The e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG) organises two open workshops every year, each under the auspices of the corresponding presidency of the EU Council. The Belgian EU Presidency e-IRG Workshop will be organised as a hybrid event and will bring together e-IRG stakeholders in Brussels, Belgium, as well as online and worldwide. The e-IRG events are official EU presidency events which will take place in the framework of the “Conference on Research Infrastructures” and the “ESFRI Forum meeting”, similar to the Lund events under the Swedish EU presidency.

The overarching theme of the event will be “Sustainable e-Infrastructures for research results valorisation“, in line with BE EU presidency topic. There will be two sessions under the Belgian e-IRG workshop:

Day 1 – Wednesday 5 June 2024, 13:30-15:30

Session 1: Sustaining the role of e-Infrastructures in EOSC and beyond

This session aims to continue the discussions from the Valencia e-IRG Workshop and reflect on the draft RI orientation paper for WP 2025-2027 which includes the topic of sustainability of RIs, and refers to the federation and uptake of e-Infrastructures. The session will also touch upon the concept of federation and role of e-Infrastructures in the new EOSC node-based ecosystem, especially as e-Infrastructures are not formally part of the nodes ecosystem nor the procurement projects. The sustainability topic of RIs and e-Infrastructures is also relevant to the new ERA policy agenda for 2025-2027.

Day 1 – Wednesday 5 June 2024, 16:00-18:00

Session 2: The e-Infrastructure contribution to data and research outputs valorisation

On of the Belgian EU Presidency topics on Research and Innovation is improving the valorisation of research results. This is key for reducing the innovation gap, and tailoring academic research with the needs of society, policy-makers and industries, while stimulating the EU’s industrial recovery and revitalisation. The aim of the session is to highlight the crucial role of e-Inrastructures in this area, spanning several layers and components, with a cross-cuting one being the EOSC and thematic (domain-specific) or generic (domain-agnostic) data infrastructures.