February 2009
Research Infrastructures
(incl. e-infrastructures) are:
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Facilities, resources, and related services used
by the scientific community for
 Conducting leading-edge research
 Knowledge transmission, knowledge exchanges
and knowledge preservation
Today Research Infrastructures include
 Major scientific equipment
 Scientific collections, archives, structured information
 ICT-based infrastructures
Europe has a long-standing
tradition of excellence
Growing use of
the e-infrastructure:
the case of GÉANT
Some thoughts…
 Information is NOT knowledge; knowledge creation
involves a complex process… the knowledge triangle
within which research infrastructures are key elements
Research
Research
infrastructures
Innovation
Education
Knowledge
«industry»
European RIs are faced
with a wide spectrum of issues
 Globally unique to Regionally distributed;
 Many stakeholders (from ministries to researchers);
 Lack of funding (public and private) to face increasing
cost / complexity of RIs;
 Need to improve the efficiency of research services;
Underlying and growing use of e-infrastructures;
Integrating datasets and models;
 Single countries do not have the critical mass: a need for
cooperation;
 Opportunities but difficulties of interaction between
researchers and other stakeholders (e.g. statisticians?)
The case of
Social Sciences & Humanities
DARIAH
CLARIN
SHARE
CESSDA & remote access to Official Statistics
ESFRI
European Strategy Forum
on Research Infrastructures
Council of European Social
Science Data Archives
CESSDA
www.nsd.uib.no/cessda
 Distributed infrastructure
providing efficient data services
and facilitating access of
researchers to high quality data
 CESSDA includes 20 European
social sciences data archives;
exists since over thirty years;
holds some 25,000 data
collections
 The CESSDA Preparatory Phase
aims at enabling the transition
of CESSDA from an informal
grouping of data archives to a
formally constituted European
Research Infrastructure (ERI)
Next call for Proposals
under FP7 (research)
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Open to Integrating Activities (I3), i.e. networking, joint
research and transnational access / research services;
Opening Sept 09 (closing early Dec 09) allowing first
contracts by second half 2010; EC support for 3 to 4
years; up to 10 M€ funding;
Targeted approach: for example, two topics:
 European Social Science Data Archives and remote
access to Official Statistics; Experts recommend
collaboration between CESSDA & Official Statistics;
 Integrating datasets / models for analysis, design,
development of economic, social & other policies.
For further information
 ESFRI on CORDIS
http://cordis.europa.eu/esfri/
 FP7 and Capacities Specific Programme
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/capacities/
 Research Infrastructures on CORDIS (FP6)
http://cordis.europa.eu/infrastructures/
 Research Infrastructures in Europa
http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures