Contribution of Research Infrastructures to the renewed European Research Area

 At the end of 2019, the European Research and Innovation Area Committee (ERAC) adopted a report on a new paradigm of the European Research Area (ERA), proposing new priorities. Around the same time, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) published its White Paper (WP), presenting the new ambition for research infrastructures in the ERA. 

Historically, the ERA has been important to the field of research infrastructures (RIs), and vice versa, with the field of RIs often serving as a shining example of the achievements of the ERA. In the light of the newly proposed ERA priorities and the ESFRI WP, which invites the RIs community to address certain actions, the time is ripe for the RIs to consider their response. This is even more important at a time when the Commission is preparing its Communication on the ERA, and the Council its Council Conclusions on the ERA. 

The aim of the present paper is to examine potential contributions of the RIs to the priorities of the renewed ERA, as proposed by ERAC, and how to fulfil the actions, proposed to the RIs by the ESFRI WP. It is not a review of the contribution of the versatile landscape of the RIs to the ERA, but addresses mainly the potential of RIs that offer open “physical” access of international users to their facilities.