Policy Documents

ESFRI Report on Energy and Supply Challenges of Research Infrastructures

In conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath, Russian aggression on Ukraine has wide-ranging consequences for the EU, including high inflation, an immense energy cost increase, and a shortage of critical resources. All of these have pronounced effects on the sustainability and operations of research infrastructures (RIs), several of which face difficulties in providing continuous service. To address these topics, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has established a dedicated drafting group to look into the energy and supply challenges, also responding to a call by Competitiveness Council to do so.

This report highlights the significant impact of the Russian aggression on Ukraine on the sustainability and operations of research infrastructures (RIs) in the EU. The energy crisis resulting from the Russian aggression poses a severe challenge to the RIs, predominantly analytical RIs, with energy-intensive RIs such as synchrotrons, computing centres, accelerator-driven particle sources, neutron facilities, research reactors, and lasers being the most affected. The shortage of critical resources and materials, such as some gases, rare isotopes, and permanent magnets, also presents a significant challenge to RIs, although they may not be a consequence of the war.

The report presents recommendations to ESFRI, Member States, and the European Commission based on good practices from ESFRI member countries and the discussion within the drafting group to address these challenges and enhance the future resilience of RIs. The recommendations include allocating additional funds and energy price capping for the most energy-intensive RIs, developing response plans that include actions aimed at greening the operations of RIs, considering the needs of the RI communities in the activities linked to the Critical Raw Materials Regulation, and setting up specific measures to support the Ukrainian research community. The report emphasizes the importance of preparing for future crises, increasing the resilience and preparedness of European society to cope with any present and future crisis.
ESFRI Report on the Support of Research Infrastructures to the Ukrainian Research Community

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) called upon Research Infrastructures (RIs) to establish support measures for the Ukrainian research community. These measures included facilitating access, providing training, and donating scientific equipment. To assess the uptake and impact of this call, ESFRI conducted a survey in October 2023 and the main findings are discussed in this report. 
ESFRI Report on Access to Research Infrastructures and Charter on Access to RIs

There are still challenges to broader and effective access to Research Infrastructures (RIs) as needed by users to tackle scientific and societal challenges and to underpin the new European Research Area (ERA).
The objectives of the ESFRI Drafting Group on Access are to identify these challenges, propose ways to address them and propose orientations for the revision of the European Charter of Access to Research Infrastructures (the ‘Charter’). This work is part of Action 8 of the ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024: ‘Strengthen sustainability, accessibility and resilience of research infrastructures in the ERA’.

To this end, the ESFRI Drafting Group on Access implemented in May-June 2023 two parallel surveys: one detailed survey targeting research infrastructures (individual ones or networks with joint access scheme) and one targeting RI stakeholders.The respondents express a large diversity of types of access (physical, remote, virtual), nature of service offered (access to equipment, to data, to collection etc.), including within an RI, often depending on the domain and the nature of the RI (single site or distributed). Among the barriers to broader access, several legal, institutional, and financial aspects were raised as well as technical aspects. The trends related to multidisciplinary efforts, innovation, and green and digital transitions were also discussed. In addition, respondents provided feedback on EU support for transnational and virtual access.

The outcome of the survey is presented in detail in this report. Preliminary recommendations to address access challenges and revise the Charter are tentatively listed and are summarised hereafter.
ESFRI Policy Brief on Assessment of Impact of Research Infrastructures

The Impact Assessment is an important part of the policy-making process, as it helps in evaluating the potential effects of proposed policies on various stakeholders and making informed decisions about whether to adopt, modify, or reject a proposed policy. It also helps to communicate the benefits of any public investment to society. For these reasons, its importance has grown over recent years, and the Research Infrastructure (RI) policy domain is no exception. The topic has been recognised in ESFRI’s White Paper (2020), where the countries were invited, with support from ESFRI and Horizon Europe, to incentivise RIs to monitor their societal and economic value and impact. Furthermore, the ESFRI Strategy working groups have organised two conferences on this topic (2018 and 2020).

Impact assessment is also beneficial for RIs if used to assess and improve the functioning of an RI. It contributes to the strategic planning of an RI, reflecting on internal resource allocation and leading to constant improvement and focussing of services according to the needs of users and other stakeholders. It creates accountability and transparency and hence gives legitimacy, visibility and value to the existence of an RI.

Recently, the Competitiveness Council have asked “ESFRI to look into the approaches by Member States, the Commission, international organisations and RIs to assess scientific, societal and economic impacts of investments in RIs, identify good practices, develop a monitoring framework, test it and elaborate recommendations to national and regional RI stakeholders by the end of 2023”. ESFRI has responded to this request by setting up a drafting group  tasked with preparing the report based on information collected from literature, surveys and consultations with the ESFRI member countries and RIs.

This report highlights the importance of understanding the differences between performance monitoring, which ESFRI started implementing last year, and impact assessment (IA), ex-ante or ex-post, for research infrastructures (RIs). It provides recommendations to stakeholders, policymakers, funders, governments, RIs, ESFRI, and the EC.

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