Access to research infrastructure services to enable R&I addressing industry needs in priority areas

About this call

Expected Outcome:

Projects are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

Research infrastructures have improved their attractiveness for industry so that they can sustainably extend their user base. Where appropriate, future continuum with technology infrastructures will be facilitated;

Researchers and innovators have more efficient access to the best research infrastructures available to conduct industry-driven research and foster innovation, irrespective of location, through a single-entry point access portal, integrated or interoperable catalogues of services and converging access conditions and selection procedures;

Breakthrough and leading-edge research and innovation are enabled by advanced research infrastructure services that are made available to a wider user community in the targeted areas;

A new generation of researchers and innovators is trained to optimally exploit all the essential tools for industry-driven research and innovation with due attention to early-stage career researchers and innovators and to researchers and innovators from widening countries;

Raised awareness in industry of relevant research infrastructures facilities and services, optimised use of the infrastructures by a broader user community and increased impact and sustainability of these infrastructures.

Scope:

This topic aims at providing trans-national access (on-site or remote) and/or virtual access to integrated and customised research infrastructure services for industry-driven research to foster innovation in each of the target areas listed below, offered by complementary state-of-the-art research infrastructures. Access should target users from industry (notably SMEs, startups and scaleups) or from academia when collaborating with industry. Proposals should adhere to the guidelines and principles of the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures [1] and to the principles of the Charter of access for industrial users to research and technology infrastructures [ref to be added once published, checking final title].

Access also includes ad hoc users’ training and scientific and technical support (see Specific Features for Research Infrastructures). In this context, appropriate support to the technical and scientific staff that will facilitate access by non-expert users from industry should be considered.

The main goal of this topic is access provision to existing services: this should be clearly reflected by the proposed activities and the allocated resources. The development and customisation of services and/or modality of access, relevant to the areas, will also be supported, provided the resulting services are opened and offered already under the actions (short term R&D) and that the long-term sustainability of such services is ensured by the participant research infrastructures. Where applicable, proposals should pay due attention to shorten the ‘time to access’ for users from industry.

Data management (and related ethics issues), in line with FAIR [2] principles, as well as the connection of digital services (e.g. data services) to the European Open Science Cloud and interoperability with other Common European Data Spaces [3] , should be addressed where relevant.

Proposals should make available to researchers a portfolio of complementary research infrastructure services of European interest [4] , including data services, and customised workflows to enable R&I addressing the targeted area. Proposals should include at least one ESFRI Landmark or European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) as beneficiary [5] . In case of a distributed 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 [6] .

Proposals should include an outreach and engagement plan to actively advertise their services, to targeted communities from industry (notably SMEs, startups and scaleups) or from academia when collaborating with industry, focusing on EU member states and associated countries, including from widening countries. Where relevant, proposals should consider the use and/or development of intermediary capacities between research infrastructures and industry facilitating the matchmaking. Proposals are expected to exploit synergies and to ensure complementarity and coherence with other EU grants supporting access provision where relevant. Knowledge valorisation as well as coordination with technology infrastructures and digital services should also be considered, where relevant [7] .

Proposals should include the list of services/installations [8] opened by research infrastructures for trans-national or virtual access and the amounts of units of access made available for users. Further conditions and requirements relating to access provisions that applicants should fulfil when drafting a proposal are given in the “Specific features for Research Infrastructures” section of this work programme part. Compliance with these provisions will be taken into account during evaluation.

The integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement. However, where applicable, proposals should mandate in their calls for access the integration of the gender dimension in the research and innovation content of the users applying to these calls.

To ensure a holistic view from design to implementation of possible access schemes, proposals should ensure strong and continuous collaboration with the cross-domain preparatory action on access HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-05 [9] , with the pilots under topic HORIZON-INFRA-2026-01-DEV-02, and with the actions supported under topic HORIZON-INFRA-2027-01-SERV-01.

The topic targets the areas listed below related to scientific challenges and EU priorities. Proposals are expected to address one of these areas and the area addressed should be clearly identified in the proposal:

Area 1: Biomedical or food technologies

Area 2: Clean energy and/or clean mobility solutions

Area 3: Advanced materials for circular economy and/or bioeconomy

Area 4: Accelerators and superconducting magnets

Area 5: Microelectronics

Area 6: Advanced sensing technologies for ocean observation

Proposals could consider the inclusion of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM) and the Nanobiotechnology Laboratory in the area of Biomedical technologies. In that respect, the JRC will consider collaborating with any successful proposal and this collaboration, when relevant, should be established after the proposal’s approval.

[1] https://op.europa.eu/publication-detail/-/publication/ec4692ae-ac6f-11ef-acb1-01aa75ed71a1

[2] Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

[3] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/data-spaces

[4] A research infrastructure is of European interest when is able to attract users from EU or associated countries other than the country where the infrastructure is located. This includes ESFRI and ERIC infrastructures.

[5] See ESFRI Landmarks in ESFRI RIs PORTFOLIO https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/ and ERIC Landscape – Active European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs) https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/strategy-research-and-innovation/our-digital-future/european-research-infrastructures/eric/eric-landscape_en.