Yesterday the third capacity-building training for evaluation, planning, monitoring, operation and management of research infrastructures started in Bucharest, Romania and continues until Friday (23-25/05/2018).The training's goal was to equip research infrastructures' managers and scientists with tested tools to enhance their role in their countries' science and innovation systems.

In his introduction, Prof. Adrian Curaj (president of the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding, Romania) introduced the priorities defined in Romania's smart specialisation strategy and the process of developing the strategy. In particular, Prof. Curaj stressed the importance of strong research infrastructures in reaching the smart specialisation stategy's objectives.
On the second day of the training event, trainer Evgeni Evgeniev gave an overview on the role of research, development and innovation under the EU's economic strategy "Europe 2020". During his presentation, Mr Evgeniev highlighted the challenge for Eastern European countries to reach the EU's target to raise national R&D expenditures to a level of three percent of GDP. Further, Mr Evgeniev explained the importance of state-of-the-art Research Infrastructures in achieving this goal and in strengthening countries' research and innovation ecosystems.
Trainer Allen Weeks introduced participants to tools and methods in effectively managing research infrastructures, including stakeholder management and monitoring through well-defined indicators.
Ioana Spanache (Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Fund of Romania) emphasised the role of Research Infrastructures as drivers of change in their regions and countries, and presented approaches to socio-economic impact evaluations of Research Infrastructures.
Attila Havas (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) gave a short introduction into the foresight approach and its importance for effectively coordination national research and innovation efforts.
Trainer Vlastimil Růžička gave recommendations on how to achieve long-term sustainability of research infrastructures and stresses in particular the need for effective human resources and staff policies as well as sustainable governance and funding models.

Exercises & field visits to come
Participants will deepen their skills in applying the methods and tools presented in several group work exercises. In addition, participants take part in a field visit to the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) facility for laser-based nuclear physics technologies near Bucharest.

The training was organised by ResInfra@DR's Romanian project partner, the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI).

Find more impressions at ResInfra@DR photo gallery!

Image source: UEFISCD, 2018