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LEAPS invites you to a Zoom webinar on 28 October 2020, 10–12 CET “European Research Infrastructures: Engines for Science and Innovation” hosted by MEP and vice-chair of the ITRE Committee at the European Parliament, Lina Gálvez.

Registration is open at the conference website: https://indico.cells.es/event/254/. Please register before 23 October to ensure your access to the event. After registration, you will receive an email with the link for virtual access.

As the consortium of every Synchrotron radiation and Free-Electron Laser facility in Europe, we aim at contributing to shaping the Research Infrastructure (RI) landscape in Europe by inviting every Member State and join forces to assure the RI under Horizon Europe. At this event, we will showcase the key role of RIs in contributing to solve the most urgent Global Challenges, including energy storage and viral threats.

We will have a lively debate with right-to-the-point interventions from the European
Commission, the LEAPS chair, scientific experts (K. Edström on the topic energy
materials and M. Ackerman on viral and microbial threats) and industry expert (A. Sandström from AstraZeneca, Europe), followed by a panel discussion of experts

We will have a lively debate with right-to-the-point interventions from the European Commission, the LEAPS chair and scientific experts – Kristina Edström on the topic energy materials and Martin Ackerman on viral and microbial threats – followed by a panel discussion of experts. The online event will finish with an open discussion in the form of an interactive exchange of experts and policymakers.

World-class RIs allow researchers to boost their careers and achieve more impactful results with their use. In fact, RIs are the success story of the European Research Area (ERA). The continuous evolution of RIs and the innovations developed at their heart provide a competitive advantage for research organizations, industry and the whole continent. RIs deserve proper funding and support at European level from Horizon Europe. Especially, due to the growing need to make national RIs more accessible to researchers from other Member States and in order to enable cost-efficient coordination in the renewed ERA.

We will demonstrate how RI substantively contribute to the objectives of the green deal by enabling research for clean, reliable and affordable energy and sustainable transport and elicits finding molecular targets to fight the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. The event will give a glimpse of a working landscape for RIs, in which not only the Member States but also the facilities themselves have a more prominent role. We will discuss how this model can work together with the funding instruments in Horizon Europe for the benefit of researchers and innovators all across Europe.

After the joint position paper published as a pre-release in July, in which the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) presented their plan to tackle Horizon Europe Missions,  the ARIE enhanced its cross-border, multidisciplinary collaboration to offer Europe a strong and valid weapon against the present COVID-19 challenge and other potential viral and microbial threats.

To read the paper directly, please use this link.

“With this paper, once again, the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) have demonstrated their multidisciplinary strength”, says Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS and Director of the ALBA Synchrotron in Spain. “The varied and complementary analytical techniques available in the ARIE, coupled with the strong scientific European networks, have enabled to join efforts and battle the sudden, unexpected challenges of the present COVID-19 pandemic”.

The ARIEs are centres of scientific and technological excellence and represent the widest and most mature set of research infrastructures in the world. Supporting a growing community of some 40,000 researchers across Europe, and indeed the globe, they bridge scientific disciplines, academia and industry, and function as multi-faceted science and technology enablers. ”They have already demonstrated that they are able to stand together to confront societal challenges such as cancer and COVID-19, ” says the coordinator of the ARIE working groups, Mirjam van Daalen, vice-Chair of the LEAPS coordination board and Chief of Staff of the Photon Science Division at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. ”Their unique capacities, skills and cultures – often reflected in their position on the ESFRI Roadmap – are critical to the analytics and characterisation of Viral and Microbial threats.”

“The technical expertise of the ARIEs has an impressive track record in fostering the development of critical technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in medicine and health,” highlights Helmut Schober, Chair of LENS and Director of the leading European Neutron Source ILL in Grenoble, France. “The combination of high-end infrastructure and expertise at the different ARIEs is unmatched in the world and it forms an ideal base to develop new and existing multi-disciplinary approaches to tackle infectious agents,” adds Schober.