Last week, HFML-FELIX hosted the 7th LEAPS Plenary Meeting. Around 100 participants from the LEAPS community followed the invitation to Radboud University in Nijmegen to discuss current and future activities of the LEAPS consortium.
During her opening statement, Britta Redlich, current LEAPS Chair looked back at the eventful year of 2024:
‘This year was an important year to further build the strong foundation for the future of LEAPS. We laid the groundwork for the LEAPS association which will strengthen our visibility and sustainability. Speaking with one voice, aligning strategy and sharing knowledge is key to our future development and engagement with stakeholders.
Redlich also commented on a LEAPS proposal for a Block-Grant funding . ‘This novel funding instrument we have been working on has now matured from and we have seen two very exciting and impactful pilot-project ideas. Something we are discussing with representatives from science, academia, industry, and representatives from the European Commission.’
The first day kicked off of with the presentation of the activities by Michele Svandrlik, the chair of the LEAPS Research and Developemnt Board. It was followed by reports of the internal LEAPS-project “Digital LEAPS” that started out as a necessity of the CoVid19-pandemic and will be concluded this year with great success. The first day sessions also gave an excellent overview of the currently funded EU projects, NEPHEWS, RIANA, OSCARS, eRimote and Remade@ARI.
On the second day, the LEAPS Plenary Meeting started with a collective session with all LEAPS Working Groups and Strategy Groups presenting their recent achievements, outlook and plans for future work and the novel Strategy Group 3 concerning the “European Research Area” was introduced. The morning session also concluded an outlook onto the upcoming year.
A highlight of the day was the handover of the baton from Britta Redlich (HFML-FELIX) to Jakub Szlachetko (SOLARIS) who will chair LEAPS from January 2025.
‘It was a great pleasure and honour to chair LEAPS this year’, Redlich reflects. ‘We managed to advance the strategic position of LEAPS and set the stage for future developments. Now, we are looking forward to an exciting 2025, also because the Chair will be combined with the upcoming EC-presidency in Poland.’
After lunch, the public session of the LEAPS Plenary gave stage to exciting new and ongoing activities in the LEAPS community, like the LEAPS Social Impact-brochure, the Light for Ukraine project as well as an update on the achievements of the LEAPS INNOV-project, which will conclude in Spring 2025.
The second public session focussed on the LEAPS in the European Policy Landscape, starting with an outlook on next working and framework programs WP2025 and FP10 by René Martins, representing Directorate General for Research & Innovation, Research Infrastructures program of the European Commission. The outlook was followed up by Caterina Biscari (ALBA) giving an insight into the LEAPS Block Grant-idea. The following presentations showed how the Block Grant-concept could be put into reality. Franz Hennies (Lund University) and Martin Karlsson (Northvolt) presented a proposal for Batteries and included the industrial perspective on the importance of this topic. Adrian Wanner (PSI) and Andreas Schäfer (The Francis Crick Institute) showed which impact the novel funding instrument could have for Connectomics.
The day was concluded with a panel discussion focusing on the “Research Infrastructures Policy Agenda”. The panel was joined by the previous speakers who exchanged views from the standpoints of the European Commission, industry, users and large-scale research infrastructures. The panel was completed by Job de Kleuver from the Institute Organisation of the Dutch Research Council (NWO-I) giving valuable insights from the perspective of a national funding agencies and a lively discussion with the audience concluded this part.
After the Plenary Meeting the participants could join a tour through HFML-FELIX. A dinner at Fort Lent gave more opportunity to continue the discussions and exchange of the LEAPS community in a relaxed atmosphere.