Workshop "Future Needs for Research Infrastructures in Biomedical Sciences"

Square de Meeus 8, Brussels, 16 March 2005

The meeting was organised to:

• Discuss the needs for biomedical Research Infrastructures (RI) in Europe.
• Understand the appropriate size and nature of infrastructures for responding to these needs.
• Lead to some guidance on how to implement the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), i.e. help in identifying the most efficient ways for supporting the identified needs.
• On a longer term, contribute to the structuring of the biomedical sector in Europe.

The meeting brought together 15 experts with knowledge ranging from structural biology to clinical research, together with representatives of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), representatives of the European Science Foundation (ESF), and European Commission staff (DG Research, Directorates B and F).

The meeting and its outcome can be summarized as follows:

For each of the 7 general types of Research Infrastructures covered by this meeting, presentations described the current status, identified needs for the future and expressed specific requirements in terms of support and funding:

• Bio-banks, living organism resources, molecular tools and reagents
• Protein structure facilities
• High throughput genome, genotype and proteome phenotype, sequence and interaction measurement facilities
• Bioinformatics, databases, software, resources and Grid-linked services
• Imaging living systems capabilities
• Ion and radiation therapy research facilities
• Clinical research infrastructures

Further horizontal issues were discussed through round-tables. The following points were identified as being critical issues in the biomedical sciences:

• Data acquisition and treatment are very important for all infrastructures. There is a urgent need for taking care of the data (eg. handling, curation and accessibility) on the long term, as data generated in this domain increases exponentially.
• Biomedical sciences are a diverse and very fast evolving domain, with a wide range of sizes of infrastructures. Consequently, it is difficult to clearly identify RIs needed in 10 years. There is a strong interdependency between research and the corresponding up-to-date RI and the domain lacks coordination in some areas.
• There is a need for more integration with industry in order to reinforce innovation, funding mechanisms and for preventing investments draining toward third countries (mainly USA).
• Funding on a longer term for a wide range of biomedical infrastructures is needed. Many actions and infrastructures seem to have suffered from interruptions in funding and from short-term projects. Also, there is need for simplification of the procedures and financial regulations as well as for shortening time-to-contract.
• Clear and concise criteria for infrastructures and ways of funding them need to be developed by the scientific communities, in particular for the Commission, European Parliament and Council, with more consistency in policies.

Documents available:

• Meeting report (including agenda and list of participants). (PDF)
• Presentations:
• Prof. Martin Hrabé de Angelis
  "Mutant mice for the scientific community". (PDF)
• Prof. Lucia Banci
  "Research Infrastructures in Structural Biology - NMR". (PDF)
• Dr. Manfred Weiss
  "Research Infrastructures in Structural Biology - Synchrotrons". (PDF)
• Prof. Stephen Fey
  "Infrastructures in Genomics and Proteomics". (PDF)
• Prof. Patrick Boisseau
  "Research infrastructures in nanobiotech". (PDF)
• Dr. Janeth Thornton
  "Access to Information from Molecular Biology and Genome Research". (PDF)
• Prof. Vaclav Paces
  "The access to information from molecular biology and genome research". (PDF)
• Prof. Andreas Engel
  "Research Infrastructures in Biomedical Sciences: 3-D Electron microscopy". (PDF)
• Dr. Daniela Schulz-Ertner
  "New developments for Ion and x-ray radiation therapy research facilities". (PDF)
• Prof. Olivier Blin
  "Clinical Research: A Need for building new European infrastructures". (PDF)
• Dr. Eckhart Curtius
  "ESFRI European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructure: Steering Group on Biological and Medical Sciences". (PDF)
• Dr. Hans Karow
  "ESF European Survey on Bio-med RI". (PDF)
• Hervé Pero
  "Research Infrastructures for Biomedical sciences". (PDF)
• Jean-Emmanuel Faure
  "Survey of European Research Infrastructures: First Results". (PDF)