What is the number of research institutions across Europe? What types are there? How is the European high tech sector evolving? What are collaborations patterns in different kinds of research networks, such as European projects, patents or publications, and how do these patterns evolve over time? These questions are among the most debated research issues in STI studies, and also of great relevance for RTI policy makers. However, since systematic R&I datasets are rather scarce or distributed across different institutions in Europe in a non-harmonized and not accessible way, robust and systematic answers to these questions often remain unsatisfactory . The EU project RISIS (Research Infrastructure for Research and Innovation Policy Studies) aims to close this gap, providing a sound knowledge base in form of a geographically distributed research infrastructure. AIT is intensively involved in this four-year project, which combines distributed and harmonizes R&I datasets and demonstrates its value added to the research community by providing new evidence on STI dynamics in Europe from different angles.
Thomas Scherngell
This year’s RISIS week was held in Vienna, hosted by the AIT Center for Innovation Systems & Policy. Researchers from across Europe got together at Tech Gate and demonstrated progress in harmonizing data and infrastructures, designed roadmaps, analyzed problematic areas and provided illustrative demonstrations of the usability of the new infrastructure, which had been opened to researchers across Europe in 2016. Up to now, around 40 research projects based on RISIS datasets and platforms have been initialized.
A follow up project is planned for 2018, with shifting focus to an increased professionalization of the infrastructure. Researchers should have the possibility to access RISIS datasets at distance, via an online working space and with the support of advanced analyzing and visualization tools.
AIT senior scientist und project manager Thomas Scherngell: „The RISIS Week in Vienna impressively revealed the benefit of a pan-European research infrastructure for STI studies – both for scientific progress as well as in an RTI policy context.”