Suchergebnisse

Enhance expertise in European research infrastructures
Marialuisa Lavitrano, Full Professor at University Milano Bicocca, explores the need for a European School for the Management of Research Infrastructure to enhance expertise in European research infrastructure management. European Research Infrastructures (RI) are complex organisations that offer the research communities access to cutting-edge resources, data, and services to conduct research and foster innovation in their fields. RIs include major scientific equipment (or sets of instruments), knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives, and scientific data, e-infrastructures, such as data and computing systems and communication networks, and other tools and services essential to achieving excellence in research and innovation. RI span the whole spectrum of knowledge from social sciences to astrophysics, including environmental sciences and large-scale infrastructures.

In 20 articles experts from research, politics and research management discuss current challenges and future advancements of European research infrastructures for the humanities and social sciences, particularly in view of the funding scheme Horizon 2020 and the ESRFI Roadmap update. Starting with an overview of SSH infrastructures it elaborates on four specific areas that increasingly demand a pan-European approach. Drawing from the SSH infrastructure projects´ experience, it then (re-) defines the requirements and potential for next generation infrastructure projects. They highlight the developments and problems they anticipate, focussing in particular on advancing digitalisation in the SSH. The book draws together the insights gained at a conference of the same name, "Facing the Future", held in Berlin in November 2013. The conference was attended by 70 experts from 19 European countries who met to discuss the new challenges posed by the increasing necessity of integrating digital research tools into everyday working life. It was organised by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the federation of All European Academies (ALLEA), the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and the German Data Forum. It took place as part of a project financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) entitled Survey and Analysis of Basic Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Europe (SASSH).

The pan-European distributed Research Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition (METROFOOD-RI) has evolved in the frame of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) to promote high-quality metrology services across the food chain. The METROFOOD-RI comprises physical facilities and electronic facilities. The former includes Reference Material plants and analytical laboratories (the 'Metro' side) and also experimental fields/farms, processing/storage plants and kitchen-labs (the 'Food' side). The RI is currently prepared to apply for receiving the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) legal status and is organised to fulfil the requirements for operation at the national, European Union (EU) and international level. In this view, the METROFOOD-RI partners have recently reviewed the scientific plan and elaborated strategic priorities on key thematic areas of research in the food and nutrition domain to which they have expertise to contribute to meet global societal challenges and face unexpected emergencies. The present review summarises the methodology and main outcomes of the research study that helped to identify the key thematic areas from a metrological standpoint, to articulate critical and emerging issues and demands and to structure how the integrated facilities of the RI can operate in the first five years of operation as ERIC.

The pan-European distributed Research Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition (METROFOOD-RI) has evolved in the frame of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) to promote high-quality metrology services across the food chain. The METROFOOD-RI comprises physical facilities and electronic facilities. The former includes Reference Material plants and analytical laboratories (the 'Metro' side) and also experimental fields/farms, processing/storage plants and kitchen-labs (the 'Food' side). The RI is currently prepared to apply for receiving the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) legal status and is organised to fulfil the requirements for operation at the national, European Union (EU) and international level. In this view, the METROFOOD-RI partners have recently reviewed the scientific plan and elaborated strategic priorities on key thematic areas of research in the food and nutrition domain to which they have expertise to contribute to meet global societal challenges and face unexpected emergencies. The present review summarises the methodology and main outcomes of the research study that helped to identify the key thematic areas from a metrological standpoint, to articulate critical and emerging issues and demands and to structure how the integrated facilities of the RI can operate in the first five years of operation as ERIC.

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has been created to advise the Competitiveness Council of the European Union on the needs and opportunities to build a strong Research Infrastructure (RI) system, covering all domains of research, providing the most advanced tools that cannot be realized at national level, and that must be accessible to all strongly motivated researchers in order to increase the European science competitiveness.

The increased availability of advanced automation and communication technology, along with novel intelligent solutions for system operation has transformed the traditional power system into a cyber-physical energy system – a smart grid. In this context research and technology development are important to turn the existing energy infrastructure into a sustainable one. A major role in all these developments are research infrastructures in the domain of power and energy systems. This presentation provides an overview of achievements, experiences and lessons learned from European smart grid and distributed energy resources research infrastructure projects gained over more than a decade so far.

This report constitutes Deliverable 2.1 'Futuring briefing note 1: The future policy research agenda of an EU Inclusive Growth Research Infrastructure', for Work Package 2 'Research Infrastructure strategic forum' of the InGRID project. The central question of this report is: "What are challenges that the European research community on inclusive growth needs to address to develop a European research infrastructure which will foster evidence-based policy making?" Aiming to get a broad view on this issue, a purposive, non-probability sample of European experts within different academic fields related to issues of inclusive growth was surveyed. The mainly qualitative analysis of the survey responses let to the identification of four main challenges (data, methods, the gap between policy and research and the research context) and four main recommendations linked to this: (1) Data should be the main priority: more and better data are necessary for high-quality comparative research in Europe. (2) The improvement of methods and researchers' (methodological) skills must go hand in hand with more and better data. (3) Bridging the gap between policy and research is a challenge to be tackled both by policy makers and researchers. (4) A research context that encourages cooperation and innovation and provides the necessary resources should be stimulated. Progressing towards a European research infrastructure on inclusive growth starts with a strong focus on the data, but goes hand in hand with the development and improvement of methods, training and knowledge exchange on these data and methods and community building which includes not only the European researchers from different disciplines, but other relevant stakeholders as well and in addition to that investing (efforts and money) in building bridges and a collaborative climate between policy makers and researchers.

For years, pan European research infrastructures (RIs) and large-scale national facilities have contributed to the excellence of the Union's science base. In European programmes, they were firmly nested in the Pillar dedicated to scientific excellence and supported though a dedicated work programme. In addition, they have contributed to training, innovation, and partly also to the other pillars of the programme, such as the one addressing societal challenges. ESFRI, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, since 2002, has been supervising the establishment and development of a Pan-European Research Infrastructures landscape. So far, this has led to a pooling of national resources in excess of 10 billion EUR. The field even got a dedicated regulation, the ERIC Regulation, a rarity in the domain of research and innovation, which is otherwise largely based on soft law, such as Council Conclusions. Today, the European approach to the field of research infrastructures is rightfully considered a huge success, managed jointly at EU level, in collaboration with Member States and associated countries through the European Research Area (ERA). At the onset of the next European research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, due to start on 2021, not much appears to have changed for research infrastructures, as compared to the current funding programme, Horizon 2020. They have their dedicated chapter of the programme in Pillar I dedicated to scientific excellence, aimed at supporting similar activities for a similar amount of funding. While not much has changed for this Pillar, there are significant changes across the rest of Horizon Europe. Most relevant to this discussion is its emphasis on delivering on the needs of society, largely reflected in Pillar II, called Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, through its five clusters, dedicated to societal challenges, including Digital and Industry. European partnerships[1]will have much more prominent role than in the current programme. ...

Wind energy is becoming one of the leading sources of power in Europe. The installed capacity increases each year, with the offshore wind gradually evolving with even more significant potential than onshore [1]. This growing tendency has also been promoting a more extensive research effort in this area, pushed by the climatic crisis that has also driven political support from multiple nations across Europe. Wind energy has employed over 250 thousand EU citizens and contributed to around 10% of European electrical consumption. Although high milestones have been achieved, there is still much room to grow in the wind energy sector, particularly cost reduction.The WindScanner.pt project aims to create a European distributed research infrastructure based on high precision sensors able to analyze fluid dynamics in tridimensional volumes, offering the ability to understand atmospheric conditions and turbulence better. This asset will not only allow better assessment of the wind conditions. Still, it will also enable the evaluation of projects in other areas where fluid dynamics are relevant, such as civil engineering and the building industry, by scanning the surroundings of large structures such as bridges and viaducts and measuring structure oscillations [3]. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion