Lukáš Levák, Director of Department for Research and Development at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, offers an overview of Czech research infrastructures ecosystem.
Czechia has responded to the growing importance of research infrastructures by a number of policy-making measures to provide research infrastructures with a legal framework, and a stable, reliable and predictable financial environment for the operations andinvestments. In 2009, Act No 130/2002 Coll., on the Support of Research, Experimental Development and Innovations from Public Funds introduced a specific funding instrument to finance the large research infrastructures, and entitled the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to become the Czech national policy-maker and public funding provider in the respective field.
The first edition of the Roadmap of Large Research Infrastructures of Czechia was released in 2010, and updated in 2011, 2015 and 2019. The Czech road-mapping procedures have been aligned with the pan-European approach coordinated through the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). International peer-review assessment and monitoring are held on a regular basis (2014, 2017, 2021) to deliver independent expert inputs to adopt informed and evidence-based political decisions by the Government of Czechia on the public funding of research infrastructure projects.
Czechia has been a very active player in the area of research infrastructures internationally. Besides being a Member State of 8 international R&D organisations founded under the international public law, Czechia has become a Member State of 15 European Research Infrastructure Consortia.
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has developed a multi-source model of the public funding of Czech research infrastructures by combining the state budget expenditures with the EU cohesion policy funds in a close synergy and complementary way. While the operation costs of the facilities are financed by the national public budget, their investment costs are funded using the EU cohesion policy instruments. These investments have enabled major upgrades of experimental equipment of already operating research infrastructures.
In addition to that, brand-new facilities of national, macro-regional and global importance and impact have been constructed, e.g., the Extreme Light Infrastructure pillar ELI Beamlines, and the RECETOX RI Czech national node to the EIRENE research infrastructure. Besides the instruments to finance research infrastructures located in Czechia, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has introduced tools to enable participation of Czech research infrastructures in European and other international research infrastructures, including in-kind deliveries of experimental and other technical devices to those facilities, such as to the Jules Horowitz Reactor and the European Spallation Source.
The research community of Czechia gathers a broad portfolio of knowledge and expertise, which have enabled the construction and operation of numerous research infrastructures in the fields of physical sciences, engineering, energy, environmental sciences, biological and medical sciences, and social sciences and humanities, supported by an e-infrastructure, to provide both research infrastructure operators and their users with top-quality ICT services.
Czech research infrastructures are operated in accordance with good practice examples of user access policies. They are open to scientists, as well as innovators from Czech, foreign and international research institutes and business establishments, and offer attractive job opportunities for top-class managers, excellent scientists, skilled technicians and qualified administrators in the high-tech fields and international environments.
While the operation costs of the facilities are financed by the national public budget, their investment costs are funded using the EU cohesion policy instruments. These investments have enabled major upgrades of experimental equipment of already operating research infrastructures.
Czechia has been a very active player in the area of research infrastructures internationally. Besides being a Member State of 8 international R&D organisations – i.e., CERN, EMBC, EMBL, ESA, ESO, JINR, ITER and VKIFD – founded under the international public law, Czechia has become a Member State of 15 European Research Infrastructure Consortia –i.e., BBMRI ERIC, CERIC ERIC, CESSDA ERIC, CLARIN ERIC, DARIAH ERIC, EATRISERIC, ECRIN ERIC, ELI ERIC, ESS ERIC, Euro-BioImaging ERIC, European Spallation Source ERIC, EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC, ICOS ERIC, Instruct ERIC, SHARE ERIC – established on the basis of the EU legal framework, when anticipating the timely set-up of ERIC consortia governing operations of the ACTRIS, AnaEE, CTA, DANUBIUS-RI, EST, INFRAFRONTIER or METROFOOD research infrastructures. Czechia also participates in anumber of other international single-sited, distributed and virtual research infrastructures established under national legal frameworks of their host countries in Europe, e.g., FAIR, JHR or LSM, and the Americas, e.g., BNL, Fermilab or Pierre Auger Observatory.
From the perspective of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), Czechia has been involved in a total of 32 European research infrastructures included in the 2021 update to the ESFRI Roadmap, 25 of which are ESFRI Landmarks and 7 ESFRI Projects. When it comes to coordination of European research infrastructures, Czechia has become a Member State and the hosting country of the statutory seat of ELI ERIC, operating the Extreme Light Infrastructure,while the RECETOX RI Czech national node has been coordinating the EIRENE research infrastructure.
The latest news on achievements and development of research infrastructures in Czechia is available at https://research-infrastructures.cz/en.
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