D1.1 Quality Monitoring Plan with KPIs

The IPERION HS project aims at establishing and operating an integrated activity for the establishment of a distributed pan-European research infrastructure on heritage science. Since 2016 heritage science is included in the ESFRI Roadmap through E-RIHS, the European Research Infrastructure on Heritage Science, evolving towards becoming an ERIC. Looking forward towards such time, IPERION HS will provide the pan-European heritage science community with a further level of integration and its rules and procedures are aimed at adaptation and improvement for future adoption under E-RIHS ERIC.

As results from the working of a previous project of organizational nature (E-RIHS PP) the quality of a partner to the future ERIC will be established through an evaluation combining: i) a confirmation of the capacity to do things well; and ii) an assurance that such capacity is suitably managed to bear fruit in terms of results. For that purpose, the outcomes of actions taken by a partner will be evaluated as pertains e.g. their impact and the satisfaction of users. Known partners, those that have already co-operated within the group and are therefore recognized by their activities and the respective results, will be subjected to a simplified evaluation, namely attending to existing feedback from previous users, while new partners will be subjected to a complete evaluation. One of the main aims of quality monitoring under IPERION HS is to establish a background of data allowing to consider the partners of this project for a simplified evaluation scheme if, in the future, they apply to become partners to E-RIHS ERIC.

A basic quality and evaluation system for the services rendered through the project and for its other outcomes is set by this task, based on flexibility and self-evaluation. The task also sets a group of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from which should evolve those to be used after the ERIC is established. KPIs will be aimed at forming a reliable picture of the evolution of the project in terms of conformity with set goals, progression of important factors and satisfaction of users in the broad sense of the word. Finally, the task will set ethical principles by which all those working within the Project and, later, under the E-RIHS brand are bound to abide. Those principles are expected to be consequent through procedures followed in all operations.

The deliverable was developed from work done under E-RIHS PP and from the results of an ESFRI Working Group on the monitoring of research infrastructures performance published in December 2019. It includes contributions of IPERION HS WP 2, WP 3 and WP 4 on the survey of users’ satisfaction and of WP 8 on the dissemination and communication KPIs.