The overall objective of StR-ESFRI3 is to further strengthen ESFRI under the guidance of its Chairs, and in close cooperation with the EC-based secretariat, by providing additional resources, tools and expertise to support its activities and structures. The project builds on the experience of the previous ESFRI support projects. StR-ESFRI3 aims to enhance its current provision of support in all areas, including the new areas of the ESFRI Workplans 22-23 and 23-24, providing high-quality and flexible support to ESFRI in achieving its goals, increasing its visibility, operational and analytical capacity, along with its impact on developing a consistent and dynamic ERA policy for RIs, recognising and reflecting RI-related ERA Policy Agenda actions.
The Specific Objectives (SO) foreseen are the following:
SO1 – Supporting the ESFRI Chairs and related structures (2022-2025), along with the definition and commissioning of other activities and studies (WP2)
SO2 – Supporting the Landscape Analysis and next ESFRI Roadmap (WP3)
SO3 – Communicating, Disseminating, Engaging with key stakeholders, raising awareness of ESFRI-related results and outputs to the EU and global Research Infrastructures area (WP4)
SO4 – Fostering the strategic positioning of ESFRI within the ERA, and its policy agenda, including EOSC, and other key policy initiatives (WP5)
SO5 – Supporting the effective review, monitoring and assessment of ESFRI RIs through appropriate analytical tools, i.e. MoS (WP6)
SO6 – Planning for a sustainable ESFRI support structure (ESFRI office) beyond 2024, including consideration of a sustainable legal entity (WP7)
Flexibility is a key goal in supporting ESFRI in such a dynamic environment. Thus, Work Packages have been planned to incorporate such flexibility
By supporting ESFRI, the StR-ESFRI3 project is expected to raise the impact of ESFRI and contribute towards the European Research Area Policy agenda and its related actions on Research Infrastructures, but also other areas such as Technology Infrastructures and Open Science. In the current period (2023-24), ESFRI has adopted demanding Work Plans expanding beyond the usual ESFRI Roadmap, Landscape Analysis and ESFRI projects/landmarks monitoring, to a series of other areas, such as Access to RIs, RI Funding, Impact of RIs, Energy and Supply Challenges, Communication, Transparency and Outreach, Stakeholder Engagement, International Cooperation and Industrial Cooperation. StR-ESFRI3 is expected to contribute to all areas of the Work Plan, supporting all the related ESFRI groups, developing questionnaires, analysing the data and summarising the outputs in all the areas above.
