horizon Europe.

SpaceSci-RI aims to bring together a comprehensive set of over 100 facilities, field sites and data services to address the most important scientific themes identified by the European space research community for the next decade (e.g. through ESA strategic plans and the High-Level Advisory Group on Human and Robotic Space Exploration for Europe ‘Revolution Space’ report. The value of the assembled infrastructure itself (funded largely at a national level or through international programmes) runs to billions of Euros, with annual operating costs of around €100 million.

Commentary on current European ecosystem of RIs and its future development

The establishment of pan-European RIs provides the European Research Area (ERA) and European academic and industrial communities with the necessary facilities to conduct world-leading research in a wide range of fields (across the spectrum from fundamental to applied science), with high Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Large-scale RIs, such as CERN and the forthcoming ITER, funded through a combination of national, EU and transnational collaborative programmes, are recognised as global leaders in scientific research. Coordination of European resources, e.g. through the European Space Agency (ESA), has enabled Europe as a whole to be competitive at a level beyond the reach of individual nation states. Initiatives such as the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) and next generation of telescopes developed within the European Southern Observatory (ESO) continue to build and develop a European ecosystem of RIs that will ensure ongoing European competitiveness compared to the other major space powers, e.g. the US and China.

However, it is important to recognise that RIs are not just large-scale international facilities. Networked laboratories and virtual services distributed across research institutes, academic institutions and industry play an equally important role in the European RI ecosystem. Indeed, in most research sectors, these distributed RIs (largely built up during EU Framework and Horizon programmes) contribute the largest number of publications, the largest number of researchers and the majority of research students (who will provide the next generation necessary to ensure future European competitiveness). Distributed RIs are, thus, critical to the productivity and sustainability of the ERA. Accordingly, we believe that ESFRI, as the strategic forum for European RIs, needs to be an equal champion for distributed RIs alongside giving support for the development of RIs based on large-scale, single facilities.

The definition of an RI also needs to keep pace with changes in the research landscape, widening the scope beyond physical facilities to embrace the digital and virtual world. Modern science requires ‘virtual RIs’ (previously entitled e-infrastructures), including large-scale computational facilities, models, data archives and databases. In the next decades, virtual RIs will become increasingly important for leading-edge scientific discovery and technological development, providing the infrastructure to store and process enormous amounts of data and provide the research community with the services and tools for data reduction, analysis (including Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)) and complex modelling (e.g. climate and health). Thus, in recognition of key initiatives such as EOSC, the European ecosystem of RIs and ESFRI should ensure that it gives virtual RIs equal prominence to ‘physical RIs’.

Open access to state-of-the-art research facilities by all researchers (e.g. through Transnational Access (TA) and Virtual Access (VA) funding from EC programmes) is perhaps the unique strength of the current European ecosystem of RIs, and has allowed the intellectual and creative capital of all Europe’s citizens to be drawn upon for the benefit of all. It is therefore vital that any future European strategy for RIs addresses and secures mechanisms for providing integrated, cross-border TA and VA for all ERA researchers in a way that is free at the point of access to the user. EC-funding for these programmes is critical and the EU must be strongly encouraged to continue to provide this support, since it is not available through national programmes.
 

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?
Within the space science sector, several major RIs have already been commissioned that will provide the next step-change in observational studies of the Universe. As set out in the 2021 ESFRI Landscape and Roadmap, these include:

• The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)
• The Einstein Telescope (ET)
• The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)
• The European Solar Telescope (EST)
• KM3Net2.0
• The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO)

When fully commissioned, this suite of observatories will provide the world-leading resources to support European space science up to 2050. The ground-based facilities will be complemented by spaceborne astrophysical missions developed by ESA, including Athena (X-ray observatory), Euclid (dark Universe) and LISA (gravitational waves), and the trio of exoplanetary missions, CHEOPS, Plato and Ariel.

ESA’s ambitious programme of robotic exploration of the Solar System continues with BepiColombo (to Mercury), JUICE (to the Jovian system), EnVision (to Venus), Comet Interceptor (to explore comets) and the ongoing ExoMars programme, with planning for outer Solar System investigations also underway. ESA is also playing a key role in the international programme to return to the Moon, with major contributions to the Gateway lunar-orbiting space station and Artemis.

The amount of data expected from these facilities and missions will provide some of the largest (petabyte) data sets ever assimilated – Euclid alone will produce 30 petabytes. Thus, the infrastructure for such data storage and subsequent distribution must be developed well in advance of the data being collected, and new tools (ML and AI) and protocols will be required for effective exploitation.

All these missions and facilities need to be underpinned by a strong, diverse and cohesive RI to support the wider space science programme. Unlike NASA, ESA does not have a structure of research institutes to conduct the planning, predesign and data analysis for missions. Development of mission instrumentation and the data analysis is the responsibility of distributed laboratories within national research institutes and academic institutions. In addition, planetary missions require significant field and laboratory work to calibrate, validate and interpret results experimentally. As the volume and scope of extraterrestrial materials available increases through sample return missions, including to the Moon, Mars and small bodies in the Solar System, state-of-the-art curation and analysis facilities are also becoming a vital part of the infrastructure required for world-leading space science.

A distributed RI that provides coherence and support for the community through TA and VA programmes to laboratories and field sites is, therefore, a priority for continued European success in the space science sector.

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

• Within the Astronomy and Astroparticle Domain, the following key resource and RI issues need to be addressed: Europe lacks extraterrestrial Sample Return Facilities (SRF) in contrast to its competitors in China, Japan and USA. The nature of such an SRF (single centre or distributed) remains a subject of debate. However, with the imminent return to the Moon and the collection of samples for return from Mars underway, resolving a European SRF is becoming a pressing issue.
•  For Europe to maintain competitiveness (with the US and China) in lunar and martian exploration, it is vital to have a sustainable RI that provides access to planetary analogue field sites for testing and calibration of instrumentation and interpretation of mission results, alongside state-of-the art laboratory simulation and analysis facilities. Many of these facilities and, in particular, field sites are located outside the ERA and require carefully agreed partnerships with local agencies, institutions and citizens.
• With European involvement in the return to the Moon (Gateway and Artemis) and possible exploitation of space resources, the need for new lunar-focused RI that links ESA to wider pan EU facilities should be considered. Such facilities may be expected to widen interdisciplinary collaborations, e.g. in health (for astronauts), energy (new designs of energy collection and storage devices), novel materials (manufactured in space) and food (space agriculture).
• The extreme and highly diverse nature of planetary environments means that the RI supporting missions needs to maintain the flexibility to adapt to different planetary targets. For example, the field sites and laboratory facilities needed to support the current focus of missions on the inner planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars), is potentially very different from the requirements for planned missions to the ice giant systems
• As discussed above, the amount of data to be returned by forthcoming missions and observatories will be the largest ever collected; thus, there is a need for coordination of data storage and accessibility for ALL these missions through common protocols and development of data analysis tools. The Virtual Observatory (VO) provides a framework for astronomical datasets and other resources to work seamlessly as a whole, overseen by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), which debates and agrees the technical standards needed. Europe needs to not only adopt the VO but ensure that it is mutually compliant with the EOSC concept. This is now urgent.
• Europe (and ESA) does not have the necessary launch capacity for its ambitions and thus will become increasingly reliant on one partner (USA). Building a European RI ecosystem for space in which Europe has capacity for launch and monitoring of the space environment (including hazards from space junk) is important, not only for space science research, but for the use of space as a platform (e.g. for communications and remote sensing). Such an ecosystem can be expected to be integrated with NATO and space defence.

Whilst not strictly an ESFRI issue, a sustainable European RI ecosystem needs to address the lack of skilled STEM staff needed for its operation, now and in the future, particularly as other economies seek to retain skilled staff and migration is expected to fall for these groups. The space sector remains unrepresentative of the EU population, failing to attract women and citizens from ethnic (non- Caucasian) backgrounds, and has a large geographic underrepresentation from eastern and south- eastern Europe. Thus, to secure a sustainable future with the best talent, RIs need to widen recruitment to the whole European workforce.

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:
i. Finding solutions to the crises

The recent pandemic demonstrated that the working protocols for much of the RI ecosystem are not able to adapt quickly to crises that prevent on site access. Within the space sector, remote operation of space satellites and observing platforms is the norm; however, remote access to laboratory facilities is at best rudimentary. Building on examples progressed during the Covid crisis, the majority of RI facilities should be developed to allow users to conduct research remotely (in collaboration with local staff). Such procedures will also greatly benefit the Green transition, in reducing the need for travel, and widening the diversity of users.

The current geopolitical crises have demonstrated that the ERA needs to be self-sufficient and reduce (or remove) its reliance upon access to infrastructure, e.g. launchers, that may be restricted or prevented through a changing political landscape. The space sector needs to review its reliance on external facilities and make preparations for alternatives deemed critical to the ERA, whilst equally exploring new global partnerships with emergent space nations.

ii. HEU Missions

Whilst providing a focus on some of the major global challenges, the concept of EU Missions in the Horizon Europe programme has received some justifiable criticism (e.g. Statements by League of European Research Universities (LERU) and the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities January 2023). The Missions as currently defined, while laudable, are somewhat narrow in their scope and have so far focused on the highest TRL scales. This means that there is a tendency towards exclusivity, in which a few centres receive the majority of funding; over a period of time, this risks leading to self-perpetuating ‘closed clubs’. LERU stated that the EC should widen the scope and offer more funding opportunities for R&I activities and “strengthen the breakthrough character of missions by funding more disruptive research focused at lower and medium TRLs”.

Such EC Missions also act to restrict rather than encourage the interdisciplinary research that will assist in tackling the challenges. Space related partners are seldom featured in EC Mission calls, although space research can play a major role in most of the EC Missions. For example, in the climate agenda and studies of oceans, agriculture and supporting smart cities, remote observation, large scale data handling and analysis, comparative planetology (Venus as greenhouse gas runaway), solar weather observation and models, and transferable technologies (solar energy etc), telecommunications and interactive IT are all important tools.

Furthermore, overcoming many of these challenges requires the development of new methodologies, instrumentation and adaptive cultures, all of which require research at lower TRLs. Thus we agree with the LERU recommendation that the current HEU programme should be rebalanced “restoring a strong research focus” in the assessment of the mission approach.

iii. Green and digital transition
As discussed above, methodologies for remote access should be developed in order to reduce (but not end) the need for users to be physically present at RI facilities. This will significantly reduce user travel (particularly short haul air travel) whilst opening access to many researchers who, for health or personal reasons (e.g. caring responsibilities), cannot visit the RI site in person. The space sector is well placed to be an exemplar in this regard, since remote access to geographically-distributed ground- based observatories and space-based satellites is already integral to its research, with long-established procedures. However, many of the laboratories (including large central facilities such as accelerators, synchrotrons , ELI) have not been established with remote access options (e.g. they lack remote control of instrumentation by external users, have restricted access to facility data storage facilities, and webcams built into instruments are not yet standard). In addition, a change culture will be required to consider remote access control and conduct of laboratory experiments as ‘normal practice’; this is not to exclude in-house performance of experiments – which are vital for the training of Early Career Researchers, sharing best practice and innovation – but rather to complement such methodologies.

A ’digital transition’ is evident in the space sector and will continue as ML and AI are increasingly adopted for data analysis and modelling of the Universe. For example, ‘digital twins’ – virtual representations of objects or systems that use simulation, ML and reasoning to help decision-making – are a natural upcoming evolution for studies of space systems (e.g. space stations, lunar bases) and should be considered by ESFRI, the IVOA and VO in its future review of the space landscape.

GÉANT

 

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?

Please note that in this response we view GÉANT and its associated NREN community as active Research Infrastructures, in accordance with European categorisation. 

GÉANT is the collaboration of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Together we deliver an information ecosystem of infrastructure and services to advance research, education, and innovation on a global scale. GÉANT develops the services its members need​​ to support researchers, educators and innovators - at national, European and international levels.​​ Our portfolio of advanced services cover​​​s connectivity and network management, trust &identity,security, real-time communications, storage and clouds and professional services.​​​​ Regarding key strategic areas, EuroHPC, EOSC, EuroQCI, the Common European Data Spaces & Global Gateway Connectivity initiatives are of high interest to GÉANT and the NRENs. 

It is important to sustain effective, high-capacity and secure connectivity between Research Infrastructures. Equally important is the availability and use of secure and trustworthy digital identities that enable researchers to seamlessly access and share services and resources across the Research Infrastructures. Coordinating NREN-users and their access in an effective manner to Research Infrastructure Federations of Digital Infrastructures across a wider range of thematic domains will be seen as a key future priority. The challenge here is to set common requirements across heterogeneous Research Infrastructure ecosystems and service providers whilst preserving much-needed inclusiveness. GÉANT services that facilitate federated yet unified authentication on top of eduGAIN and the GÉANT Core AAI Platform, scientific experiment management, Digital Object Identifier issuance services, data transmission storage services will also need to be extended to Research Infrastructures across other domains.

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

From the GÉANT perspective, it is important to follow the Research Infrastructure needs from a secure networking point of view whilst providing collaborative access services on top of such infrastructures –  systematic interviews/questionnaires among Research Infrastructures should indicate how these secure, service-ready networks can evolve.

The engagement of GÉANT in overall support actions or with associated competence centres will aid intra-Research Infrastructural capabilities. Collaboration with different projects will be very beneficial for the NREN community involved with specific national research infrastructures via the type of collaborative projects that help develop such competencies. Utilising the development of the Common European Data Spaces and the challenges they face regarding interoperability issues and data visitation as a vehicle to develop solutions here could address key gaps between thematic domains.

Research Infrastructures need access to secure and trustworthy pan-European Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) will allow their services to be used seamlessly by researchers across and beyond Europe. The recent developments with the EU ID Wallet along with new technologies are promising a significantly improved user experience putting the user at the centre. GÉANT with the eduGAIN global service and the Core AAI Platform can provide a pan-European AAI to support the implementation of Global Gateway Initiatives in Research and Education.

Gaps between Research Infrastructure collaboration also exist in infrastructural terms at the global and geopolitical level. For example, subsea-cable network infrastructures that require higher levels of resilience, security and in-built redundancy will be needed in order to develop key Global Gateway initiatives and achieve open strategic autonomy in Europe, whilst also utilising the wealth of scientific excellence being produced across the globe in a reciprocal manner with like-minded countries, and by extension, like-minded Research Infrastructures.

3.  How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:
 

i. Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy

As an example, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the European Commission, together with other partners have recognised the urgency to develop and deploy a pan-European COVID-19 research data platform connected to EOSC.

GÉANT and NREN partners interconnect all of the EMBL-EBI sites across Europe and beyond, providing high-bandwidth, low latency connectivity. In parallel, GÉANT and its NREN partners are delivering the Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) services that enable trusted access to EMBL-EBI’s data-sharing platform along with the data platform of the 13 ESFRI research infrastructures, which are part of the Life Science collaboration.

Many life sciences projects are already reliant on the ‘always-ready’ high-bandwidth connectivity and secure access services that GÉANT and its NREN partners – whose very purpose is to serve research and education in times of normality and crisis – already provide.

The usage of this case study is intended to highlight one simple yet important observation - as data-driven research becomes ever more important, the role of GÉANT and the NRENs will only increase. 

ii. HEU Missions

With the scope of the Horizon Europe Missions being so broad and cross-cutting, it pays to highlight the areas where GÉANT indirectly helps achieve their ambitions. For example, GÉANT's support of Copernicus should be mentioned here, i.e. the different components of Copernicus from climate to land and marine observation all indirectly contribute to the missions listed below, but these are listed in more detail further below in the document (See under 4. Space);

- Adaptation to Climate Change: support at least 150 European regions and communities to become climate resilient by 2030 (see here)
- Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030
-100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030
-A Soil Deal for Europe: 100 living labs and lighthouses to lead the transition towards healthy soils by 2030

GÉANT and the NRENs are supporting the Missions and Commission priorities in a multitude of contributions, especially regarding a Europe fit for the Digital Age:​

1. Ensuring a safe and accountable online environment - As provider of the high-capacity backbone network for the research and education community GÉANT recognises the vital importance of collaboration in security, tools and practices. GÉANT is a member of the Security for Collaborating Infrastructures (SCI) working group, which is a collaborative activity within the Wise Information Security for e-Infrastructures (WISE) trust community. The aim of the SCI trust framework is to enable interoperation of collaborating Infrastructures in managing cross-infrastructure operational security risks. It also builds trust between Infrastructures by adopting policy standards for collaboration especially in cases where identical security policy documents cannot be shared. Governing principles of the SCI framework are incident containment, ascertaining the causes of incidents, identifying affected parties, addressing data protection and risk management and understanding measures required to prevent an incident from reoccurring. 
2. European Digital Identity - GÉANT has been working closely with the European Commission to support the implementation of a European Digital Identity. In the context of the  Erasmus+ programme GEANT developed and rolled out the European Student Identifier (ESI) and has implemented a bridge between the eIDAS Network and eduGAIN, enabling users from across Europe to use their national eIDs in order to access services and resources available in eduGAIN. This capability has been extended to enable secure access to EuroHPC sites and will be soon available to other Research Infrastructures via EOSC. Looking forward, GÉANT has been recognised as one of the main stakeholders for the roll-out of the EU ID Wallet in the Research and Education space. As part of the DC4EU Large Scale Pilot programme, GÉANT is going to add support for the EU ID Wallet in the GÉANT Core AAI Platform and eduGAIN opening the door for further work on academic and research micro credentials, which can be used for the digitalisation of  numerous business process in the academic, research, commercial and public sectors. 
3. Artificial Intelligence – by supporting researchers and innovators through provision of various services and solutions dedicated to the development of R&D specific environment. 
4. Space – Through the provision of dedicated connectivity to end points involved in acquisition of signals from space, all the way to deploying specific network services to aid in the dissemination of earth observation data to research and education communities worldwide.  Our focus is to support the organisations involved in generating the earth observation data directly, with our full suite of services. Coordination of activities is via GEO, the Group on Earth Observation, in combination with REN partners from other global regions.

iii. Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

Research Infrastructures contribute best to the green transition by continuous scientific improvement but also by implementing the reduction of environmental impacts and energy consumption and optimising resource consumption through life cycle observation.  

The first aim can be achieved by simply using new technologies with low and controllable energy consumption, using green energy or by developing new innovative technologies, methods and tools aimed at reducing the Research Infrastructure energy consumption and environmental impact (i.e. reducing carbon footprint). These tools could also support the assessment of the Research Infrastructures’ energy efficiency at different stages of the infrastructure lifecycle. In the future, these could lead to the development of an architecture for a “zero impact” Research Infrastructure, which will include components ensuring sustainable operations and evolution, requirements concerning process management, capacity building and user support. These can evolve to create policies for sustainable, energy efficient Research Infrastructures and attain ‘green excellence’ certification. 

Physical infrastructures and datacentres could implement waste and water management, sustainable procurement, and continuous improvement rules. New datacentres being built areas where natural cooling is not an issue or where energy used is both green and inexpensive, also ensures multitude of benefits.

Finally, the optimisation of resource consumption can be realised by developing tools for developers for sustainable applications and service designs, along with tools for research reproducibility and effective research data management. Adopting Open Science and extending FAIR data management tools with energy, impact and durability assessments and optimisation for linked data will also help here. 

LEAPS - League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources

LEAPS – the League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources – is a strategic consortium initiated by the Directors of the Synchrotron Radiation and Free Electron Laser (FEL) user facilities in Europe. Its primary goal is to ensure and promote the quality and impact of fundamental, applied, and industrial research carried out at each facility to the greater benefit of European science and society actively and constructively. LEAPS gathers 16 organizations representing 19 light sources facilities across Europe.

• 19 facilities
• 16 institutions
• 10 countries
• 300 operating End-Stations
• 1.000.000 h beam time / year
• 5.000 publications / year
• 15 spin-off companies
• 35.000 users / year from all over EU and beyond

Funding for the LEAPS facilities predominantly stems from national programs. The figures for the reference period 2021-2027 can be found below:

• Total annual operational budget 800 M€
• Budget for investment 450 M€ (5 years)
• Budget for the upgrade programs 550M€ (5 years, partly funded)

LEAPS is one of the seven Europe-wide research networks which constitute the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) consortium. LEAPS actively collaborates with other members es in ARIE as well as with ESFRI.

LEAPS plays a substantive role to the new European Research Area (ERA). As European collaboration is the essence of LEAPS, the consortium has very carefully followed the EU Framework Programme developments and believes that there is potential to generate significantly more impact by fully exploiting the potential of LEAPS and other networks of European dimension. LEAPS has reached a high level of coordination during H2020 and the first half of Horizon Europe (HE). A more strategic approach better leveraging national efforts would be highly efficient.

The next generation of accelerator-based photon sources will boost the analytical capabilities of the European research infrastructures. Consequently, the services provided to thousands of academic and industrial researchers largely contribute to the competitiveness and the technological sovereignty of Europe. Technological sovereignty and keeping Europe competitive on a global scale requires breakthroughs in research and innovation. In many essential fields, such as materials research, this requires that European researchers and innovators have open access to the best analytical facilities to develop novel materials. New roadmap-based approach to analytical facilities ensuring a long-term strategic agenda is mandatory to unlock the full potential. This will bring major benefits:

• Ensure that Europe has the right set of state-of-the-art analytical facilities needed for answering to the Global Challenges, implementing the Missions of Horizon Europe and thus enabling new solutions in areas such as sustainable energy and transport concepts, better drugs and a digital future.
• Implement a concerted effort far superior to fragmented national ones, leading to better and more cost-efficient technologies, therefore leveraging the complex national upgrade projects of analytical facilities in Europe in a coordinated approach.
• Provide a step-change in collaboration between the analytical facilities and industry, notably European high-tech SME, and boosting their competitiveness through the push for solutions far beyond the state of the art and increasing influence in the development of standards.
• Provide the next level of optimal service and conditions for users, stimulating their extensive participation in response to the needs requested by their communities.
•  Ensure that the facilities and Industry have the right people at the right time by training of staff and students.

Analytical research infrastructures such as accelerators-based photon light sources are essential for generating new knowledge and for unlocking new technologies across domains. There is much scope for intensifying cooperation with pillars 2 and 3 under Horizon Europe and collaborate with the various missions and clusters in Horizon Europe, notably by strengthening a challenge-driven access to the heavily over-subscribed facilities. Batteries, materials for circular economy, public health challenges, rational catalysis design, green hydrogen, water-based technologies, and advanced and quantum materials are among the research areas where RIs can make impact. LEAPS also offers a broad range of subjects and training opportunities for PhD and postdoctoral researchers.

Challenges

• To strengthen the Research Infrastructure actions in Horizon Europe (HE) to benefit from the high EU added value of a stronger EU-wide collaboration of these critical and costly national investments. With the increasing number of beneficiaries in the projects, particularly in the RIA actions, the maximum amount allocated to these projects should be increased to be inclusive and interdisciplinary. The funding of each partner is fragmented and raises the question of the leverage effect. A meaningful participation of RIs in EU-projects is now getting close to impossible, since the requirement for large consortia with sub- critical shares for the participating facilities discourage a substantial engagement. Calls for proposals should prioritize the strategic importance of analytical research infrastructures for ERA researchers - scientific, technological, societal... challenges - above other considerations, such as the governance structure of the RI.
• To define a more strategic approach and long-term support for RIs in HE and FP10 the development and implementation of technological roadmaps and smarter concepts for access and selection mechanisms is highly desirable to address Global Challenges, Missions and Industry Innovation. Such strategic approach providing a long-term vision and a critical mass could be implemented with significant, long-term funding e.g. via a partnership or a block-grant programme.

Selected contributions of LEAPS in finding solutions to crises

Europe’s Accelerator-Based Photon Sources joined forces in fighting COVID-19

Right from the start of the coronavirus pandemic, LEAPS facilities joined forces offering their capacities to the worldwide scientific community. Several facilities have opened calls for rapid access to dedicated beamtime prioritizing the research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, its therapy, and vaccines... Many experiments, including those by pharmaceutical companies, were performed; several initiatives of participation in collaborations with research institutions were settled; protein structures have been resolved and have been deposited in the Protein Data Base (PDB). The ARIE enhanced its cross-border, multidisciplinary collaboration joining forces to offer Europe a strong and valid weapon against the present COVID-19 challenge and other potential viral and microbial threats: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4049720

Boosting the existing capacities with adequate national and European funding programs, will place the LEAPS consortium in a privileged position to be one of the mayor players for addressing the present and future viral threats society is facing.

Climate Change and energy crisis

LEAPS facilities provide essential input on the use of natural resources continuously making significant contributions in guiding the discovery and optimization of desired properties of advanced materials. Together with their advanced recycling, this leads to a much more efficient use of the resources and contributes to the circular economy, one of the main sustainability goals of Horizon Europe. For example, significant improvements in battery and hydrogen fuel cells technologies are needed. LEAPS facilities offer a unique combination of diverse complementary tools to explore materials properties and evolution from the Ångstroms to several centimeters scale. Advanced manufacturing and quantum technologies hold the promise of providing materials-based solutions for a more sustainable, circular economy and to make use of quantum effects for vastly increased sensitivity. These challenges can be uniquely addressed via synchrotron-based experiments of the basic materials expanding to examination of the dynamics using both synchrotrons and X-ray FELs. Other significant challenges are the adaptation to climate change and the understanding of the anthropogenic impact on water and air quality. Scientific solutions in the field of anthropogenic impact on the environment arise by understanding molecular structures and reactions of relevance to biology and ecology, and by sampling molecules and trace elements in the ecosystem. Further on, advanced photon sources also play an important role in providing multiscale insight into the next generation of materials needed to offset the greenhouse gas emissions in general.

LEAPS contribution to the EU Missions in Horizon Europe

The added value of EU missions will be the ability to focus the efforts of a wide panoply of research and societal stakeholders to solve the highest priority European challenges. This is very important as it overcomes the traditional research silos to work together towards the same common goal. Today, the Missions calls are formulated to respond to public policy issues and to remove non-technological barriers.

Missions have the real potential to bring more coherent approaches in policy at European, national, and regional level, if they are based on a strong fundament of breakthrough-science and succeed in addressing both the whole innovation chain and the political implementation of the necessary measures. This however requires a resetting of the current approach, putting research at the center of the activities funded by Horizon Europe and joining forces with other programs for implementation. Currently, there is a certain lack of an objective to support low TRL (between 1 and 4) which is the steppingstone to further development.

The Horizon Europe Missions are an excellent and very ambitious attempt to bring Europe together on essential endeavors, but to make this approach work it requires a much higher buy-in from other stakeholders and their funding programs. Horizon Europe can contribute significantly to strengthen groundbreaking science and the impulse, but its funds should be invested in Research and Innovation. The ARIE Joint Position Paper, published in 2020 is highlighting how the common, complementary approach will help to address the societal challenges of the Horizon Europe Missions framework programme: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4049769

LEAPS contribution to Green and Digital transition

How facility upgrades reflect the European Green Deal goals

LEAPS facilities contribute heavily to finding solutions for a climate-neutral future, as explained above. In addition, they actively focus on how to make the operation and use of LEAPS facilities less energy consuming. Therefore, during the preparation and realization of the upgrade programmes particular attention was given to the improvement of the operation of the facilities towards a more efficient use of energy and a reduction of the carbon footprint overall. The development of permanent magnet technology helps to design storage ring elements with a very low consumption of electricity; the working conditions of accelerator components could be optimized lowering the amount of cooling water needed and the heat produced by them can be recycled as well.

Development of advanced digital technologies

The DIGITAL LEAPS (DL) initiative aims to develop digital technologies to increase together, on a European level, the resilience of the LEAPS facilities by a fundamental reconsideration of user operation, including remote operation tools and artificial intelligence concepts. This will happen on a start-to-end basis, in the entire power train of the experimental installations from the accelerator to big data handling. This initiative is tightly connected with a pathway to more green operation of the LEAPS facilities. Digital remote user operation is going in the direction to rationalize the movements of people and to minimize the impact on the environment.

Towards open data

Data mining approaches are some of the key ingredients to make data, information and knowledge from LEAPS RIs more readily accessible to the scientific community and industry. In the strategic context of EOSC, a close collaboration between different RI communities is ongoing in this area for the photon and neutron facilities. The main objective is to make FAIR data a reality for the photon and neutron facilities in Europe by supporting the adoption of FAIR data policies, FAIR data (through standardized metadata and ontologies), data services (Jupyter notebooks and remote analysis), simulation and training. LEAPS facilities aim to participate actively in building the EOSC with the other EOSC science clusters and as members of the EOSC Association.

LENS - League of advanced European Neutron Sources

 

In 2022, LENS published ‘Neutron Science in Europe’, an analysis of the current landscape and future opportunities for neutron facilities ESFRI should refer to for more detail. In the response below, LENS just summarises key points related to the ESFRI questions.

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?

The key concern of LENS partners is the long term sustainability of the European ecosystem of neutron RI. The number of these RI has decreased significantly in recent years due to research reactors stopping operation, so the capacity to support researchers has decreased correspondingly even though the needs for that research have not changed. This situation will be exacerbated by the plan to stop operation of the reactor at the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) by 2033 at the latest. ILL is the largest provider of neutron research capacity and capability in Europe and this needs to be fully exploited for as long as possible. Although the European Spallation Source (ESS) will start user operation around 2026, its initial capacity will be less than half of ILL. 
The priority for LENS after the ILL reactor stops operation is therefore to ensure funding for the optimal exploitation of the larger national facilities MLZ (Germany), ISIS (UK), SINQ (Switzerland) and BNC (Hungary), including upgrades or extensions of their instrument suites. As well as providing much needed capacity and capability this also maximises the research benefits relative to the environmental impact of operation (relevant to question 3 iii). Potential future sources, such as High Current Accelerator driven Neutron Sources (HiCANS) need to be demonstrated in practice.
LENS members will also explore the opportunities for optimisation through further integration of their activities, possibly through a more formal ‘European Laboratory for Neutron Scattering’ consortium.

2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

As described in the response to 1, a gap has developed in the provision of neutron RI. While these facilities are very complementary to others in the broad area of materials characterisation, they have particular capabilities that are not reproduced elsewhere, and are important across a wide range of scientific domains, from engineering to health. 

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:

i.    Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment and energy
ii.    HEU Missions
iii.   Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation

LENS RI have demonstrated their ability to respond to a crisis during the recent pandemic, both in terms of continuing to provide a significant level of research services/support to users, and in terms of directing resources towards the particular research topic of importance. This ability to respond was not surprising. 

(a) Most LENS RI capabilities are intrinsically multi-disciplinary and can be utilised across many scientific domains.  Research priorities can therefore be adjusted either rapidly, e.g. to respond to a crisis, or more slowly as external priorities change, e.g. in response to multi-year Horizon Europe missions. The users of LENS RI also themselves naturally respond to such changes in funding priorities. It is, therefore, not usually necessary to launch particular initiatives or directed programmes – these changes happen ‘naturally’. For example, LENS facilities have always had research programmes related to batteries (energy), but over recent decades this has become a higher proportion of the programme and developed from studies of separate component materials to in-operando studies of real battery systems. 

(b) LENS RI are quite complex technical organisations for which reliable user operation is the highest priority. They have well developed mechanisms for responding to significant internal technical ‘crises’, which can be readily adapted to respond to external ‘crises’.

(c) LENS RI typically operate 24/7 over weeks or months. Most of this operation is outside of normal working hours, so systems have been developed to allow staff to remotely access instrumentation and data. Systems have also been developed to allow users to remotely access and analyse large data sets after their experiments. These systems could be rapidly extended to respond to the particular operating constraints during the pandemic, but we note that offering a high fraction of remote user access is not sustainable in the long term without a significant change to facility staffing levels, and would also have a very negative impact on user training/expertise and engagement. Such a development should be approached with caution. However, the technical systems implemented will enable a broader range of users to participate, some in person and some remotely.  

LERU 

LERU is an association of 23 leading research-intensive universities in Europe. LERU has been active in campaigning for better visibility and support for research infrastructures (RIs) for several years. In 2017, we outlined in our paper Four Golden Principles for Enhancing the Quality, Access and Impact of Research Infrastructures, how the largely untapped potential of smaller and medium sized RIs could be achieved through facility sharing, (transnational) access, international coordination and sustainability. In September 2022, we outlined in our paper Developing a strong, politically and societally relevant research infrastructure ecosystem in Europe our further thoughts on the barriers facing research infrastructures of all sizes.

It was encouraging to see that under the Czech Presidency (1), the role of small and medium-sized RIs, which have so far had a much lower profile than the larger RIs, received the recognition they deserve as vital components of the research ecosystem. LERU was delighted to see that many of the key issues which had been identified as being problematic for universities regarding RIs, were identified as clear action points by the European Council (2, 3). However, it was unclear who would lead on several of the suggestions from the Council conclusions.

We are pleased that ESFRI is carrying out this landscaping study at a time when geopolitical tensions have led to an emphasis on improving European research and industrial competitiveness, on Open Strategic Autonomy, and where the role of RI in addressing the key social and technological questions of our time is unquestioned. We understand that many of the issues covered by the Council Conclusions will be under development, and thus it is perhaps too early to assess our additional thoughts on these issues.

In the interests of limited space, we would like to take the opportunity to highlight several issues which still concern us as universities, several of which we know have been discussed (at least in part) within the Council Conclusions document (4). Should further information be required, we would like to point the reader towards LERU’s papers and statements on RIs (5, 6, 7) or to encourage the reader to contact us directly with any questions they may have.

1. What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem? / 2. What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?
For small and medium-sized RIs, we see two general challenges for the near future that apply for large RIs as well. And they are very closely related to important contributions of RIs to current societal challenges. These are 1) Data management, and 2) Flexibility and Resilience of RIs.

1) Data Management
Large amounts of data are produced in many RIs. It can be expected that the data output will increase further in the future. Data acquisition involves a lot of energy, material consumption and labour. Nevertheless, the data are analyzed most frequently for a single purpose only, although they might contain valuable information for other purposes. Currently, we see that EOSC is not receiving sufficient support from the academic community as there is a lack of understanding of the benefits of FAIR and Open data amongst scientists. The lack of information about existing data sets and the lack of easy usable tools for getting access to data sets are the dominant reasons for the lack of data recycling. In addition, scientists hardly provide their data sets with sufficient metadata to be analyzed without their further assistance by others. In some countries, there is a lack of adequate infrastructure, and lack of joined up approaches in some countries. Consequently, data sets might be stored in discipline specific repositories. But they will not be used except for documenting the published conclusion from the initial research project.

ESFRI funding should provide resources for sustainable data management. This should include defining research-field specific standards about metadata and storage formats, establishing well-known data libraries, developing, and implementing tools to recycle data sets generated by others, clarifying data property rights and data protection rules etc., and finally offering training programs to scientists. The European Commission should provide funding targeted at research-intensive universities to encourage them to develop EOSC-facing programmes both within and outside of RIs.
 

2) Flexibility and resilience of the RIs
The requirements on RIs are driven by societally relevant research questions and technical opportunities. Both evolve rapidly or even by leaps and bounds in a crisis. This has two components: staff and equipment.

RIs must have sufficient and project-independent resources to train their staff constantly at the level of researcher expectations and technical developments. LERU members consider it easier to obtain funding for developing new infrastructures than for the retention and training of their staff, which is ludicrous, given that the expertise of the staff is crucial to the operation of RIs and developing new capabilities and we are pleased that the issue of staffing received a high visibility in the Council Conclusions of December 2022. New models for employing such specialized, skilled staff, and ensuring that they have adequate training and career development options, need further investigation and discussion, as this would help further de-risk investments in RIs.

Finally, it is vital that a RI can respond to equipment needs to ensure it stays at the forefront of developments in its area. LERU has long argued for a long-term sustainable financing streams for RIs, which covers all aspects of an RI’s life, including, if necessary, decommissioning. Universities are challenged by unclear, and inconsistent funding schemes, and how to combine various funding schemes to support an RI. Hence, a sustainable institutional funding is important for the long-term operational effectiveness and quality of services of RIs.

Finally, it is sometimes challenging for some RIs to be open and free for users. There is a stigma around having to pay for access to databases, even though it is necessary to pay for people to maintain and upgrade the RIs. So, whilst open access is of course laudable, it is difficult to provide this if the RI needs to be funded by user subscriptions.

ESFRI funding should provide resources for sustainable expertise and human resource development activities as well as maintenance and renewing of tangible and intangible infrastructure.

3) Other points to note

• Our universities have outlined how it is not easy to find out how to join a RI once it is established. Better information on how universities can join an RI is needed.
• Barriers to the transportation of samples and materials (including live and biological material) should be addressed to improve access to RIs from other countries.

3. How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to crisis, HEU Missions, Green and Digital Transformation

We should enable RIs to respond on changing demands as effectively as possible. To achieve that goal, RIs must have the capacity to respond flexibly and to be resilient.

Many of the major societal challenges of today need to be addressed through an interdisciplinary approach and at a level that exceeds national or regional boundaries. In LERU’s view, there is a great opportunity for Europe to develop an innovative approach to the funding of RIs, one which brings together the natural sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences, where appropriate, to address societal needs, in addition to the largely targeted, disciplinary focus we have seen so far. Effective clustering of RIs with complementary expertise across disciplines would be an effective route to address societal issues.

Given the current geopolitical climate, it is important to ensure that RIs are aware of what information can be shared, when, with whom and how and if they can collaborate with certain institutions.

ESFRI should seek to support the role of RIs as centres of expertise, especially on topics that are controversial in society. It is imperative that sound scientific knowledge remains the basis for policies, realising that this is increasingly questioned by often isolated groups in society.

RIs of all size that operate complex infrastructures will consume significant amount of process energy. However, RIs usually utilize the capacity of infrastructure better than equipment that is placed in a research unit. Thereby, the outsourcing of data acquisition to RIs is an effective measure of green transformation. The avoidance of data acquisition activities is the most effective approach to prevent energy and raw material waste. Therefore, the recycling of existing data sets should be promoted as much as possible.

1. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15429-2022-INIT/en/pdf
2. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15429-2022-INIT/en/pdf 
3. https://www.leru.org/news/bravo-to-the-eus-competitiveness-council-for-r...
4. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15429-2022-INIT/en/pdf
5. https://www.leru.org/publications/four-golden-principles-for-enhancing-t...
6. https://www.leru.org/publications/research-infrastructures 
7. https://www.leru.org/news/bravo-to-the-eus-competitiveness-council-for-r...

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University of Amsterdam • Universitat de Barcelona • University of Cambridge • University of Copenhagen • Trinity College Dublin • University of Edinburgh • University of Freiburg • Université de Genève • Universität Heidelberg • University of Helsinki • Universiteit Leiden • KU Leuven • Imperial College London • University College London • Lund University • University of Milan • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München • University of Oxford • Sorbonne University • Université Paris-Saclay • University of Strasbourg • Utrecht University • University of Zurich

Science Europe

 

Science Europe participates in both the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Stakeholder Forum and European Research Area (ERA) Forum, and was invited to provide strategic considerations to feed into the development of a new RI Landscape Analysis.

Science Europe would like to thank ESFRI for the opportunity to provide our strategic considerations. We consider it vital that all research stakeholders have an opportunity to provide input into the strategic planning of the vital services, resources, and facilities that are encompassed by the term research infrastructures.

Further, Science Europe congratulates ESFRI on the important role it has played over the past decades in providing strategic direction for research infrastructures in Europe. In this way, we would like to emphasize the following areas (structured according to the questions posed in the consultation) as priorities for the European RI ecosystem in the coming years:

What are your priorities regarding the European RI ecosystem?

• The role and importance of national research infrastructures (nationally funded and nationally operated RIs) should be better contextualized within the overall European RI landscape, and more synergies should be developed between national, European, and global research infrastructures. This recommendation was made in a joint project between Science Europe and the OECD-Global Science Forum in 2020 (see here).
• Research infrastructures should consider new and innovative ways to provide access to the services, resources, and facilitates that they offer to the European research community. Virtual access, secondary use (open access), and clustered access are examples of mechanisms that can increase the use and impact of RIs towards the research community. New access pathways must be supported by appropriate training, support, and tools whenever necessary.
• The data, software, code, and tools generated from RIs in Europe are often unique and highly valuable. Research Infrastructures should strongly encourage users (who are often the owners of the data generated) to develop management plans for their activities, and to follow the FAIR principles within a reasonable (and agreed upon) time after projects are completed.
• In order to gain a true understanding of the European RI ecosystem, it is vital that full life cycle analyses of research infrastructures of all sizes and scopes are conducted with a view towards portfolio management that integrates European and national approaches to ensure that sub-optimal investment and usage is avoided.
• Finally, as major advances are being made on policy topics such as research assessment (CoARA – ERA Action 3) and research careers (ERA Action 4), it is important that research infrastructures and ESFRI engages with these initiatives to ensure that research infrastructures remain an attractive and sustainable career option for researchers

What are the gaps and needs for RIs and their services in each domain and across domains?

• Science Europe does not focus particular domain needs, but would like to highlight the role that networking and clustering of RI access and services can play in fostering multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinarity and effective support for the research community across all domains.

• It is important to consider how RIs can collaborate with computing infrastructures (EuroHPC) and open science platforms (EOSC) to offer optimal services to the research community and society at large.

• Across all domains research infrastructures have an important role to play in the open science movement, especially considering the often unique data and tools that derive from them. As noted in the 2022 Brno Declaration, released in connection with the International Conference on Research Infrastructures, RIs play an important role in the implementation of open science policies, contributing to make open science normal, but they also are a key vehicle for the development and implementation of open science policies. This role should be further emphasized.​

How, in your opinion, could RIs best contribute to:
Finding solutions to the crises: RIs in support of crisis management but also their own increased resilience when faced with crises caused by natural and man-made hazards such as health, environment, and energy.

• In 2021, Science Europe partnered with the OECD Global Science Forum, and organised a virtual workshop on “Research Infrastructure mobilisation in response to COVID-19: lessons learned”. The workshop report provides a summary of the key messages and conclusions, many of which are broadly relevant to crisis management in general, and the role that RIs can play.
• The workshop highlighted the important role that research infrastructures play within the research ecosystem, and the important roles that many of these facilities, services, and resources take beyond their primary focus: a fact that has been clearly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Research infrastructures not only contribute to the science-led response to societal challenges as they arise, but also our preparedness for them. This preparedness arises from effective long-term planning and support and international collaboration. The research infrastructure sector is strengthened when clear strategies are put in place that include, for instance, life-cycle approaches to research infrastructure support and funding, and national and international roadmaps that prevent unnecessary duplication, foster collaboration, and promote diversity. effective support for research infrastructures at both national and international levels is key to the provision of services both under normal conditions and in emergency situations

Green and digital transition, also through their own transformation.

• Science Europe, together with other research organisations, recently launched a Call to Action for Net-Zero Transition. Only acting together, we can tackle the climate crisis. The first step is to reduce our own emissions. For this reason, we believe that all research organisations should, first, appraise their carbon footprint adopting a life-cycle approach (i.e., they should also consider the emissions generated by their suppliers) and then develop and implement strategies towards climate-sustainability. Research infrastructures should be part of this challenge, not just to face the energy crisis, but in a broader perspective.
• Research funding and performing organisations should all act together towards Net-Zero. Science Europe plans to work with our members who already engaged in the appraisal of their carbon footprint to identify principles and methodologies to guide also other research organisations and research infrastructures.

Once again, Science Europe would like to thank ESFRI for the opportunity to provide input to this important process. We look forward to continuing to work together to ensure that Research Infrastructures operate in optimal conditions to support research, researchers, and society.