On 31 August, representatives of the ERICs and EIROforum, together with funders and policy makers, met in an online workshop to share how research infrastructures are contributing to the green and digital transition.
The cases presented deliberately covered very different situations. LifeWatch ERIC, cloud-based by design, set out its environmental and energy policy and made the case for sustainability through the federation and reuse of digital resources. ESS ERIC and ELI ERIC spoke as large energy consumers: the first building sustainability into the design from the outset, with heat recovery feeding the Lund district network; the second reporting cuts of 50% in heat and 70% in electricity consumption at ELI Beamlines after work on cooling and HVAC. Euro-BioImaging, distributed across some 330 sites it does not own, described a hybrid training model that reduces travel while keeping courses open across several nodes. SHARE ERIC presented SoGreen, in which four social science infrastructures are fielding a harmonised question module in 17 countries to study the social effects of the transition. The EIROforum Working Group on Environmental Sustainability and the ESFRI drafting group on greening and resilience outlined how coordination is taking shape at European level.
The closing panel turned to what infrastructures can do together. Discussion ranged over the real value of environmental certifications and rating platforms, with a caution against treating them as an end in themselves; the way partnerships actually form, more often through personal contact than through any formal channel; and funding, where participants noted that instruments outside Horizon Europe are rarely designed with research infrastructures in mind, and that ERIC legal status can itself fall outside the categories eligible for national calls.
You can follow the discussion directly by watching the recording on YouTube.
Additionally, the speakers kindly agreed to share their presentations.
