The ESFRI Stakeholder Forum is a key platform to interact with European Research Infrastructure (RI) stakeholders, raise awareness across the R&I ecosystem, and facilitate cooperation and mutual learning. The Forum aims to attract a diverse range of stakeholders, seeking to look beyond traditional RI communities and foster new and improved services of RIs.
The Meetup of the Forum is a regular event that gathers diverse participants, including research infrastructures, policymakers, research organisations, and higher education institutions. The primary objective of the Meetup is to create a structured, constructive communication channel with a broad community of stakeholders, facilitating the exchange of ideas and expertise between research infrastructures and their stakeholders.
The event was structured around two main sessions: 1. Driving Innovation and Sustainability through RI-Industry collaboration, 2. Synergies from different funding sources.
The conference was opened by the talk given by Elena Hoffert, ESFRI Vice-Chair, where she outlined the strategic importance of coordinated funding, scientific excellence, and policy-driven support for a resilient RI ecosystem. Second keynote was given by Prof. Serge Fdida from Sorbonne Université, who explored how stronger RI–Industry collaboration can unlock long-term sustainability from shared governance and open innovation to co-investment models, talent development, and upskilling initiatives. His presentation underscored the need to adapt existing RI models to better serve industrial needs, foster trust, invest in human capital, and build capacity for continuous education and reskilling.
Michael Arentoft (EK) chaired the Panel discussion on the cooperation with industries, joint technological development and the role of the industry as a user of the RIs. The panel was followed by Break-out sessions discussing the very same questions and the ways how to stimulate and utilize the cooperation with the industry.
On the second day, the keynote was given by Allen Weeks, Director General of ELI - Extreme Light Infrastructure, who outlined a bold vision for a dedicated, centralised European RI Fund, capable of supporting the full lifecycle of infrastructures, reducing fragmentation, and reinforcing Europe’s global competitiveness. In his speech, he clearly stated that long-term impact requires coordinated investment, excellence-driven missions, and strategic autonomy.
Second panel was chaired by Antje Keppler, Director of the Bio-Hub of Euro-BioImaging ERIC, and covered mainly exploiting the synergies between institutional, regional, national, European and global RI funding streams. Similarly to the firsty day, the panel was followed by the break-out sessions, which outcomes were presented by rapporteurs to the whole audience.
EIRENE RI was represented at the meeting and its representative contributed during the discussions and breakout sessions actively. We also used the occasion to engage with national representatives and ESFRI delegates and the other stakeholders. EIRENE is proud to be able to contribute to such a important discussions and to shaping the whole.
