ESFRI has taken concrete steps towards increasing the direct and indirect impact of RIs to address societal challenges, where StR-ESFRI played a key supporting role. Although the primary work is done by ESFRI, its WGs and Task Forces, support actions such as technical and policy editing, publishing, organisation of events, communication & dissemination, along with exchange of experiences and best practices between the national and/or regional policies and programmes enhance the likelihood of a higher impact. The STR-ESFRI2 project has been contributing to all the impact areas of the work programme, having a direct relation with the objectives of the project.
The Roadmap 2021, published in December 2021, incorporates newly developed processes and tools such as the new ESFRI MoS that was developed by StR-ESFRI2, which is also being used to monitor the corresponding set of projects for this Roadmap iteration. Such enhanced support with new tools in the hands of ESFRI will increase the probability to reach and exceed its challenging goals. Support actions to RIs are much needed, especially, but not only, in the early implementation phases. Officially launched RIs may still face fragile financial and human resource conditions concerning ramping up to full operation and medium-long term exploitation.
ESFRI has continued to develop a European approach to Research Infrastructure policy as a key element of the emerging ERA. Europe’s Research Infrastructures are decisive for the capacity to deliver scientific breakthroughs and to foster innovation. Taking into account the need to address the societal challenges that Europe and the world are facing, science has an important mission to lead and prepare the necessary economic, social and environmental transitions. In this realm, ESFRI with the support of StR-ESFRI2 developed the ESFRI White Paper 2020 entitled “Making Science Happen: A new ambition for Research Infrastructures in the European Research Area”. The paper ESFRI lays out the specific role RIs can play in this context and contributed to the development of the new ERA. ESFRI demonstrated the strategic role of RIs in addressing complex societal challenges, for example, the role of RIs in the fight against COVID-19, which also showcased how RIs can have a direct impact on the society, including research on treatments and vaccines, and support for developing new diagnostic methods. March 2022 saw the high-level launch of the new ESFRI Stakeholder Forum, and the initial design of the ESFRI Stakeholders Forum platform and launch of the Stakeholders engagement process.
StR-ESFRI2 supported the ESFRI Task Force on EOSC and related ESFRI initiatives to foster the collaboration among RIs and e-Infrastructures towards the development of a robust quality control system on scientific data to become open, and to promote the reuse of common e-Infrastructure or RI services, leading towards a service-oriented RI ecosystem. StR-ESFRI2 supported three ESFRI RIs-EOSC workshops, two as virtual events delivered in October 2020 and January 2022. This continued to strengthen support to ESFRI enhancing the prospect of reaching its challenging goal, and thus achieving a higher impact.
