Report on the Consultation on Long Term Sustainability of Research Infrastructures

Research infrastructures are one of the key elements for the development and the improvement of knowledge and technology in the European context. Commissioner Moedas affirmed in his Mission Statement that: “Improving research infrastructure and making better use of research results is essential to strengthen innovation further, develop new activities and boost the productivity and competitiveness of our economy”. The Informal Competitiveness Council of July 2014 highlighted the importance of long-term sustainability of RI, stressing that open access to RI and data, better links with industry and prioritisation based on a multi-level approach (national, European and international level) were key to ensure sustainability. Furthermore, RI need a long-term perspective for their construction and operation. Building on the achievements of the European Research Area and the Innovation Union flagship initiative, there is now a need to identify the next steps for a more comprehensive approach and vision on the long-term sustainability of RI, fully using their potential to deliver on the Commission priorities on open innovation, open science and open to the world. Given these premises, from 2nd December 2015 to 1st February 2016, the Commission opened an online Consultation on Long-term sustainability of Research Infrastructures with RI stakeholders, receiving 200 answers. The aim of this targeted consultation was to collect key stakeholders’ views on the interrelated pre-conditions that could ensure the long-term sustainability of RI and the potential actions/measures to tackle the challenges posed by their implementation. The pre-identified pre-conditions are Ensuring Scientific excellence, Skills of managers, operators and users, Unlocking Innovation potential of RI, Measuring socio-economic impact of RI, Exploiting better the data generated by the RI, RI Life cycle – Upgrading of RI, RI Life cycle – Decommissioning of RI, Ensuring sustainable governance of RI, Funding the construction and operation of RI and Structuring the international dimension of RI. For every pre-condition, the consultation provided a short explanation and a brief description of the issues at stake and possible actions. The communities targeted by the consultation were ERA stakeholders, ESFRI projects and ERICs, ESFRI delegations/ PC members, e-IRG, EIROforum, International Organizations, RI associations (e.g. ERF), NCPs (dissemination within key stakeholders), and Science attaches from strategic third country partners. Data were collected with an online semi-standardized questionnaire, i.e. with a mix of close-ended and open-ended questions. The qualitative open-ended questions addressed the most relevant topics in the survey, i.e. the measures to tackle the challenges posed by the pre-conditions for sustainability; this type of questions allowed interviewees to freely express their considerations in their own words allowing therefore for the possibility to deepen their answers with personal opinions and experiences. The response rate to the consultation was very high as was also the level of detail provided by the respondents in the open questions. This has positively impacted both on the quality and on the reliability of the consultation results. The responses have been subsequently analysed with the support of an external. An overview of the initial findings of the consultation was already presented on the occasion of the ESFRI Roadmap 2016 Update Launch event that took place on 10 March 2016 in Amsterdam. The final purpose of this consultation was to derive the main trends on RI sustainability, as perceived by the targeted communities, on which basis elements of an action plan can be developed in concertation with the main stakeholders. Therefore, this report presents such trends extracted from the responses received by the Commission services during the consultation. The report provides an overview of the methodology used for consultation, the profile of the respondents and a summary of the survey results