Training and up-skilling of research infrastructures technical staff

Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

• Enhanced expertise and knowledge of technical staff working in research infrastructures, for an optimal functioning of the infrastructure.
• Enhanced mobility and career opportunities throughout Europe for technical staff, including across research infrastructure domains as well as across sectorial careers.
• ‘One-stop-shop(s)’ of training services dedicated to technical staff that meet the needs of different domains.

In research infrastructures there is the need for staff with an extraordinary blend of scientific, technical and managerial expertise. Considering that highly skilled personnel play a vital role in constructing, operating and implementing research infrastructures and serving users, research infrastructures must be able to attract, up-skill, and valorise specialised staff to exploit their full potential.

This action will support structuring the offer of training activities dedicated to enhancing skills and career profiles of technical staff working in research infrastructures, as ‘one-stop shop(s)’. This would cover activities such as the development of new training programmes addressed to cover specific needs of research infrastructures, training programmes that promote mobility and career opportunities throughout Europe (for example through staff exchange) or that create training opportunities (for example through summer schools or workshops). Programmes may address the improvement of the skills of different professionals working in a single research infrastructure or in a single domain, and may also enhance horizontal key professionals across research infrastructure domains, covering identified common needs such as those related to digital aspects, research data management, Artificial Intelligence (AI) or enhanced remote access. The activities should include the promotion of existing good practices, as well as dissemination and exploitation of successful experiences to a set of relevant stakeholders.

Individual proposals should focus on one specific domain^[1] (or sub-domain for the largest ones) as defined by ESFRI but should allocate efforts to contribute to gathering programmes under an overarching training service or entry point across domains to facilitate correlation between training supply and demand and to harmonise and optimise the training services offered. This requires dedicated activities for collaboration with other projects under this topic and, where appropriate, common entry portal or cross-references among portals. Proposals should explicitly state which domain (and sub-domain, where applicable) they are addressing.

To ensure consolidation and evolution of the European research infrastructure landscape, considering notably the development of pan-European research infrastructures prioritised by ESFRI and the ERICs, proposals should include at least one ESFRI Landmark^[2] or European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC)^[3] as beneficiary. In case of a distributed^[4] ERIC, as an alternative to the ERIC participating as a beneficiary, a legal entity that is hosting ERIC facilities, resources or related services may participate as a beneficiary. A declaration signed by the legal representative of the ERIC should confirm that the ERIC is supporting this participation, explain the relevance for the ERIC and describe any further cooperation with the ERIC.

Considering past or ongoing actions identifying training needs is encouraged as well as exploring collaboration with relevant training projects e.g. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions with a research infrastructure dimension. Projects may also build on the past activities and experience gained in projects such as RItrainPlus (Research Infrastructure Training Plus).

Proposals could consider the inclusion of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) Support Services Directorate in their research infrastructure portfolio. The JRC offers its experience in assessing, setting the strategy, maintaining, operating and providing access to external researchers to its research infrastructures in various fields of science. The JRC runs a specific programme that opens its research infrastructure for access to external users for the purposes of training and capacity building, where researchers are trained on the capabilities and use of our experimental equipment. In this regard, the JRC will consider collaborating with any successful proposal.

[1] ESFRI domains: 1. Data, Computing and Digital Research Infrastructures; 2. Energy; 3. Environment; 4. Health & Food; 5. Physical Sciences and Engineering; 6. Social Sciences & Humanities. See ESFRI Landscape Analysis 2024 https://landscape2024.esfri.eu/.

[2] See lists of ESFRI 'Landmarks‘ in the 2021 ESFRI Roadmap on https://roadmap2021.esfri.eu/

[3] European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) | European Commission (europa.eu)

[4] The term ‘distributed’ research infrastructure typically refers to one or a few central hubs and several interlinked (national or institutional) nodes where many components of the research infrastructure may not be part of the same legal entity, the ERIC.