Last week, RESILIENCE's first-year performance (June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023) was officially reviewed by ERA, the European Research Executive Agency, and the result was encouraging. The reviewers observed that the work of the consortium is moving in the right direction, and suggested improvements and adjustments to achieve the final result.
During the review meeting, the results of the various Workpackages were presented showing the progress of RESILIENCE’s work in this Preparatory Phase Project (2022-2026). Among them were the following:
Efforts were made to expand the consortium. In the first year, new partnerships could be established with several European institutions. Further reinforcement was obtained in the Flemish network and through the Italian project ITSERR. Progress has been made in collecting data for the business plan and financial model like on costs, financial sustainability and investments, and monitoring the necessary activities in this respect.
WP2 has made the first steps towards the user services catalogue with the publication of the User Service Strategy for 2022-2025. The next steps are mapping and prioritizing existing user services amongst the current consortium via the recently developed Service Template, with the goal of creating a catalogue consistent with EOSC service principles. The TNA Host Network now consists of thirteen TNA hosts across Europe, with the first group of TNA Fellows completing 133 access days. The RESILIENCE training programme is also in full development, with the first pilot expected in the next academic year. Finally, three workshops surrounding existing and future services are planned for the upcoming years.
A user needs survey workshop was designed and conducted, particularly in the Southeast European region. From the three workshops, data could be collected to better understand the needs of future users and to define the profile of the main users via so-called archetypes. The workshops were organized in collaboration with other Workpackages and the data collected was analyzed, resulting in a first draft set of user stories.
Communication and Dissemination activities have reached more than 200.000 people in the first year, mostly belonging to the academic community and religious communities. Other target groups, such as media and decision makers, have also been reached, but there is room for even greater focus here. The team was able to attend quite a number of events, which gave the opportunity to engage in a direct way with interested people and to better understand their expectations of RESILIENCE.
The team responsible for Impact Assessment (IA) has identified the key areas to be assessed based on the services announced on the website. In developing the master plan for assessment, the continuity of the previous RESILIENCE project in which the two important documents for IA were produced was respected: “RESILIENCE ex-ante Socio-Economic Impact Study – identifying potential social, economic, human resources and political impacts” and “Report on the measurement of the impact (MI) and impact on the partners and scientific community (IPSC) – MIIPSC”. The Impact Assessment Plan (IAP) is based on the guidelines of RI-PATHS. The key challenges for impact assessment for this comprehensive project with rich and diverse activities is to group the impact indicators and create a manageable and easy-to -use platform for data collection.
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As can be seen from the above, important steps have already been taken in the first year with encouraging results. It is also becoming increasingly clear how the RESILIENCE consortium can work on the objectives in good cooperation between the various teams. The adequate feedback from the reviewers in the form of suggestions for improvements and adjustments to achieve the final result, namely a European Research Infrastructure that is ready to be implemented starting the year 2026, certainly contributes to this.