Research infrastructures services for sustainable and inclusive Global Value Chain and Europe recovery from socio-economic crises

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• scientific evidence for developing the European Recovery Plan and the design of European policies for trade, production, employment and investments in relation to Global Value Chain;
• enhanced society’s long-term and consistent problem-solving capacities to recover from socio-economic crises;
• strengthened EU position on the global market;
• contribution to the definition of standards in evolving markets;
• provision of evidence on labour market patterns and needed skills.

Global value chains (GVCs) nowadays account for almost half of all international trade. In this age of global value chains, and especially at a time when the world economy and supply chains are challenged by the COVID-19 crisis, GVCs and their role in international trade and economic growth across the world as well as their impact on employment and skill are more important than ever.

Proposals will bring together complementary and possibly heterogeneous national and European research infrastructures to provide effective access to an integrated wide range of RI services providing insights into the functioning, characteristics and impacts of Global Value Chains. Research infrastructures services will allow to assess to what extent the configuration of value chains helps to reinforce the resilience of production processes, investments and employment. They will also enable research in and analysis of the consequences of the international fragmentation of production.

Proposals will support the provision of trans-national and/or virtual access to researchers as well as training for using the infrastructures, and activities to improve, customise and integrate the services the infrastructures provide, so as to facilitate and integrate the access procedures, and to further develop the remote or virtual provision of services. Proposals should adhere to the guidelines and principles of the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures^[1].

Data management (and related ethics issues), interoperability, as well as the connection of digital services (e.g. data services) to the European Open Science Cloud, should be addressed where relevant.

Proposals should duly take into account major European or international initiatives relevant in the field/for the scope. Whenever appropriate, they should foster the use and deployment of global standards.

Proposals should make available to researchers the widest and most comprehensive portfolio of research infrastructures services which are relevant for the scope. To this extent, they should involve, as beneficiaries or as third parties, the necessary interdisciplinary set of research infrastructures of European interest^[2] that provide such services. The inclusiveness of the proposal will be taken into account in the Excellence score. Proposals including only few of the research infrastructures services relevant to the scope will be scored lower.

Research infrastructures from third countries^[3] may be involved when appropriate, in particular when they offer complementary or more advanced services than those available in Europe.

Proposals should include an outreach plan to actively advertise its services to targeted research communities and, if applicable, to relevant industries, including SMEs.

Proposals are expected to exploit synergies and to ensure complementarity and coherence with other EU grants supporting access provision.

Proposals will include the list of services/installations^[4] opened by research infrastructures for trans-national or virtual access and the amounts of units of access made available for users. Further conditions and requirements relating to access provisions that applicants should fulfil when drafting a proposal are given in the “Specific features for Research Infrastructures” section of this Work Programme. Compliance with these provisions will be taken into account during evaluation.

EOSC and FAIR data
International Cooperation

[1]https://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/pdf/2016_charterforaccessto-ris.pdf

[2]A research infrastructure is of European interest when is able to attract users from EU or associated countries other than the country where the infrastructure is located. This includes ESFRI and ERIC infrastructures.

[3]See the Eligibility conditions for this topic.

[4]“Installation” means a part or a service of a research infrastructure that can be used independently from the rest. A research infrastructure consists of one or more installations.