The sophistication, size and costs of research infrastructures are hard for any one country to manage. Whatever Europe’s desire for tech sovereignty, international cooperation is needed to finance and operate them.
As the EU’s internal tussle on where to draw the line between openness and technology sovereignty continues, global science leaders are this week meeting online, in a bid to open the way for large research infrastructures to get fully engaged in responding to climate change and sustainable economic development.
These facilities are powerful tools for global cooperation, said Jean-Eric Paquet, European Commission’s director general for research and innovation. “I think that research infrastructures and open science policy are probably the two most powerful instruments to really bind scientists”.
Paquet was speaking in advance of addressing the International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI), on a panel focusing on the possibility for multilateral cooperation in financing, designing and operating these facilities.
