Convenzione Ministries – Human Technopole: Second level consultation open

The Convenzione signed on December 30, 2020 between the Ministries of Economy and Finance, of Health and of University and Research and the Human Technopole Foundation governs the realization at Human Technopole of National Facilities (NFs), which must meet the definition of research infrastructure adopted by the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)^[1], i.e., facilities, resources and related services used by the scientific community to conduct high-quality research in their respective fields, independent of institutional or national affiliation.

The Convenzione provides that these NFs will be identified following a public consultation in two phases: the first engaging stakeholders representing Universities, research hospitals, Public Research Institutions, Industry, Regions, social partners, and Third Sector (charitable) entities that conduct or fund research in the life sciences, the second phase consists in collecting the views and comments of  the entire scientific community on a summary of possible NFs elaborated by the Technical Committee, based on the output of the first phase.

On September 30^th 2021, the first level consultation was completed. This consultation involved more than 160 stakeholders and aimed to identify the priorities of the national scientific community in terms of research infrastructures (RIs) in the field of life sciences.

Several technological facilities proposed by the participants in aggregate or individual forms were compliant with the requirements set out in the Convenzione. These proposals were further examined by the Technical Committee, taking into consideration the advice of international experts in the technological areas covered by the proposed facilities. The most important criteria were whether substantial overlap existed with National and/or European RIs, as well as with current or planned National public investments in RIs, and the magnitude of the proportion of the national scientific community potentially interested by the proposed facilities.

Overall, this initial phase of consultation allowed the identification of ‘core areas’ with high demand for NFs offering researchers a free access (respecting the criteria and procedures foreseen in the Convenzione) in the respective fields. These NFs will allow Italian researchers to access a broad range of services from omics technologies to imaging and structural analysis.

One of these core areas is represented by the OMICS DOMAIN, that includes a broad spectrum of technologies, from nucleic acids to proteins and metabolites, analysed either from tissues or from single cells. This domain will support researchers working in different areas of life sciences.

Another core area is the IMAGING DOMAIN. This includes several imaging technologies at multiple scales, from atoms over molecules to cells, tissues and organs.

Both core areas of OMICS and IMAGING will produce large quantities of data and will need to be supported by a DATA HANDLING AND ANALYSIS CORE for the NFs that will be essential to collect these data, carry out first level analysis and deliver them in workable format to external researchers for in-depth analysis.

More information on the results of the first level consultation can be found here.

The above-summarised results of the first level consultation are now submitted to the Italian scientific community for comments. With the questionnaire prepared by the TC and accessible following the link below, we invite researchers to express their opinion on the identified core areas and to propose any motivated additions and/or deletions.

First you will be asked to indicate the level of priority of the identified domains for the Italian scientific community. In the next section you will have the opportunity to indicate possible facilities that you think are missing in the identified domains and that you consider fundamental for the Italian scientific community. Moreover, you will have the possibility to indicate if any of the proposed facilities is unnecessary for the community, for example because there is no demand for a particular technology, or because that technology is already sufficiently covered by existing facilities.

At the end of the questionnaire, you will be asked to indicate which type of institute you are affiliated to and your job title. This information will be used for statistical purposes to assess the level of participation of the Italian scientific community.  

The second level consultation will remain open until 31^st May 2022.

CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE

11 From ESFRI Roadmap 2018“RIs are facilities, resources or services of a unique nature, identified by European research communities to conduct and to support top-level research activities in their domains. They include major scientific equipment – or sets of instruments; knowledge-based resources like collections, archives and scientific data; e-Infrastructures, such as data and computing systems and communication networks; and any other tools that are essential to achieve excellence in research and innovation”.