Five years after the establishment of the first ERIC, another 15 were ready to sign the Memorandum of Understanding, marking the birth of the ERIC Forum. Since then, the community has further strengthened, becoming one of the leading voices in European science policy. In this interview, Antje Keppler, Chair of the ERIC Forum, explains why ERICs have become a strategic asset for the European Research Area (ERA), what they offer, and how the Forum supports them.
The interview, also available on YouTube, was recorded for the European Research Area Conference: Fostering Greater Integration and Advancing Competitiveness, where ERIC Forum participated with a dedicated stand.
How has the ERIC community grown over the past 15 years?
The journey started in 2011, when SHARE ERIC as the first of its kind was launched. Just a few years later, in May 2017, by then 16 ERICs joined forces and kick-started the ERIC Forum by signing a Memorandum of Understanding at a research infrastructure conference in Helsinki. End of 2023 the youngest ERICs – Infrafrontier and Lofar – were officially launched, and with these two on board ERIC Forum comprises 28 ERICs today.
The European Research Area (ERA) aims to create a single, borderless market for research, innovation, and technology across the EU. Could you please describe the three main ways in which ERICs contribute to this goal?
Foremost, researchers in Europe have the historically unprecedented and unique opportunity to take advantage of the broadest cutting-edge service portfolio research infrastructures can offer. Each ERIC represents a leading international research organisation in their respective domain, and facilitates excellent scientific research by providing access to high-quality data and cutting-edge instrumentation. In this way ERICs are key facilitators of excellent and open science.
Second, the reach of services that ERICs offer often goes well beyond supporting ‘just’ research, but having much broader socio-economic impact in all fields, whether its life-sciences, social sciences, environmental or physical sciences. Here in particular ERICs underpin the policy of Open Science, also contributing significantly to the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud.
Third, the ERIC as a legal tool enables the EU Member States and Associated Countries to bundle their existing national RI investments together in a strategic and coordinated manner according to their priorities. By setting up an ERIC the countries can now commonly provide coordinated access to and service provision by European research infrastructures for all scientists in the ERA. The European coordination of national infrastructure capacities and capabilities via the ERICs also strengthens and contributes to the international positioning of Europe’s research and innovation strength and socio-economic impact.
Among the priorities outlined in the EU strategic agenda for 2024-2029 are “making a success of the green and digital transitions” and “bolstering the EU’s competitiveness.” How do the ERICs and the ERIC Forum contribute to these objectives?
It is clear that additional resources have to be prioritised for reinforcing the capacities of the ERICs so that they can support research and innovation for a fair green transition. When it comes to our own environmental footprint and resource efficiency we need – and in many cases now start doing so – to consider these across the entire ERIC lifecycle, including the concept and design stages. ERIC Forum Project 2 has a dedicated work package to provide guidance to ERICs in this matter. Additionally, training resources for development of relevant skills of ERICs’ staff are needed to foster the successful digital transition of and through the ERICs, including harnessing the potential of AI. Under the impression of the recent pandemic, over the past three years several ERICs across scientific domains worked successfully together in the eRImote project to strengthen remote access to RI services and they are now publishing their findings in a Green Paper.
The ERIC Regulation is a successful story. Why? And how is this connected to the role that ERICs have within the ERA?
Before the ERIC became available as a legal tool in 2009, there was no adequate legal framework which would have allowed the creation of a partnership with members from different countries. The ERIC model simplifies the procedure for setting up an international legal entity with the scope of establishing and operating a common research infrastructure, while minimising negotiations among the participating governments. Most importantly it allows for a flexible internal governance structure and for the members to define, in the statutes, their members’ rights and obligations, and other internal arrangements best fitting for the mission and purpose for the research infrastructure at hand.
How does the ERIC Forum, as a comprehensive network of ERICs, support them in fulfilling their role?
As mentioned above, ERIC Forum has now become a fruitful ecosystem of cross-domain collaboration, exchange and support across all 28 ERICs. Here, we have a space where we meet and can share our best practices and experience, including common challenges. Thanks to the ERIC Forum and its common publications – including highly relevant position papers -, ERICs are continuously fostering their visibility which hopefully translates in many cases also in an increase of sustainability. The ERIC Forum is regularly interacting with the European Commission, with ESFRI and other key stakeholders of the ERA and thereby contributing to the development of related policies, making it one of the leading science policy voices in Europe.
What is the significance of initiatives like the ERIC Forum 2 Project for the ERICs and the ERIC Forum?
Thanks to the two EU-funded ERIC Forum projects, the ERIC Forum could significantly upscale their work and much better support the ERICs in increasing their cooperation with each other. The ERICs now have means for working together on topics such as the implementation of the ERIC Regulation, increasing visibility of ERICs and their services, and the integration of the ERICs in the ERA. Of course, all ERICs support the Forum’s mission with significant in-kind contribution and the Forum is thriving mostly due to the enthusiastic support by many individuals working across the different ERICs. This common work and the project support overall strengthen the coordination between the ERICs, leading also to an increase of cross-domain interactions and newly forming collaborations at both levels, the infrastructures themselves as well as their users and stakeholders.
What future developments do you envision for the ERIC Forum?
With 28 active members and building by now on 8 years of collaboration under the Forum umbrella, ERIC Forum is currently in a very strong and dynamic phase. We are experiencing a boost of activities and output also for our key stakeholders supported by the ERIC Forum Project 2 resources and deliverables. In this sense, ERIC Forum is being more and more recognised as a strategic voice by EU decision makers and we are also more often invited to contribute to EU processes and debates in science policy making. For sure, together with the Executive Board the Forum will continue the integration of ERICs in the ERA. When meeting with our stakeholders, we will address the increasing fragmentation of RIs across the European landscape, and we continue to reinforce governance and sustainability of ERICs. Last but not least the Forum will continue to emphasize the role of ERICs when it comes to supporting Europe’s competitiveness and strengthening its innovation.
Skip to content
search