National Facilities – Frequently Asked Questions
- What are National Facilities and which ones are available at HT?
- How do the Human Technopole Facilities connect with other research infrastructures at the national level?
- Who is in charge of assessing access requests and approving access to National Facilities?
- How were the members of the Permanent Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP) selected?
- When will the National Facilities be accessible and how?
- What is the capacity of the National Facilities? How many researchers will gain access for each call?
- Who has access to National Facilities?
- What kind of access will be possible?
- Which funds will be used to finance the access of deserving projects to the National Facilities?
- Will researchers with their own budget be able to access the National Facilities to support the required analyses? Will they be able to do so without submitting their projects to the Permanent Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP)?
- Do Human Technopole researchers have privileged access to National Facilities?
- What happens after access has been approved?
- How were the facility managers selected?
- Is an update of the Human Technopole strategic plan planned following the approval of the National Facilities implementation plan?
- Where can one find information on National Facilities?
- Should a proposal fit to only one National Facility (and the associated call) or cross- sectional proposals including different Facilities are welcome and eligible?
- I am a researcher working in a not-for-profit research organization that is not among the eligible institutions. I am also affiliated to one of the eligible Universities. I am eligible to apply?
- Eligible Institutions are strongly encouraged to limit the number of applications to the very best 2/ NF, with at least 50% coming from Junior PIs. What does this mean? Is the limit intended for the whole call or for the evaluation window? Is the limit intended for the whole Institution, Institute or department? Is this an eligibility criterion?
1. What are National Facilities and which ones are available at HT?
National facilities are research infrastructures, i.e. facilities, resources and related services used by the scientific community to conduct high-quality research in their respective fields. These can be accessed by researchers from the entire scientific community.
Each facility is composed of specific operational units, called Infrastructure Units.
Following the signing of the Convenzione in December 2020 between Human Technopole and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Universities and Research and the Ministry of Health, a two-tier public consultation open to the national scientific community was conducted during 2021-22 to identify National Facilities to be implemented at Human Technopole, in line with the institute’s research focus on human health and disease.
As of June 2024, the following National Facilities are open to the scientific community: Genomics, Genomic Editing and Disease Modelling, Structural Biology, Light Imaging, Data Handling and Analysis.
The Facilities were identified following a two-level consultation aimed primarily at the national scientific community. The Technical Committee, composed of representatives of the founding Ministries of HT and appointed by the Convenzione to draft the Report, took into account the infrastructures already existing on the national territory in order to avoid duplications. In the future, attention will be paid to existing infrastructures at national and European level, also with a view to collaboration.
3. Who is in charge of assessing access requests and approving access to National Facilities?
Article 7 of the Convenzione between Human Technopole and the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Universities and Research and the Ministry of Health provides for the establishment of a Standing Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP) composed of eight members in addition to the chairman of the Foundation’s Scientific Committee, Walter Ricciardi.
The members were selected from the list provided by the Ministries of University and Research and Health and appointed by the Supervisory Board of the Human Technopole Foundation on 15 November 2023. The current members are:
- Filippo Mancia, CIVP President, Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, Department of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York (U.S.A.)
- Arianna Tucci, CIVP Vice President, Associate Professor of Medical Genomics, Queen Mary University of London (UK)
- Juha Kere, Professor of Molecular Genetics, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (Sweden)
- Samuele Marro, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of the Stem Cell Engineering Core, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York (U.S.A.)
- Jan Peychl, Senior Service Leader, Light Microscopy Facility, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden (Germany)
- Giampietro Schiavo, Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuromuscular Diseases, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London (UK)
- Maria Secrier, Associate Professor of Computational Cancer Biology, Genetics Institute, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London (UK)
- Virginie Uhlmann, Group Leader, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge (UK) and Director BioVisionCenter, University of Zurich (Switzerland)
The CIVP may use anonymous external auditors to assess access requests if it does not have the necessary expertise in-house or in view of the number of requests (Convenzione, Art. 6(3)).
4. How were the members of the Permanent Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP) selected?
The members of the Standing Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP) were selected following the publication of a public notice for the pre-selection of candidates for the establishment of the Commission on the website of the Ministry of Universities and Research on 4 July 2023. In order to avoid conflicts of interest and to guarantee the independence of the CIVP, applications were open to highly qualified scientists with the condition that they were not already affiliated with or holding a current position with the Human Technopole Foundation, public or private Italian universities, both public and private Italian research hospitals (IRCCS) and public Italian research institutions. The Supervisory Board of the Human Technopole Foundation received the list of candidates resulting from the pre-selection carried out by the Ministry of University and Research and the Ministry of Health and selected and appointed the final members of the Commission.
5. When will the National Facilities be accessible and how?
The National Facilities are officially open from 10 June 2024. As stipulated in Article 6 of the Convenzione between Human Technopole and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of University and Research and the Ministry of Health, the Standing Independent Evaluation Commission (CIVP) has defined the selection procedures for access to the National Facilities by the national scientific community. The services offered by the National Facilities are available through calls for access published on the HT website.
Applications for access are collected throughout the year and subjected to three rounds of assessment (May/June; September/October; January/February).
Guidelines for access and pilot calls are available on the Human Technopole website, where you can find a description of each facility and a list of Infrastructural Units.
There is no set number of projects or researchers that can access the facilities. Their capacity depends on the size of the admitted projects. Each facility is funded with an annual budget to support them. The more expensive the projects deemed worthy of access, the fewer will be selected. In addition, an initial pilot phase is planned to open the facilities with an increasing number of admitted projects, so as to gradually reach saturation and test access structures and procedures.
7. Who has access to National Facilities?
Applicants for access to the National Facilities are Principal Investigators (PIs) of any nationality as long as they are affiliated with universities, Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) and public research bodies, as provided for by Law 160/2019, art. 1, paragraph 276, letter b. The PI is a researcher affiliated with one of the institutions listed above with the role of independent group leader and responsible for the coordination of research activities carried out within the submitted project.
If requested by the candidate, access to the National Facility may also be granted to a member of his/her team. Applicants are encouraged to support access by young researchers who are part of their research team.
8. What kind of access will be possible?
Three different access modes are currently offered, depending on the specificities of each national facility, the technology used and the needs of external users:
- access to the facility or individual tools
- access with facility staff support for certain activities
- access with facility staff support for certain activities and training in the use of its technologies
Finally, access to the facility can also take place ‘remotely’, when the user is not physically present, but NF personnel carry out the experimental protocols provided by the service and send the data and results produced to the user.
9. Which funds will be used to finance the access of deserving projects to the National Facilities?
Law 160/2019 stipulates that 55% of the funding that Human Technopole receives from the State is earmarked for the management of the National Facilities and to finance the access of worthy projects.
Access to the National Facilities is mainly reserved for projects submitted by researchers affiliated to universities, Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) and public research organisations and is only through annual competitive procedures. It will not be necessary for these projects to have their own budget for the required analyses because these activities are supported by the funds allocated to the facilities.
11. Do Human Technopole researchers have privileged access to National Facilities?
No, they do not have privileged access. As established by Law 160/2019 paragraph 276, researchers belonging to Italian Universities, Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) or public research bodies are guaranteed privileged use of the National Facilities. These user groups are granted access through open calls, free of charge, for the project (or part of the project) approved for access. Human Technopole researchers may access the National Facilities for the remaining use. The costs for use of the National Facilities are then borne by the individual Principal Investigators/Group Leaders of Human Technopole.
12. What happens after access has been approved?
Once access has been approved, the applicant and the National Facility Manager or other staff from the facility meet to define the experimental protocol and project plan. Once the project plan is agreed upon, the User Access Office coordinates the signing of the required formal agreements (e.g. access agreement, collaboration agreement or other). Thereafter, the user is required to provide the samples/data as agreed with the National Facility manager and specified in the plan. Once the National Facility receives the samples/data, the project can be executed; at this stage, depending on the type of service required, the user may go to the National Facility for training or to execute parts of the project. At the end, the output of the project is delivered, which may include processed samples or research data. The research data are managed by the National Facility for Data Handling and Analysis, which performs a quality check of the data and prepares them for subsequent analysis by the user.
13. How were the facility managers selected?
As indicated in the Agreement between Human Technopole and the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Universities and Research and the Ministry of Health (Art. 4, paragraph 2), the Human Technopole Foundation is responsible for recruiting Head of National Facility through international competitive calls. The calls for applications were published on the Careers portal of the Human Technopole institutional website and other channels. The applications were assessed by a committee appointed by the Foundation’s Management Committee made up of a minimum of five members, at least three of whom external, in line with the Human Technopole Foundation’s Regulations for the Recruitment of Administrative and Scientific Staff for the selection of scientific leadership positions.
Yes, a new strategic plan for the period 2024-2028 was recently approved by the Supervisory Board of the Human Technopole Foundation. The plan reflects the changes introduced by the implementation plan of the National Facilities and the directions of the new leadership.
15. Where can one find information on National Facilities?
All communications will be managed centrally by Human Technopole with the aim of sending consistent messages to ministries, the national scientific community and the public. For this reason, all information will be available on the Human Technopole website and updates will be posted on Human Technopole’s social media accounts. No official accounts or websites dedicated to the National Facilities will be created at this stage.
The list of services available for each call can be found in Annex I, where you can also find, indicated as “additional services” the available services offered by other facilities for the specific call. Starting next year, the Standing Independent Evaluation Committee (CIVP), which is responsible for the definition of the access rules, will discuss the possibility of publishing dedicated calls for more complex projects that require services offered by multiple facilities.
As stated in paragraph 2.3 of the call for Access, the PI shall hold a primary appointment as Group Leader at an eligible institution. The appointment shall be confirmed by the host Institution in the mandatory letter of endorsement.
The Standing Independent Evaluation Committee encourages the host Institution to support the very best two applications for each National Facility (i.e., for each Call). The limit is intended for each evaluation window (e.g. for the call 24-G-Pilot, 2 applications in the first evaluation window plus 2 applications in the second evaluation window); for the whole Institution or Institute.
The indication does not represent an eligibility criterion but rather a guideline. In order to allow continuous access to the National Platforms with timelines compatible with the needs of researchers, the duration of each proposal evaluation round is limited to four weeks. Thus, to make it possible for projects to be evaluated in such a limited time frame, SIEC deemed useful to involve the researchers’ home institutions, suggesting a pre-evaluation phase prior to the submission of proposals. This is in no way intended to limit the possibility for researchers to submit their proposals for access to the services of the National Facilities. This first call is to be considered a pilot call, useful for optimizing the evaluation process. Eligible institutions are therefore also encouraged to use this trial period to define internally the optimal procedures for the participation of their researchers.