Policy and international cooperation measures for research infrastructures

Proposals will address one of the following areas:

1. Support Research Infrastructure policy development in terms of exchange of best practices for national Roadmap drafting and evaluation procedures for research infrastructures in order to promote comparability and synchronisation of national procedures and a possible harmonisation of ex-ante and ex-post evaluation mechanisms. The full lifecycle of research infrastructure funding should be duly taken into account. The proposals shall foresee the conduction of an analysis of existing national roadmaps so to extrapolate common trends that could be then proposed as best practices in terms of criteria for inclusion, and for addressing societal needs with cross-cutting/multi-disciplinary approaches. The activity should foresee, amongst other, the organisation of dedicated workshops with the relevant key players both at national and European level (with specific reference to ESFRI and the e-IRG) for validation of the findings and recommendat

   In the context of the communication for a reinforced ERA partnership for excellence and growth[[COM (2012) 392 final]], the focus of the policy support measures is related to the effective investment and use of research infrastructures. Following the communication of the Commission on International Cooperation in Research and Innovation (COM(2012)497), international cooperation for research infrastructures is needed with a number of key third countries/regions seen as strategic for the development, exploitation and management of world-class research infrastructures necessary to address research challenges with a global dimension.

   This activity will:

   • Strengthen the development of a consistent and dynamic European Research Area policy for research infrastructures;
   • Facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices between the national and/or regional policies and programmes;
   • Enhance partnerships between policy makers, funding bodies, academia and industry and promote the development of appropriate monitoring tools for decision making;
   • Contribute to the emergence of sustainable approaches for the provision of cross-disciplinary research services;
   • Encourage the pooling of resources between infrastructure operators at European level in order to face the grand challenges and to foster a culture of co-operation between them, spreading good practices and encouraging infrastructures to develop in complementary ways.
   • Develop cooperation with key international partners for research infrastructures;
   • Contribute to the development of a competitive high perf