Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ENRIITC (European Network of Research Infrastructures & IndusTry for Collaboration)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-07-01 al 2022-12-31
With a timeline of 36 months, 11 partners from seven countries, and a strong support from 60 Associates from around Europe, ENRIITC will:
1. Establish a sustainable European network of ILOs and ICOs which enables mutual learning,
2. Map collaboration potential between RIs and industry,
3. Develop and refine strategies and best practices to foster these collaborations,
4. Raise awareness among industry for collaboration opportunities at RIs and demonstrate impact.
To achieve the above, the consortium and Associates have jointly balanced the need for expertise from diverse scientific areas, combined it with practical insights from establishing relations with various industries operating in different sectors and geographical contexts, and propagated it among their networks. ENRIITC has started to unlock underexploited innovation potential among industrial actors across Europe maximising societal and economic benefits across the whole innovation value chain.
-Knowledge exchange is an under-explored ground for both ILOS and ICOs, and is a possible convergence area for ILO and ICO activity. It is an ‘unknown’ territory where there should be potential;
-Terminology issue: difference between ILO and ICO hardly perceived by the reference community;
-The RI “ICO” does not exist (as one person);
-There is a large need for professionalisation of the sector, and creating a culture of industry relations with RIs;
-Performance indicators should be adapted to the individual characteristics (vision/mission/objectives) of each RI;
-CatRIs has been identified as one potential solution for a portal of RI-industry connection.
The mapping exercise conducted in 2020 revealed that European RIs vary greatly in size and maturity, and whether they are single-sited or distributed. The outcomes of WP2 supported the development of specific strategic recommendations within WP3, which produced a list of 17 key actions that every RI interested in industry collaboration should consider. WP3 and WP5 worked together to disseminate these recommendations through articles on the project website and social media.
The ENRIITC Hub, proposed in D3.1 is the central aspect of the network's sustainability. It will serve as a meeting point for industry liaison officers (ILOs) and industry contact officers (ICOs), offering training activities, organizing annual events on RI-industry engagement, and potentially representing RIs toward policy makers (e.g. ESFRI) via a board of experts. Other significant progress was made under WP4, which focused on demonstrating the quality, performance, and impact of engagement actions through training, case studies, and industry events.
An important milestone was the recognition of ENRIITC in the ESFRI Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures Roadmap 2021. This shows the impact of ENRIITC within the RI landscape.
As part of the networking activities tasks, ENRIITC increased its outreach activities to support project dissemination and positioning in the wider community. ENRIITC was invited as a keynote speaker to present RI-industry engagement in various fora, which gave high visibility to the network and strengthened its importance. Two major in-person networking events were also organized by the end of the project: BSBF 2022 and ICRI 2022, which served as advocacy platforms to encourage follow-up on activities and engage with different stakeholders, including the European Commission (EC).
The network experienced a constant growth of 465% between 2020 and 2022, and the project closed with 497 individuals at the end of December 2022. A significant development was the work done on the sustainability of the network, which was thoroughly implemented in close collaboration with consortium partners. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was proposed for RIs and ILOs to confirm their engagement with the ENRIITC network, and a marketing campaign was launched to inform the network about the MoU and invite RIs to contact ENRIITC. A booklet on case studies and an advocacy paper, as well as testimonial campaigns, were developed, which clearly demonstrate the positive impact of ENRIITC in enabling changes.
The three years of the project has shown a clear for a platform like ENRIITC. As part of the sustainability, the consortium partners have the ambition to maintain the network and the community through a central Hub that will offer services to both ILOs and ICOs. The Hub will be governed by representatives of large-scale pan-EU RIs (ESFRI, ERICs) together with ILOs via the PERIIA Network. Through the Hub, they will propose a series of activities supporting the professionalisation of ILOs and ICOs, RI-industry engagement and community building, visibility of RIs in the innovation ecosystems, promoting the importance of research as an engine of innovation, market disruption, and societal impact. A board of appointed experts could act as an interface between the Hub and ESFRI representatives, providing recommendations based on the outcomes of the Hub activities and engagement with the stakeholders.