Category: News

The EU-LAC ResInfra project is organising a workshop on the capabilities of existing advanced networks between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This online event, which is organised together with the Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks (RedCLARA), will take place on October 14, 2021. Following the completion of EllaLink —the transatlantic high-connectivity cable linking Europe and LAC that was implemented by RedCLARA and the pan-European advanced network GÉANT— this event will discuss the capabilities of the existing advanced networks between these regions. In order to present to the scientific community the opportunities generated by these links, the existing advanced services will be discussed and examples of advanced network services and initiatives between Europe and LAC will be shown.

The executive director of RedCLARA, Luis E. Cadenas, will open the event to present the EllaLink project and its potentials. The EU-LAC ResInfra project will be presented by Inmaculada Figueroa (Ministry of Science and Innovation – Spain), while Alberto Pérez (RedIRIS) will speak about the advanced services provided by academic networks. Other initiatives such as LaConga and LAGO will also be presented. All the speakers will participate in a roundtable at the end of the event.

The detailed agenda is available here.

Please register here.

The workshop will take place in Spanish using the Zoom Platform.

In a joint action with EU-LAC ResInfra and iNEXT-Discovery, Instruct-ERIC launched a second international call, open to researchers from institutions holding a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with this institution.

This initiative contributes to the main goal of EU-LAC ResInfra project of enhancing the bi-regional collaboration regarding Research Infrastructures by promoting the exchange of experiences, staff and access provision between regions. In concrete, this funding is available to support up to 8 projects by providing research visits or remote access to any Instruct-ERIC center. Project proposals should select a single service from the Instruct-ERIC catalogue.

In this second call, the eligible institution are:

Latin America

• Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario (IBR, Argentina) 

 • Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata (INIBIOLP, Argentina)

 • Instituto de Química y Fisicoquímica Biológicas (IQUIFIB, Argentina)

 • University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

 • University of San Martín (UNSAM, Argentina)

 • Leloir Institute Foundation (Argentina) 

 • The Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP, Brazil)

 • Centro de Biología Estructural (CBE, Venezuela)

 • Institut Pasteur Montevideo (Uruguay)

 • Universidad de la República (UdelaR, Uruguay)

Africa

• University of Cape Town (UCT, South Africa)

To know more about this call, please click here.

It will be open until the October 31, 2021, at 5 pm CEST. Proposal Guidelines are available here. 

The TICAL2021 and the 5th Latin American e-Science Meeting was held between August 30^th and September 4^th to discuss the topic “Rethinking the University driven by digital technologies”. The event brough together the ICT leaders of Latin American universities and researchers who use technology intensively for their daily work. TICAL2021 aimed to join examples of implementation of solutions and strategies in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that support or contribute to the exercise of rethinking technological applications in Higher Education Institutions. EU-LAC RESINFRA was one of the projects selected to join the discussion on these topics.

On August 30^th, Rafael Mayo-Garcia (CIEMAT – Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas) shared the EU-LAC RESINFRA project in the parallel session on “eScience: Technological solutions and tools to enhance research”. The session had also the participation of the following projects: IkiamLab Link, LaRedCCA and Erasmus + LACoNGA Physics. In his speech, Rafael Mayo-Garcia explained the structure of the project and stressed the importance of the bioregional coordination, considering that every work package integrates, at least, an entity from Latin American-Caribbean and another one from Europe, ensuring the knowledge mixture and the diversity. The four pilots that are being developed in the project were also presented, specifically:

1. Instruct Eric: Structural Biology
2. Lifewatch: Ecosystems and Biodiversity
3. E-RIHS: cultural heritage
4. RICAP: Transdisciplinary application of computation. 

The presentation concluded with an exposition of the grand scope of the project, its regional magnitude, that consider 18 countries in two regions, including many entities, both public and private, as well as from the educational field, an essential element for the development of new technologies and knowledge infrastructures.

The session recording can be accessed here: TICAL2021 y 5° Enc. LA de e-Ciencia. Paralela: Soluciones y herramientas tecnológicas para… – YouTube

In the context of the EU-LAC ResInfra project, Instruct-ERIC opened a staff exchange call to allow researchers from Latin American institutions to visit European facilities. The call invited researchers from any Latin American institution which has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Instruct-ERIC to submit an application to utilise the equipment and machineries available at Instruct’s European centres.

Three researchers were selected and they will be visiting Instruct-ERIC facilities, accessing the equipment and sharing best practices and guidance with the host institutions to further advance research and understanding not only of the structural biology techniques but also of the procedures to allow open access to the infrastructure. 

Robeto Kopke Salinas of University of Sao Paulo (USP-Brazil) will be visiting the Bijvoet Centre at Instruct-NL Utrecht University (UU), utilising the highly sensitive Bruker NMR Spectrometers for analysis of the Type IV Secretion System (T4SS) of the phytopathogen Xanthomonas citri.

Leonardo Alonso of University of Buenos Aires (UBA – Chile) is to visit EMBL-Hamburg, to access the mass spectrometry facilities at the Instruct Centre. The team have been studying deamidation of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, and are seeking to determine which deamidations occur and what their functional significance is.

Alejandro Buschiazzo of Institut Pasteur Montevideo (IPMontevideo- Uruguay) will visit The Instruct Image Processing Centre (I2PC) In Madrid, Spain, with the specific aim of training in Cryo-EM techniques. Buschiazzo’s lab at IPMontevideo currently conducts macromolecular X-ray crystallography, but is keen to incorporate Cryo-EM as a key technique available at the facility. 

The aim of all three staff exchanges is to share knowledge that would be crucial to the plans to set up regional access centres for structural biology in Latin America.

To know more about the specific aims of these exchanges, please click here.

The ResInfra project Work Package 2 team, consisting of CNPq (WP leader), VTT (co-leader), FCT, MICITT and MINCIENCIAS, has updated the mapping of the LAC RI ecosystem which will be the basis for the bi-regional RI collaboration.

This mapping exercise has been based on previous exercises, drawing on the knowledge generated in previous projects and adding new infrastructures to those already identified. In addition, as an added value, this exercise includes information identifying the existing relevant collaborations between RIs in intra-LAC, EU-LAC, and when available, LAC-non EU countries, as well as good practices identified.

The mapping exercise began with the definition of a list of eligibility criteria to be applied for the inclusion of RIs in the LAC mapping and the definition of the scientific areas in which the RIs will be grouped. This has allowed establish a methodology for deepening the already existing mapping where needed and providing information.

As a result of an intense work that has included desk research, gap analysis on RI mappings and the design and launch of a Regional Survey of LAC RI National Mappings applied in the framework of EU-LAC WG on RI, WP2 has deepened the available mappings of LAC infrastructures, including 167 mapped RIs in total, with 92 updated RIs. The updating Of LAC RIs, however, is a continuous work that will continue to be carried out in the future.

The process of updating LAC RIs together with the  identification of state of the art on current collaborations and best practices in EU-LAC RI cooperation have served as a basis for the realization of a SWOT analysis. The deliverables 2.1 “Report on the criteria, scientific areas and methodology to develop the LAC RI landscape”, D 2.2  “Updated report on LAC RIs” and D 2.3 “LAC landscape analysis including SWOT and state of the art on current collaborations and best practices in EU-LAC RI cooperation” are available for download in the ResInfra web repository.

The work developed in this work group will be, together with the experience of the project pilots, the basis for the work to be carried out in other work packages of the project. This  is the case of the work done by ANID (leader), CNR (co-leader), UEFISCDI, FCT, VTT, CNPq, MICITT, MINCIENCIAS, AEI, DLR within WP3, whose objective is to collect data and to create a portfolio of EU and LAC RI roadmapping strategies, funding models and policy instruments, in order to select promising practices and lessons learnt; this is also the case of WP5, leaded by MEC, whose objective is give support to the EU-CELAC SOM Working Group on RI and make links with RI related bodies.

Horizon Europe is the EU’s funding program for Research & Innovation for the period 2021-202, with a budget of €95.5 billion. The first calls for proposals for collaborative research action were launched in June 2021.

In this context, EURAXESS, supported by the LAC Service Facility and the RedLAC NCP Network, have organised a launch event for Horizon Europe in LAC on next Thursday, July 8. The event will bring important information for Latin American stakeholders and researchers about how to take part in the program, with presentations on specific calls targeting LAC countries or matching the cooperation priority areas between LAC and the European Union (EU).

The launch event will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish and will be live-streamed on Youtube.

Research actors from the public and the private sector from both LAC and the European Research Area (ERA) are invited to attend. Registration is mandatory, check out the agenda and register now here!

The European Strategic Forum of Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has announced the approval of 11 new Research Infrastructures that will be included in the ESFRI 2021 roadmap. The approval has been decided after analyzing the results of the evaluation of the 18 proposals presented by the ESFRI Executive Committee.

The 11 approved infrastructures to be included in the Roadmap represent an investment of €4.1 billion in excellent science, contributing to address European challenges. These are:

• EBRAINS – European Brain ReseArch INfrastructureS, a distributed digital infrastructure at the interface of neuroscience, computing and technology, offering scientists and developers advanced tools and services for brain research.
• EIRENE RI – Research Infrastructure for EnvIRonmental Exposure assessment in Europe, the first EU infrastructure on human exposome (environmental determinants of health).
• ET – Einstein Telescope, the first and most advanced third-generation gravitational-wave observatory, with unprecedented sensitivity that will put Europe at the forefront of the Gravitation Waves research.
• EuPRAXIA – European Plasma Research Accelerator with Excellence in Applications, a distributed, compact and innovative accelerator facility based on plasma technology, set to construct an electron-beam-driven plasma accelerator in the metropolitan area of Rome, followed by a laser-driven plasma accelerator in European territory.
• GGP – The Generations and Gender Programme, aiming to provide high quality and cross-nationally comparable longitudinal data to answer pressing scientific and societal challenges on population and family dynamics.
• GUIDE – Growing Up in Digital Europe-EuroCohort, Europe’s first comparative birth cohort survey, aiming to support the development of social policies for the enhancement of the wellbeing of children, young people and their families across Europe.
• MARINERG-i – Offshore Renewable Energy Research Infrastructure, setting out to become the leading internationally Distributed Research Infrastructure in the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) sector, with a network of test facilities spread across Europe.
• OPERAS – Open Access in the European Research Area through Scholarly Communication, the distributed RI to enable Open Science and upgrade scholarly communication practices in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in line with the European Open Science Cloud.
• RESILIENCE – Religious Studies Infrastructure: Tools, Innovation, Experts, Connections and Centers, a unique, interdisciplinary scientific RI for all Religious Studies, building a high-performance platform, supplying tools and access to physical and digital data to scholars from all scientific disciplines.
• SLICES – Scientific Large-scale Infrastructure for Computing/Communication Experimental Studies ambitions to become an impactful RI in Digital Sciences, including concerns regarding energy consumption and the implementation of the Green Deal.
• SoBigData++ RI – European Integrated Infrastructure for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics, a resource for sharing datasets, methods, research skills and computational resources for supporting the comprehension of social phenomena through the lens of Big Data.

The approval of these new 11 research infrastructures hopes to strengthen the Roadmap by including new strategic projects and corresponds to a new level of ambition to develop unique, complex facilities for frontier science, supported by a renewed momentum for investments in RIs. Check out ESFRI website for more information.

Jana Kolar is elected as next ESFRI Chair
ESFRI has also announced the election of Jana Kolar as the Forum’s next chair, beginning in June 2022 and for two years. Jana Kolar is executive director of CERIC-ERIC and has a broad range of expertise, ranging from policy development and implementation, research and innovation, to entrepreneurship.

More information on Dr. Kolar election here.

Horizon Europe’s first work programmes are here! The work programmes set out funding opportunities under Horizon Europe for the period 2021 – 2022. The main work programme is structured as follows:

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and Research Infrastructures under Pillar I
• All clusters under Pillar II – Health; Culture, Creativity And Inclusive Society; Civil Security For Society; Digital Industry And Space; Climate Energy And Mobility; Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture And Environment.
• European innovation ecosystems under Pillar III
• Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area

The calls under the topic of Research Infrastructures, aligned under pillar I, are divided into five destinations that you can consult here:

• Destination – Developing, consolidating and optimising the European research infrastructures landscape, maintaining global leadership (INFRADEV), to contribute to a strong, excellent and impactful European Research Area, by reinforcing RI capacities in Europe, their role at the global level and the policy-making in this field;
• Destination – Enabling an operational, open and FAIR EOSC ecosystem (INFRAEOSC), aiming at delivering a “Web of FAIR Data and Services” for Science: a trusted virtual environment supporting Open Science, based on key horizontal core functions, with their corresponding e-infrastructures, and service layers accessible to researchers across disciplines throughout Europe; Horizon Europe – Work Programme 2021-2022 Research Infrastructures
• Destination – RI services to support health research, accelerate the green and digital transformation, and advance frontier knowledge (INFRASERV), with a focus on the provision of integrated RI services to enable R&I addressing major societal challenges, notably in health, in support of the green and digital transformation and ensuring resilience to crises as well as to support curiosity-driven research and advancement of frontier knowledge in broad scientific domains;
• Destination – Next generation of scientific instrumentation, tools and methods and advanced digital solutions (INFRATECH), to enable new discoveries and keep Europe’s RIs at the highest level of excellence, while paving the way to innovative solutions to societal challenges and new industrial applications, products and services;
• Destination – Network connectivity in Research and Education – Enabling  collaboration without boundaries (INFRANET), providing high-bandwidth networks and network services to interconnect researchers, data and computing resources in a nondiscriminatory way regardless of the location of the users and the resources to allow scientists to conduct excellent research.

Other work programmes cover

• European Research Council (ERC)
• Joint Research Centre (JRC)
• European Innovation Council (EIC)

Don’t miss the opportunity! Check out all the reference documents of the work programmes here.

The virtual three-day symposium that brought together delegates from Latin American and European research infrastructures (RIs), science policy organisations and research institutions to discuss opportunities and challenges for RI cooperation between Latin America and Europe took place between June 15-17.

The objective of the event was to raise awareness of individual RIs, to identify measures to mitigate current challenges of bi-regional cooperation between RIs, to initiate new and strengthening existing collaborations, and to initiate networks in a sustainable way so that all stakeholders benefit.

Moreover, the RI-VIS project has published the White Paper entitled “Recommendations towards cooperation between Latin American and European research infrastructures”. This White Paper collates the insights of experts from Latin American RIs, European RIs, and policymakers, highlighting examples of Latin American-European RI collaboration, best practices for successful collaboration, perceived challenges and bottlenecks, and from these presents a series of actionable recommendations. The White Paper is available here.

Inmaculada Figueroa (coordinator of EU-LAC Resinfra) speech can be watched here:

The European Commission has announced the dates for the first edition of the Horizon Europe Info Days.

From June 28 to July 9, prospective applicants and other stakeholders of EU research and innovation will have the opportunity to receive information and ask questions about the funding instruments and processes of Horizon Europe. The event will be open for participation without prior registration.

Throughout the ten days there will be sessions related to nine topics, each dedicated to a different cluster or part of the new program. Research Infrastructures will have their turn on June 28 and the program is already available here.

Horizon Europe Info Days full calendar includes:

• 28 Jun – Infrastructures
• 29 & 30 Jun – Digital, industry & space (cluster 4)
• 30 June – Civil security for society (cluster 3)
• 1 July – Culture, creativity & inclusive society (cluster 2)
• 1 July – The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: what is new under Horizon Europe
• 2 July – Health (cluster 1)
• 5 & 6 July – Climate, energy & mobility (cluster 5)
• 7 & 8 July – Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture & environment (cluster 6)
• 9 July – European Research Area (ERA) & Widening

Check out the full program here.