Conference
Stay tuned to the Future. Impact of research infrastructures 2.0
June 10-11, 2021
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Research infrastructures (RI) have grown of importance in all fields in the last decades. Research infrastructures allow for scientific innovation that requires long-term investment. In Europe the larger infrastructures are often collaborative effort by many different countries. A framework of performance indicators exist nowadays to assess the performance of research infrastructures. However, there is an interest in looking also beyond the core functioning of research infrastructures and understand the broader impact of RIs on science at large, society, economy and politics.
Understanding impact is much more difficult than understanding performance. While the reflections and publications on how to define and measure impact has grown over the last year, a unified framework or consensus on how to assess the impact of research infrastructures does not yet exist.
Taking as point of departure the conference organized by the ESFRI Strategic Working Group on Social and Cultural Innovation on the impact of research infrastructures, which took place in 2018 in Bologna, the ESFRI Strategy Working Groups have joined forces to organize a follow-up conference to discuss the meaning and the possible measurement of impact further. The overall objectives of the conference are:
Exchange on the meaning of impact and its variation between and within different fields and research infrastructures.
Exchange on the measurement of impact and its variation between and within different fields (scientific but also economic, societal, cultural impact).
Showcase where and how infrastructures in different field create impact.
Discuss potential and limitation of collaboration between infrastructures to create impact.
Discuss what is the best way for research infrastructures to increase their impact further.
General information
This is an academic conference, so audience will mostly be scholars in relevant fields, representatives of existing research infrastructures, members of the ESFRI working groups and ESFRI. The conference will limited to 150 people, therefore on-site participation is on invitation only. If you are interested in participating please contact impact2021@fors.unil.ch. Presentations will be streamed.
The conference will limited to 150 people, therefore on-site participation is on invitation only. If you are interested in participating please contact impact2021@fors.unil.ch. All presentations will be streamed.
Campus of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland
The conference will start on Thursday lunchtime and will end on Friday (about 16:00). The conference dinner will take place on Thursday evening. More information will follow.
The participation is free. There are no conference fees to pay.
For issues related to the programme please contact Bente Maegaard (bmaegaard@hum.ku.dk).
For issues related to participation or organisation: impact2021@fors.unil.ch
Programme
Program structure
In addition to welcome and keynote addresses the conference will be divided in three thematic blocks.
What does impact mean, how can we measure the impact of research infrastructures on science at large, specific disciplines, society, economy and politics? What variation and challenges exist to assess impact between research infrastructures of the different disciplines?
How do research infrastructures create impact through their research activities? Where else do infrastructures create impact beyond scientific impact (economic, societal and cultural impact), and in which set-ups, and how, can this best be identified and described? What mechanism exist to create impact?
Where is collaboration and creating clusters important and useful and creates synergies and where not? What are good examples and models of collaboration? What is the potential and also what are the cost and challenges of creating synergies between different research infrastructures?
Program committee
Bente Maegaard, Social and Cultural Innovation SWG, chair
Georg Lutz, Social and Cultural Innovation SWG, local organiser
Basudeb Chaudhuri, Social and Cultural Innovation SWG
Jose Luis Martinez, Physics and Engineering SWG
Orla Murphy, Social and Cultural Innovation SWG
Jeannette Ridder-Numan, ESFRI Implementation Group
Federico Ruggieri, DIGIT SWG
Radislav Sedlacek, Health and Food SWG
Maria Theofilatou, European Commission
Minh Quang Tran, Energy SWG
Gert Verreet, Environment SWG
Bâtiment Géopolis,
+41 (0)21 692 37 30
