1. I3U Commitment 5
Venue: Vienna, I3U Project Meeting & Technical Workshop,
Prepared by: WERI-SGH

2. Commitment 5
"By 2015, Member States together with the Commission should have completed or launched the construction of 60% of the priority European research infrastructures currently identified by the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).
The potential for innovation of these (and ICT and other) infrastructures should be increased. The Member States are invited to review their Operational Programmes to facilitate the use of cohesion policy money for this purpose."

3. Commitment 5 map

4. 1. Commitment’s rationale (identification of the problems addressed by the Commitment 5)
1.1 Fragmentation of European investments in research infrastructure
Reasons for fragmentation :
• the fragmentation of research policy in the EU (Sartori, Berlinguer 2013)
• fragmented political landscape, with national governments reluctant to yield more control and budget to the European level (Stahlecker, Kroll 2013)
• the networks of co-operation and human capital exchange are pre-defined by national boundaries, as innovative activities are greatly influenced by national systems of innovation (Pavitt, Patel 1999)

5. 1. Commitment’s rationale (identification of the problems addressed by the Commitment 5)
Problems with fragmentation:
• lack of transparency and duplication of their objectives and actions (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2012)
• preventing created infrastructures to reach a certain critical mass (not limited only to a technical level) (T. Stahlecker, H. Kroll 2013)
• problems with sufficient financing, as the cost of single investment projects often exceeds the funding capacity of individual countries (ibid.)
• insufficient transnational cooperation between the existing research units of sub-critical size (ibid.)
• as learning is a cumulative process, all research teams benefit from the increase in diversity and the broadening of the knowledge base (P. Cooke 2002)

6. 1. Commitment’s rationale (identification of the problems addressed by the Commitment 5)
1.2 High complexity (scale and costs) of European research infrastructures:
• the increasing capital-intensity of modern research (M. Florio, E. Sirtori 2014)
• research infrastructures involve:
the purchase of technologically advanced equipment,
clustering of specific skills,
devising appropriate governance structures (E. Griniece, A. Reid, J. Angelis 2015)
• Contrasting perspectives on capital intensity of research infrastructures:
capital fixed expenditure overcomes operating costs (M. Florio, E. Sirtori 2014)
key factors for research infrastructures are operation costs and personnel (ERA-Instruments 2010)

7. 1. Commitment’s rationale (identification of the problems addressed by the Commitment 5)
1.3 The complexity of realizing the projects in partnerships
collaborative work produces synergy and helps to make sense of complexity and diversity (L. Hantrais 2005)
particularly high complexity in case of interdisciplinary or international collaboration (C. Haythornthwaite et al. 2006)
1.4 Inherent technical complexity of the projects
the rise of so called data-intensive science (A. Rauber 2012)
research infrastructure come to be more digital and distributed
1.5 The need to solve key societal challenges
Priority European Research Infrastructures constitute more permeable organizational structures
Open Social Innovation (OSI) paradigm (H. Chesbrough and A. Di Minin 2014)

8. 1. Commitment’s rationale (identification of the problems addressed by the Commitment 5)
1.3 The complexity of realizing the projects in partnerships
collaborative work produces synergy and helps to make sense of complexity and diversity (L. Hantrais 2005)
particularly high complexity in case of interdisciplinary or international collaboration (C. Haythornthwaite et al. 2006)
1.4 Inherent technical complexity of the projects
the rise of so called data-intensive science (A. Rauber 2012)
research infrastructure come to be more digital and distributed
1.5 The need to solve key societal challenges
Priority European Research Infrastructures constitute more permeable organizational structures
Open Social Innovation (OSI) paradigm (H. Chesbrough and A. Di Minin 2014)

9. 2. Solution – identification of Commitment 5 activities
research infrastructure – a facility or (virtual) platform that provides the scientific community with resources and services to conduct top-level research in their respective fields (MERIL 2011)
a perception of research infrastructure as “part of a process of change, collaboration, and engagement” instead of long view focus on infrastructure as a ‘thing’ to be ‘built’ (S. Anderson 2013)
infrastructure is a basically relational concept
it may be the right question to ask: “when” – not “what” – is an infrastructure (S.L. Star, K. Ruhleder 1996)
research infrastructure when is dynamic not static, and operates as an innovation ecosystem, in which different elements interact and move

10. 3. Theoretical background for analysing main areas of research infrastructures impact
3.1 Social capital theory
Social capital associated with the connections between external players lead to positive effects in raising resources and building trust in the organization (Putnam 2000; Adler, Kwon 2002)
Social capital important for cooperation and knowledge sharing, which is the fundamental basis for functioning of research infrastructures
The concept of creative class (Florida 2002)
research infrastructures are the creative centres, in which creative class is deeply rooted

11. 3. Theoretical background for analysing main areas of research infrastructures impact
3.2 Innovation systems theory
European research infrastructures can play a special role in supra-national system of innovation, represented by the emerging ERA (Stahlecker, Kroll 2013).
Roles of knowledge infrastructure in innovation systems (Smith 1997):
production and diffusion of scientific and technological knowledge, enabled mainly by intense public R&D funding
production of skills, and technology transfer resulting from personnel turnover
establishing technical norms and standards, either implicitly by a specific research infrastructure, or through coordination of different stakeholders
creation of enterprises, as publicly supported infrastructures act very often as sources of new firms,
access and dissemination functions of infrastructural organizations

12. 3. Theoretical background for analysing main areas of research infrastructures impact
3.3 Economics of network theory
Networks contribute to the innovative capabilities of organisations exposing them to novel sources of ideas, enabling fast access to resources, and enhancing the transfer of knowledge (Powell, Grodal 2005)
Research infrastructures can involve major network externalities, and they are often the place within a system where scale and scope economies are very significant (Smith 1997)
Collective industrial research (R. Rothwell, W. Zegveld 1981) may be treated as a type of research network, which provides a unique framework for research on high-tech applications, by enabling collaboration across different sectors and technology fields (Griniece, Reid, Angelis 2015)

13. 4. Collecting data
The problems with indicators measuring an impact of research infrastructures:
no unified framework for the impact assessment of research infrastructures developed so far
indicators related to individual RI, like number of projects / jobs / graduates generated
statistical data for above indicators are generally not publically available
if at all possible, most of data may be collected only through a costly process of direct research on the impact of each of the analysed infrastructure (separately)
feasible research method is basically case study (one of the sources of knowledge to be used in case studies may be in-depth interviews with representatives of research infrastructures based on self-designed questionnaires).

14. Thank you Marzenna Anna Weresa arkadiusz.kowalski@sgh.waw.pl