Societal and economic benefits and impacts, and social responsibility of research infrastructures, their role and international cooperation and development of an integrated Research infrastructures ecosystem. Those are the three main topics of this year´s International Conference on Research Infrastructures ICRI 2022, which will take place from 19th to 21st October in Brno, Czech republic.

On the occasion of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Brno took over the International Conference on Research Infrastructures ICRI 2022. In October, the conference will attract leading scientists, policy makers, and the broader public to the South Moravian metropolis.

The topics are chosen in the light of current challenges that our society and research infrastructures face.

The preparatory work started already many months ago, and it includes regular meetings of the Programme Committee, which is involved in the selection of speakers for the conference, as well as the topics that will be central to this year´s infrastructure discussion. The topics are chosen in the light of current challenges that our society and research infrastructures face. The conference will discuss approaches to respond to the most pertinent of them. For this year, they are:

1) Societal and economic benefits and impacts, and social responsibility of research infrastructures (RI) – global/macro-regional dimension; trends and threats in socioeconomic development (SDGs); new policy imperatives for RI to facilitate the digital and green transition, and sustainable economic development; the role of universities and higher education, engagement of citizens and better communication of the importance of RIs.

2) International cooperation and the role of RI – global and macro-regional cooperation models, new European Research Area (ERA) in the global perspective, trans-national access to RI and funding models and challenges.

3) Developing an integrated RI ecosystem – the role of small- and medium-scale RI next to large-scale international installations, macro-regional and global data management, sustainability, toolboxes for RI, careers and mobility of scientific and RI staff.

„Given the international dimension of the conference, the members of the Programme Committee have been selected from all over the world. They cover a wide variety of scientific and policy experiences, and they represent a vast diversity of different cultural backgrounds. The composition of the program committee guarantees, that the concept of a globally interconnected ecosystem of research infrastructures is rightly projected into topics that resonate across continents, such as sustainable development, healthy society, issues related to the transition to a green economy, or greater openness towards society and the importance of communication of research infrastructures´ benefits to the broader public,“ says Jan Hrušák, co-chair of the ICRI 2022 Programme Committee.

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