Effective Policies for Research Infrastructure: The role of foresight

The article discusses five policy challenges which call for a radical overhaul of the hitherto decision-making practices towards research infrastructures (RIs). It argues that foresight is a relevant policy tool to support these changes, by presenting major features of foresight. Then several policy issues concerning establishing and upgrading research infrastructures are discussed, which can be tackled by foresight, such as policy-co-ordination; use of existing RIs; future needs vs. existing RIs; human resources to operate RIs and exploit RI services. Finally, practical policy recommendations – stemming from the ForeIntegra project, on which this article draws on – are presented, addressing EU-level and national STI policy-makers