InRoad Final Report: Main findings and recommendations.

Abstract

Europe benefits from a very rich and diverse Research Infrastructure (RI) landscape. This landscape is spread over the 28 Member States of the European Union and a series of countries associated to the European framework programmes for research and innovation. Investigating this landscape, from the regional to the European level, is a fascinating endeavour. The diversity of existing practices for deciding which RIs to fund, how to fund them and how to run them can of course threaten the efficiency and the sustainability of the landscape. After spending two years in the context of InRoad looking into the details of these practices, I was surprised how dynamic this environment is, with a constant evolution of practices and models, but also how little was known or shared about national processes. Naturally, InRoad has not limited itself to looking and describing national RI funding and decision- making processes. The project has also put forward a series of recommendations and good practices to be debated in view of enhancing coordination within the RI landscape in Europe. It is now up to the broad and diverse community addressed in the following report to take those practices forward and implement them in the respective contexts. The initial idea beyond the InRoad project came from a series of activities undertaken by the Science Europe working group on RIs between 2014 and 2016, summarised in the report ‘Strategic Priorities, Funding and Pan-European Co-operation for Research Infrastructures in Europe’. Since then, the political landscape has advanced significantly, due to the work done on the long-term sustainability of RI by the European Commission, the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the OECD and others. All these debates have been (and still are) taking place while InRoad was conducting surveys, interviews and expert workshops on the matter. InRoad always has taken an open and proactive stance with respect to these developments and has offered a platform of exchange and shared its draft insights to stimulate the debates. I sincerely hope that the recommendations and good practices listed in this document will further nurture the debate around RI long-term sustainability and contribute to a more efficient and integrated European Research Area.