Communication guidelines for European research infrastructures: engaging with stakeholders in Latin America

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©  RI-VIS

This guideline document aims to provide European research infrastructure (EU RI) Communication Officers and other RI stakeholders with tools and recommendations to develop communication strategies to effectively engage with Latin American stakeholders. It was designed to serve as a roadmap for developing context-appropriate communications with Latin American stakeholders, in view of increasing RI visibility to target audiences and to make RIs more ‘findable’ on the web (and on their respective websites, with clear information regarding international collaboration or other opportunities).

Developed as part of the Horizon 2020-funded RI-VIS project (https://ri-vis.eu), the document is based on a survey, which was filled out by 26 respondents from: Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. The main takeaways from the survey include the desire for collaborative approaches, including, but not limited to, staff exchanges and training, and the need to consider limited funding opportunities when reaching out to potential targets. It does not seem realistic to consider Latin American stakeholders as another (future) potential market for EU RI services, whereby services would be paid for at full market cost; alternative, more collaborative approaches, based on local context and needs, may thus be more appropriate.

Some respondents indicated difficulty knowing how to reach out to EU RI stakeholders and ensure timely follow-up. This highlights the need for EU RIs to have appropriate outreach strategies in place, with pre-identified contact points and a process for responding to inquiries (in addition to seeking collaboration).

Check out the complete document here!

ENRIITC Consortium mentioned in the ESFRI Roadmap 2021!

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© ESFRI.EU

The ESFRI Roadmap contains probably the best European science facilities based on a thorough evaluation and selection procedure. It combines ESFRI Projects, which are new research infrastructures in progress towards implementation, and ESFRI Landmarks, successfully implemented Research Infrastructures. The document also describes the broader Landscape of research in Europe which is an important component to ESFRI methodology.

It is composed by 4 main sections, which are:

Within the section N2 (Landscape analysis), it’s provided the the current context of the most relevant Research Infrastructures that are available to European scientists and to technology developers typically through peer review of competitive proposals. Along with the advanced analysis of the scientific needs and existing Research Infrastructure gaps as well as directions for strategic investments in the future that would help maintain Europe’s leadership in the global context, the ENRIITC Consortium is mentioned!

“We also would like to notice the ENRIITC Consortium, which presently brings together 11 actors among which EMSO ERIC , EATRIS, ESRF – The European Synchrotron, European Spallation Source ERIC, & CLARIN ERIC. This consortium brings together actors from industry & RIs and can have important socio-economic impacts. It is also a forum for RIs to exchange experience and good practices“.

The new ERA concept as an interconnected environment of which RIs are an important element is not restricted only to research, it extends also to other areas like education, innovation, health and public welfare, and others. While interconnecting research with other policy domains and by contributing to broader EU agendas, RIs are kernels of sustainable economic development, territorial cohesion in Europe, and an important element of international cooperation.

To learn more and to browse the Roadmap, click here!

 

#ENRIITCyourCoffee S4 E11: The VINNOVA Innovation Scheme

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Welcome to the recap of the #ENRIITCyourCoffee season 4 episode 11, dedicated to Vinnova, Sweden’s Government Innovation agency.

Anne-Charlotte Joubert opened the episode by welcoming the participants and introducing Maria Öhman, program manager at Vinnova, who hosted the session and gave us an overview about the organisation and their funding scheme: “Industrial Pilot Projects.”

Vinnova is a Swedish governmental agency under the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation and is the national contact authority for the EU framework programme for research and innovation. With its 200 employees, Vinnova aims to build Sweden’s innovation capacity and make Sweden an innovative force in a sustainable world.

The areas that they hold as a priority are as follows:

  • Smart cities;
  • Next generation travel and transport;
  • Circular and bio-based economy;
  • Life Science;
  • Connected Industry and new materials.

Designed in 2018 in the context of MAX IV and ESS being established in Lund SE, the Industrial Pilot Project funding scheme aims to increase awareness on how industrial R&I can benefit from the capacity at neutron and synchrotron facilities. To see the requirements for submitting a proposal, please few Maria’s presentation here.

Since its start, 105 Pilot projects have been funded, including more than 80 individual needs-owning companies. The public End-of-project report, which has already been disseminated and is publicly available in a PDF format here, describes industrial challenges, motivation for using LSRIs, brief descriptions of choice of experimental station/facility, as well as results, expected impact and contact data to company and expert.

Maria concluded the session highlighting the Vinnova LSRIs and expert support, who come from more than 15 different organisation and increased the capacity of intermediaries with competence and knowledge to identify and assist in both the “real need” and the “right solution”.

 Click here to download Vinnova presentation!

The recording of the session can be viewed in full below.

Horizon Europe NCP Portal

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© Horizon Europe NCP Portal

The National Contact Points are support structures established by Member States (MS) and Associated Countries (AC) and recognized by the European Commission (EC) in order to help participants to access the different EU Programme opportunities. For Horizon Europe there will be 16 NCP different functions apart from the NCP national coordinator, giving support to participants across the different parts of the programme.

This “Horizon Europe NCP Portal” aims to offer both NCPs and participants access to the vast knowledge, support tools and services that NCPs develop to support the wide participation in Horizon Europe.

The mission of this portal is to serve as a stable entry point during the whole duration of the programme, complementing the official Funding and Tender Portal.

While you will find the official information to participate in Horizon Europe in the Funding and Tender Portal, what you will find here are useful tools and services, developed by NCPs, that offer you an added value support to participate in the different parts of Horizon Europe, under an intuitive and easy-to-navigate portal.

Read more here!

How the EU space programme could deliver bigger economic impact

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© SCIENCE BUSINESS | Florin Zubașcu

A report commissioned by the ITRE committee says small companies should tap EU funds to develop new products and services, strengthening Europe’s space industry and reinforcing its global competitiveness.

The EU should do more to help member states and small companies take up space data and technology, so that Europe’s public investment in space projects can return economic value, a new report commissioned by the European Parliament’s research and industry committee (ITRE) has concluded.

The Commission has made a move in this direction with the launch of a knowledge centre on earth observation, which is intended to make better use of the geo-referenced satellite data generated by the Copernicus system. However, experts say the Commission needs to make more effort to encourage the public and private sectors to use space data and technologies.

Read more here

How should we share research data?

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© CESSDA

The Research Council of Norway has published a report and recommendations about licensing and making research data available. The report refers to chapter five of the CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide (DMEG) on several occasions and lists the DMEG in its list of useful resources (p. 39):

  • “An overview of the diversity of copyright protection in different European jurisdictions has been prepared by CESSDA.” (p. 34)
  • “CESSDA’s resource page on informed consent describes examples of ‘granular consent’.” (p. 37)

The complete final report is available here!

3rd Call for Affiliated Big Science Organisations

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BSBF2022 welcomes more expressions of interest from Big Science Organisations in Europe to become BSBF2022 Affiliated Big Science Organisations!

In order to strengthen the concept of Big Science as a market place, the organisers hereby open a third and final call for expressions of interest to become an Affiliated Big Science Organisation.

Eligible institutions are European or large national Big Science organisations that procure European-wide or internationally, and with tenders published in English language. Those interested institutions can download the text and conditions of the third Call for ABSOs here.

The envisaged group of Affiliated Big Science Organisations are facilities that have an interest in communication with industry regarding collaboration, upcoming business opportunities and procurements that are open for European industry in the period 2022-2026.

Selected Affiliated Big Science Organisations will participate in two specially designed parallel sessions for Affiliated Big Science Organisation on 5 and 6 October 2022.

Please send your expressions of interest with the heading “Affiliated Big Science Organisation” before 31 March 2022 to bsbf2022@cdti.es.

#ENRIITCyourCoffee S4 E10: Meet the ENRIITC your Industry Outreach winners!

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Welcome to the recap of the #ENRIITCyourCoffee season 4 episode 10, dedicated to the Associates who applied to the ENRIITC your Industry Outreach event call and were selected for funding!

For those who may be unaware, the ENRIITC your Industry Outreach call was launched in April 2021 with the aim of supporting research infrastructures engagement with industry, using the ENRIITC training programme for such events as a basis.

The call officially closed on 31 August 2021 and, after undergoing a careful evaluation process conducted by the ENRIITC Steering Board five Associate applications were selected for funding: CLARIN ERIC & DARIAH ERIC (joint application), EMBRC, ESO (Swiss Industry Liaison Office), INEUSTAR and INSTRUCT ERIC. These organisations were invited to present their event proposals to the ENRIITC community during a dedicated #ENRIITCyourCoffee session.

Javier Echavarri Delmas, the Spanish ILO for CERN and SKA and co-leader of task 2.3 and 4.2 for the ENRIITC project, opened the episode by giving an overview of the ENRIITC your Industry Outreach call, and well as introducing the winning Associate organisations and their representatives participating during the session.

The first Event proposal presented was from DARIAH-EU & CLARIN ERIC, dedicated to SSH Research Infrastructures as interfaces between research, industry and non-academic partners. Francesca Morselli, Integration Officer at DARIAH-ERIC, and Iulianna van der Lek, Training and Education Officer at CLARIN ERIC, gave us an overview about the event which is meant to take place in Utrecht (NL) early March 2022.

The format will allow either onsite or online participation, and the attendees will have the chance to meet representatives from non-academic partners, RIs in the SSH domain and all relevant networks. The main aims of this event will be:

o   Mapping the service-offer and the needs of non-academic partners based on previous collaborations with RIs;

o   Mapping the service offer and the skills that the SSH RIs staff need to reach out beyond academia.

The episode continued next with the EMBRC presentation. Their event titled “EMBRC Clinic fostering EMBRC’S link with Industry” aims to foster stronger links between the EMBRC-ERIC and Blue Economy industry players across Europe. It will be held through CCMAR (EMBRC Portuguese node) and will try to minimize barriers experienced by the industry when it comes to knowledge access.

 

With a combination of targeted communication and RI-2-B online meetings, the targeted industry players will be met by the researchers from EMBRC members who will address their innovation needs through the competences.

The third ENRIITC Associate introducing its event proposal to the audience was ESO, in partnership with the Swiss Industrial Liaison Office. Through their event titled “E-ELT Instruments day”, they aims to connect E-ELT Instruments procurement officers with the European supplier industry. The event is scheduled to take place on 16 February 2022 at the Geneva International Congress Center with the main objective of improving the networking and cooperation between industry and institutes in the field of large optical space observation instruments.

Together with ENRIITC, the University of Geneva and the Federal State Secretariat for Research and Innovation have been appointed as Sponsors.

The episode continued with Javier giving the floor to Erik Fernandez from INEUSTAR, the non-profit Spanish Science Industry Association, who plans to organise an event that will be hosted in two places in a coordinated and simultaneous way.

To boost Industry-Academia Collaboration, to enhance participation of other sectors apart from Science Industry, to assess the functionalities of multi–host events as a possibility for international events, to facilitate physical events avoiding massifications and to disseminate Spanish RIs plans and needs for the upcoming years, are only a few of the objectives that INEUSTAR will try to reach through this event supported by ENRIITC.

Last but not least, INSTRUCT ERIC introduced their proposal which was presented by the Project Manager, Pauline Audergon.

The event titled “Structural Biology services for Industry” will be held virtually in March 2022 with the intent to create a new strategy to reach industry users and gain visibility in the private sector. From training, workshops and case-studies, to breakout sessions and networking with select experts, INSTRUCT ERIC’s goals are to:

o   Inform industry about the available services and technologies;

o   Build a federated strategy within Instruct to reach Industry partners;

o   Create a real network with those Industry partners.

Javier closes the episode by thanking the ENRIITC Associates for their presentation, as well as all the participants for their interest and engagement in the ENRIITC Your Industry Outreach event call!

If you would like to have more info about the winners, learn more about their projects and / or keep updated with all the details related to their events, you can check the info here!

The recording of the session can be viewed in full below.

#ENRIITCyourCoffee on the CatRIS experience

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Welcome to the recap of the closing episode of #ENRIITCyourCoffee season 4! Episode 12 was dedicated to CatRIS, the Catalogue of Research Infrastructure Services, which consists of an EU funded project officially concluded in June 2021.

Ana Helman, CataRIS coordinator at the European Science Foundation, opened the session by giving a general overview of the project and stating that the main objective of CatRIS was to build a portal that provides access to a broad catalogue of services, core facilities and scientific resources. This bottom-up initiative is composed of 139 service providers at European, national, regional and institutional levels. Byt the end of the project, CatRIS had over 600 services on board.

According to the CatRIS community, one of the main benefits that would have been generated from the projects, refer to the “attraction of potential new industrial users and customers from both, the public and private sector”. As per Ana, this represents also something that the Research Infrastructures are constantly looking for.

The general CatRIS Categories of Services organisation, in which industry seems to be more interested in, is split between:

  • Access Physical & Einfrastructures
  • Aggregators & Integrators
  • Processing & analysis
  • Security & Operations
  • Sharing & Discovery
  • Training & support

But what type of access do Research Infrastructures offer? In terms of access type, also due to Covid19, it has been highlighted that remote access is offered more and more in comparison to physical access. Concerning access mode, the free accesses (whenever the user is not paying) are not so common anymore.

As mentioned at the beginning, the first series of the CatRIS project has already concluded; however, Ana and the rest of the CatRIS team are already working with the Commission Services Horizon booster to explore a potential second phase of the project together with Commercial options (if any) by further developing the business and / or exploitation strategy plan.

We kicked off Season 4 in September 2021 and it’s incredible how another ENRIITC season is finishes. More is yet to come in 2022 so we invite you to keep on following us as to not miss any updates about the project! See you soon, NETWORK!

Check out Season 4 Episode 12_CatRIS presentation!

The recording of the session can be viewed in full below.

#ENRIITCyourCoffee takes on International Coffee Day!

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Welcome to the recap of #ENRIITCyourCoffee season 4 episode 5, which was a special edition in celebration of the International Coffee Day (1 October 2021)! During the session, members of our community came together to have an informal discussion regarding the progress of the ENRIITC Network thus far, as well as brainstorm how it can continue to develop and improve. In order to ensure participants would feel comfortable giving their most honest feedback, the session was not recorded.

The meeting started with a tour de table where all participants of the meeting briefly introduced themselves, their professions and why they decided to join the Network. A few key responses to the last point were as follows:

  1. To network, connect, learn and discuss with fellow ICOs and ILOs
  2. To have the possibility to exchange best practices with colleagues on common initiatives and projects
  3. To learn how to reach industries and engage with SMEs

One of the main objectives of ENRIITC is to build a pan-European network of ILOs and ICOs. In order to assess the Network’s level of success in this area, what have our participants gained from being a part of the community? Some of their responses are listed below:

  1. New contacts with ILOs and ICOs working in similar institutions
  2. Knowledge of best practices regarding ILO and ICO activities
  3. A better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of ILOs and ICOs
  4. Information of events taking place in the field

Participants were then asked to access the #ENRIITCyourCoffee series, which launched its first episode on 17 November 2020 concerning how ILOs and ICOs and better collaborate. This series was established in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of providing ENRIITC community members a safe, virtual environment to convene on a weekly basis in order to get to know each other, share best practices, discuss common issues and brainstorm potential solutions. The series has been vital to the growth of the community with the first 3 seasons bringing in around 595 participants in total.

Those within this session were asked what they have enjoyed about the series so far, as well as how the series could be improved for future episodes. In response to what has been enjoyed, many indicated that they simply appreciate having a short break in their week that allows them to meet with other professionals in similar positions, to learn and debate together and, mostly, to stay connected. Others pointed out that having a fresh, new topic each week to learn about and discuss with the other participants is a fun and refreshing exercise.

The following ideas for how the series can be improved were also shared:

  1. Sharing the presentations in advance could potentially contribute to a more collaborative Q/A sessions as the participants would be better prepared
  2. Instilling a stricter presentation time (15 minutes max) would ensure that there is enough time for a fruitful discussion during the remaining 15 minutes of the call

This episode provided invaluable feedback to the ENRIITC Consortium on how the project has performed so far, as well as how it can continue to provide great support to its members. Be on the look-out for future “special edition” episodes that you can take part of in order to be a key player in the development of ENRIITC and its Network!