ENRIITC proposes a new “Research Infrastructures Innovation Preparedness Roadmap” to exploit the innovation potential of RIs

Early in the project, ENRIITC evaluated the status of play in the relationships between European Research Infrastructures (RIs) and industry which was published in “Report on the mapping of industry as a supplier and user” (D2.1).

The analysis highlighted areas for potential improvement since only half of the interviewed RIs employed an Industry Contact Officer (ICO), and only 60 per cent of them had a strategy for working with the industry.

However, it also emerged that RIs and Industry are ready to work together, and in the majority of cases, they strongly need an injection of support to kick off new sustainable and long-lasting relationships.

To respond to the actual gaps in the collaboration system between RIs and the industry, ENRIITC has now proposed five key initiatives shown in the Figure. The initiatives are presented in “Strategy to exploit the innovation potential of RIs” (D3.1):

Establish a pan-European ICO and ILO network: The core activity of the hub is to provide advice and support to all manner of RIs in their engagement with the industry, drawing upon existing experience and good practice and building its body of knowledge as the hub matures. (See also this article)
Adopt a set of core competencies for ICOs and ILOs: ENRIITC has defined a clear set of competencies and the advantages of having an Industry Contact Office in each RI. (See also D3.3)
Each RI should review and implement specific key actions: 17 key areas with recommended actions are defined to help an RI improve the collaboration with industry and establish a common baseline for RIs for developing systematic innovation partnering industry-liaison programs. (See also D3.2)
Building strategic alliance relationships. Establishing partnerships at the European level to ensure that the RI operational model and interaction modes with industry are understood and recognised so that RIs can seek more easily individual collaboration partners.
Develop a European RI Innovation Strategy: Formulation of a European RI Innovation Strategy to describe the ambitions for better integration between RIs and industry. The strategy will enable RIs to be the core engine of the innovation supply chain facilitating the constituency of spin-offs, start-ups and partnerships with private entities in close cooperation with universities.

With this package of proposed actions, ENRIITC is pushing for realizing the strong socio-economic impact of RIs which was stated as a key ingredient in the concluding remarks of the ESFRI Roadmap 2021.

If you want to download the ENRIITC reports, click here