Illustrative photo, Source: flickr.com/www.GlynLowe.com
In June 2015, the European Commission published the Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures. The Charter provides non-regulatory principles and guidelines that can be used on a voluntary basis to define rules and conditions for access to research infrastructures. The Charter is addressed to research infrastructures, the institutions to which they belong and their respective research funding organizations.
The Charter defines research infrastructures as “facilities, resources and services that are used by the research communities to conduct research and foster innovation in their fields”. It includes both the physical infrastructures and e-infrastructures (e.g. data, computing systems, communication networks) and aims to foster the development of innovative and excellent research and to promote the interaction among different stakeholders in order to accelerate European competitiveness and innovation.
The Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures has been developed by the European Commission, together with the European Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG) and the ERA Stakeholder organizations, including EUA, CESAER, EARTO, LERU, NordFosk and Science Europe.
The Charter sets out the basic principles of access policy, acknowledgement, legal conformity, costs and fees, ethical conduct, non-discrimination, implementation, research data management and user instruction. The document also provides guidelines for access policy, access unit, access modes, conditions for access, access processes and interactions, support measures facilitating access, education and training, regulatory framework, transparency, health, safety and environment and limitations.
