ICRI 2022 was organised within the tradition of the established conference providing an opportunity for strategic discussions about international cooperation in research infrastructure. Various stakeholders and experts, including policymakers, facility managers and leading researchers from around the world, gathered to discuss challenges and emerging trends, highlighting the essential role of research infrastructures.
ICRI 2022 took place within the context of the waning pandemic of COVID-19 and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Both crises highlighted the importance of international cooperation, the enormous potential and the essential role of research infrastructures if their capacities are used effectively. This was demonstrated through specific good practice cases that showed how research infrastructures could contribute to the rapid development of vaccines or the search for new energy sources.
Besides that, ICRI 2022 underlined the societal and economic benefits, impacts, and social responsibility of research infrastructures, their role and international cooperation and the development of an integrated RI ecosystem.
In practical terms, ICRI 2022 not only inspired and contributed to the networking of participants but also resulted in the signing of a couple of international memorandums of understanding and introduced the Brno declaration on fostering a global ecosystem of research infrastructures – a call for action supported by the European Union Member States and the European Commission, which are open to using their own processes, and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) to underpin the development of a thriving global Research Infrastructures ecosystem.
Last but not least, for the first time in the conference history, ICRI 2022 introduced the citizen programme to bring the research infrastructures topic closer to the public.
