Policy challenges in research and innovation infrastructure

The European research and innovation infrastructure ecosystem is diverse in scale and scope, comprising numerous facilities and stakeholders operating at the leading edge of scientific discoveries. As well as providing hands-on support to local or regional stakeholder communities, notably SMEs.

The policy challenges linked to exploiting this infrastructure are high on the agenda of national and regional policymakers alike; at the EU level a number of instruments focus on co-investment and promotion e.g. openness and access, whilst regional policymakers are often concerned with the infrastructure’s role in supporting smart specialisation, growth and interregional cooperation.

In the Interreg Europe community, there are a number of projects tackling research and innovation infrastructure from different perspectives and their experience can serve as inspiration to regions across Europe. The Policy Learning Platform offers a range of services to promote inter-project and interregional cooperation and capitalisation services to reinforce the different approaches and identify synergies and good practices to fully exploit both existing research and innovation infrastructure and future investments.