The network of pan-European RIs is one of the success stories of the development of the ERA: Europe has one of the most advanced and integrated RI systems in the world. RIs are top-class facilities that provide resources and services for research communities to conduct research and foster innovation. Examples of RI facilities are computer systems, archives or scientific data infrastructures, and sets of instruments. They provide knowledge-based solutions to societal challenges and help to deliver the EU’s green and digital transitions.

RIs provide scientists and innovators with unique expertise, technical devices, data and services to perform cutting-edge basic and applied research, to boost technological advancement and breakthrough innovations. They also bring benefits to industries and SMEs.

The Council conclusions recognise the need to further strengthen RIs and facilitate broader access to them, since they can greatly contribute to the competitiveness of the European economy.

Research infrastructures:

• enable cutting-edge research and facilitate discoveries and breakthrough science-based innovations
• help to strengthen the EU‘s preparedness and the resilience of European society to socioeconomic crises
• boost regional development, including investments and highly skilled jobs
• contribute to scientific diplomacy and international cooperation based on a problem-solving approach and provide the basis for collaborative research
• promote the implementation of open science policies and the freedom of scientific knowledge

In its conclusions, the Council invites the Commission and the member states, through the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), to develop the next edition of the ESFRI Roadmap and to publish it before the end of 2025. The text also invites the Commission to present an initiative on a revised 'European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures' by 2023.

Background

The 'Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe' of 26 November 2021 considered RIs to be a priority area for joint action to deepen a functioning internal market for knowledge, and called for an enhanced integration of the European RI ecosystem.

The International Conference on Research Infrastructures, held from 19 to 21 October 2022, delivered the 'Brno Declaration on Research Infrastructures'. The Brno Declaration acknowledges the key attributes of RIs and invites RI stakeholders from all around the world to develop the concept of a global research infrastructures ecosystem.

• Council conclusions on Research Infrastructures
• European Research Area (background information)

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