Today we had the second meeting of the Focus Group #1 “How can ILOs and ICOs interact, learn from each other and collaborate?”

In our first meeting, we covered what ILOs & ICOs can learn from each other and how to improve the interaction with industry. During today session, we managed to discuss the following topics:

• Training Programmes for ILOs and ICOs;
• Future organisations of ILOs and ICOs such as PERIIA, ENRIITC or other;
• Proposals of common projects, actions;
• Others: Barriers for the collaboration among ILOs & ICOs, KPIs to measure ILOs/ICOs performances.

Today’s discussion was very lively and fruitful and both, ICOs and ILOs, have shared their experiences as well as their training needs. In addition to this, different organisational models were put on the table and everyone agreed and recognised the importance of ENRIITC activities  for boosting this collaboration.

A third meeting is meant to be organised in late May, to discuss and properly conclude the Forum Group #1.   During that last meeting, the FG#1 will also give feedback about the outcome on ENRIITC strategy.

In the meantime, the FG#1 will also produce a written report on the “Practical step-by-step guide”, that will be delivered at the end of April.

We hope that this exchange of ideas will help us to propose a package of solutions, not only to better address the training needs of ILOS & ICOs, but also to empower the collaboration between them through different organisational models.

A huge thanks to those ones who have been with us today!

#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 2 has been a staple of our Thursdays and this session was especially impactful, like the title already suggested. We had the pleasure of having a virtual coffee with Elina Griniece from the European Future Innovation System Centre. 

After our traditional coffee mug group photo, the session opened with a presentation by Elina on performance of research infrastructures (RIs) and their socioeconomic impact measuring, in the example of the Research Infrastructure imPact Assessment paTHwayS (RI PATHS) project. “I think everybody involved in this topic acknowledges it’s quite complex because socioeconomic impact is essentially about understanding and tracing interactions,” says Elina. 

In short, the aim of RI PATHS was to develop a comprehensive framework to understand and scope socioeconomic impact of all types of RIs. The mission of the project was to give policymakers, funders and RI managers tangible tools to assess impact on the economy and contribution to society. 

One of the key terms is impact pathway, which is the understanding of causal chains: how resources invested and activities carried out in RIs led to direct results or ‘output’. The challenge of impact pathways is that when those long–term outcomes diffuse in society, through all the activities and interactions, it is already out of the control and influence of RI management. 

Impact pathways are not linear but rather intertwined networks of causes and effects. Elina described the pathways as a tree, where resources and activities are the roots. The trunk is output that directly stems from the resources i.e. roots. Then it branches out to various longer term outcomes and impact is comparable to leaves and blossoms. 

All in all, the key contribution from the RI PATHS project was that, through nine interactive workshops with a wide range of RIs, a total of 13 generic impact pathways (or logical chains) were identified and gathered in an online toolkit. “There’s still a long way to go in order to better understand details of impact. And while that aim was achieved, the toolbox is more of a guide into the topic,” Elina says.  

Next Elina wanted to ignite the impact assessment process in the audience by outlining the first three steps as an exercise: 

1. Prerequisite: Internal understanding and management support for impact assessment activities. If this analysis is successful, it can also be a great communication tool because the value of RI can be phrased better, even beyond science.  
2. Each RI needs to develop an impact assessment framework tailored to their uniqueness. What are the exact impact pathways in a specific RI. Elina adds that this knowledge comes through cooperation within an RI. 
3. Setting up appropriate monitoring and data collections systems. Elina added that many RIs are already in the phase, where they know what their main socioeconomic impacts are, and actually know a lot about their impact pathways. Next step from there is setting up appropriate monitoring and data collection systems to gather data that’s relevant for this exercise. 

The discussion was promptly initiated by Allen Weeks with a great addition to the presentation: While he noticed that over the last 2 years there has been a great leap on the topic of impact pathways, the main question remains – how do we continue with this? Allen believes it is not a one-off enterprise, but is evolving into a discipline. In his mind it would be a regular part of a discussion in meeting rooms, it doesn’t matter if it is CERN or any other RI. 

The next addition was added by one of our regular coffee ENRIITCers, Michele Baron, who indicated that at the core of possibly every RI is Return Of Investment (or ROI). He then asked, what is the difference between impact and cost-benefit assessment? Elina responded with understanding the need to quantify, but cost-benefit is only one side of it and understanding the broader impact is also a way of quantifying.  

Michele swiftly pointed out that a common definition of impacts is certainly needed and Elina added that this is an ongoing discussion, to which the RI PATHS project was a battleground of sorts. It was noted that the average politician pays more attention to the cost–benefits than on the impact in society. Elina admits that this has always been the case, but during the project they noticed there is a need and a start in the shift in the discourse. “It’s not always the quantification that’s necessary. You also need the quantification on meaning attached to it.” 

Sophie Pireaux took the discussion further and shared links to the brochure on the matters of socioeconomic impact with the group. She agreed with Elina that impact is broader than cost benefits but both are useful. Sophie also noted that as a council representative, the questions have moved further from just numbers to a broader impact, which is a positive shift. 

Corinne Martin from ELIXIR worked with Elina on the RI PATHS project and admitted that while she initially had grand ideas, she soon had to scale back to issues closer to home such as research efficiency, making things faster, easier for the users of our services. 

“It was about relationship capital because we are an RI of people beyond data. It was about human capital, European people, their skills, providing training and so on. And of course this can lead to socioeconomic impact if you follow a very long pathway of impact.”

Corinne also expressed that as a scientist, she was worried about data, but impact can also be quantified by measuring perceptions, which are equally important.  

Allen Weeks ended with a truly insightful thought: the discussion should move beyond from a cost-benefit idea since from an economic perspective it’s not always easy make a strong argument for an RI like it is for a company because RIs don’t operate in the same sphere as a company. 

“Like the tree: you can measure and count the number of leaves on the tree, but maybe the impact is if the acorns fall and did other trees grow? Is there a shaded area under the tree where other plants could grow?” 

While our session was also visited by a passing troll, it might just show that our virtual coffees are starting to have a bigger impact.  

#ENRIITCyourCoffee will return with Episode 8 “Training Opportunities for ILOs” on 18 March at 15:00 CET. That session will be led by Sylwia Wójtowicz, ILO for CERN and F4E. Registration is open here, and you can check out our LinkedIn group here. 

Register for the RI.Logistica conference today and be part of an unparalleled international forum that will impact how research infrastructures deal with logistics in the future.

The RI.Logistica conference is an online event designed for research infrastructures (RIs), their users and collaborators, companies in the supply chain management, and governmental authorities to discuss all aspects of logistics critical for research facilities and laboratories. It will take place on 19-20 May 2021.

Whether you are a user office manager who coordinates the remote access of scientists, a professional working at a logistics company, a user of different RIs, an RI service provider, or staff responsible for the handling of deliveries at a research infrastructure, RI.Logistica is for you. You can check the programme and register on the event website here.

The conference offers a unique opportunity to engage with and learn from supply chain experts who will share proven solutions that have allowed their businesses to streamline planning processes, harness data management software to automatise and track deliveries, and optimise cross-border transportation of goods that require customs clearance.

The leading theme and primary goal of RI.Logistica is to help science get in place.

The event aims to facilitate the transfer of know-how from the logistics industry to the RI landscape of Europe and establish a new forum for best practice exchange. By doing so, RI.Logistica will support research infrastructures in developing in-house expertise that will allow them to address any logistical challenge by building on well-established processes deployed and tested by the industrial world. In research, these challenges may vary from the shipment of tiny samples invisible to the naked eye, to transportation of vaccines under strict temperature conditions, and moving of giant scientific equipment across continents.

The fifth episode of Season 2 of #ENRIITCyourCoffee has taken place. It was a fantastic session on the topic of “What is innovation procurement and why is it important?”

Anne-Charlotte Joubert opened the virtual gathering with an interactive Mentimeter presentation to gauge the knowledge and expectations of the group. She asked whether people are familiar with the innovation procurement policy of the European Commission. It was quickly established that the majority of the group were not familiar with the policy.

Anne-Charlotte then handed over the floor to Stephan Corvers who is the founder and owner of Corvers Commerical and Legal Affairs, and has over 25 years of experience in European public procurement law. Stephan began by giving an introduction to “European Assistance For Innovation Procurement”, or “eafip” for short. He explained that eafip is an initiative financed by the European Commission for providing local assistance to public procurers for starting new innovation procurement and for promoting good practices and reinforcing the evidence base on completed innovation procurements. He then went through the eafip outreach activities before handing the floor over to Dr Ana Isabel Peiró Baquedano (Anabel).

Anabel is a Legal Procurement Consultant from Corvers with extensive research experience at various universities in Europe, including Milan, Trento, Munich and Münster. Anabel then went through the step-by-step methodology that has been successfully implemented across Europe and is backed up by the European Commission.

Anabel talked about the iPlytics platform that can be used for swift assessment, and then she presented the main steps of innovation procurement. These are:

• Step 1: Needs identification and assessment.
• Step 2: Prior art analysis and IPR search.
• Step 3: Analysis of the standards landscape.
• Step 4: Open market consultations.
• Step 5: business case value calculations.

Anabel concluded her section with a step-by-step overview of the eafip methodology and defining the procurement strategy based on TRL.

The session then opened up to the group for questions. It became clear that there is a strong need for innovation procurement.

You can watch the recording below to find out more, or head over to the “#ENRIITCyourNetwork” LinkedIn group to continue the discussion: www.linkedin.com/groups/8992845

Tune in next week for a special episode on “The role of industry in technology development and testing at RIs” led by Dr Claudia Pfander, Industry Board Coordinator at Euro-BioImaging. Find out more and register to attend here: https://enriitc.eu/event/enriitcyourcoffee-season-2-episode-6-the-role-of-industry-in-technology-development-and-testing-at-ris/

We had another fantastic #ENRIITCyourCoffee session today on ”The role of a Scientific Service Provider in collaboration between RIs and Industry: the case of Finden ltd”.

After the trademark coffee cup group photo at the start, Dr Uwe Sassenberg (Scientific Officer at Desy and project coordinator of the CAROTS project) began by playing an overview video of “Scientific Service Companies”. Uwe then guided the group through the effects of scientific service companies for industry. He talked about there being a lower risk for industry as there is a guarantee that only successful measurements are paid for. Additional benefits presented were that there is less effort required to draft contracts (compared to RIs or universities), it is a quicker procedure (e.g. access to RI) and there is greater flexibility in booking additional services (e.g. sample preparation, evaluation and interpretation).

Uwe then talked about what scientific service companies bring to RIs. His suggestions included less support effort, reoccurring users, recurring contacts, further development of measurement methods and improved implementation of mission-oriented research results.

In the final section of his discussion, Uwe went through the effects of scientific service companies for the innovation system and regional development. Ideas such as reduced brain drain, better use of existing resources, better interaction between industry, RI and universities and the filling of gaps in the innovation of SMEs, for example.

Simon Jacques CEO of Finden Ltd then joined the coffee table. He has 20 years experience in inventing and developing methods for materials characterisation and in the creation of in-situ methods, chemical imaging and software development for high throughput data processing. Finden have been offering advanced characterisation and analysis for many years and apply tailored methods on a one-to-one basis by assigning experts from a pool of technicians and researchers to meet the needs of their projects.

Simon talked about how Finden help businesses fast track services to industry. He presented the markets where Finden offer their services, and a few example projects including an emission abatement technology project that had direct positive societal impact. He the talked about X-ray diffraction computed tomography that displays the chemistry of an object. A take-home message throughout was that everyone wins with the mediators being present.

The session then opened up to the floor with questions and comments about who is paying for the services, symbiotic relationships and advantages of having a service provider involved.

The session ended as it began: with Uwe giving a thought-provoking analogy. Unlike the ‘Covid-hairdresser’ at the start, the session ended with his (now infamous) ‘cow needing milk’ analogy. Watch the recording to find out more or head over to the “#ENRIITCyourNetwork” LinkedIn group to continue the discussion: www.linkedin.com/groups/8992845

Tune in next week for a special episode on “What is innovation procurement and why is it important?” led by Mr. Stephan CORVERS, founder and owner of Corvers Commerical and Legal Affairs, and Dr. Ana Isabel (Anabel) PEIRÓ BAQUEDANO, legal procurement consultant at Corvers.

Find out more here: https://enriitc.eu/event/enriitcyourcoffee-season-2-episode-5-what-is-innovation-procurement-and-why-is-it-important/