Towards a new EU-LAC partnership in Research Infrastructures

ended

EU-LAC ResInfra will identify a number of Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Research Infrastructures (RIs) that may be considered eligible for the construction of a bi-regional collaboration. This will be carried out through the definition of minimal key requirements these RIs would need to develop in the coming years. To this aim, the Project will build on the prioritisation results of the EU-CELAC Senior Official Meeting on Science and Technology (SOM) Working Group (WG) on Research Infrastructures (RI) and, more specifically, will take as a reference the mapping exercises developed in previous EU funded projects. In addition, EU-LAC ResInfra will develop a map of National and Regional Research Infrastructure policies, and their corresponding strategies and plans, including funding mechanisms that might be used to support the construction and operation of future EU-LAC RIs. Furthermore, EU-LAC ResInfra will use all the results and information obtained for drafting a Sustainability Plan, which will be presented to the EU-CELAC WG RI for discussion and endorsement. The Plan will include specific actions to support the bi-regional collaboration in a mid-term perspective. The objectives are to design specific variable geometry instruments for co-funding RIs of common interest, and to design measures that pursue the strengthening of the bi-regional RI cooperation, seeking to maximise the impact of the RI collaboration in the construction of the EU-CELAC Common Research Area. Finally, the Project aims to show the feasibility of the EU-LAC RI collaboration through existing examples, thanks to the development of four Pilots in different scientific domains that are linked to some existing Research Infrastructures: INSTRUCT-ERIC, LIFEWATCH-ERIC, E-RIHS and RICAP.