RI-VIS D3.1 First outreach and partnering event

International cooperation in science and technology is an important part of addressing major global issues like climate change, infectious disease, food security, and natural disasters. Research infrastructures (RIs) are organizations that enable scientists to use specific facilities, resources, and expertise to enable and accelerate scientific achievements, overcome boundaries, train highly skilled specialists, and promote sustainable research. Fostering RI partnerships across borders has the potential to improve the efficiency and quality of research to tackle the many challenges faced by society today. RI-VIS organises the symposia in three different world regions (Africa, Latin America, Australia) to bring together delegates from Research Infrastructures (RIs), science policy organisations and research institutions to discuss opportunities and challenges for RI cooperation between Europe and the respective target region. The aim of these symposia is to raise awareness of individual RIs, to identify measures to mitigate current challenges of international cooperation between RIs, to initiate new and strengthening existing collaborations, and to initiate networks in a sustainable way so that all stakeholders benefit. The first of these three international symposia was the ‘Africa-Europe Symposium on Research Infrastructures – Exploring collaborations between Africa and Europe’, which was held as a digital meeting on February 1-2, 2021