Monitoring of ESFRI Landmarks

The first and second rounds of Monitoring of ESFRI Landmarks have officially concluded! All participating Landmarks have been notified of their results.

The final public reports for the first and second Monitoring Batches are available below to download:

For the Third Batch, Monitoring Panels are now analysing the information submitted by the Landmarks

Questionnaires

Public Guides

BACKGROUND

ESFRI Landmarks were introduced in the ESFRI Roadmap 2016 as reference RIs and are pillars in the ERA landscape offering not only services to academic research, but also supporting development and innovation. Guaranteeing the excellence of the Landmark label, ESFRI has responsibility for monitoring the quality of the RIs listed in the ESFRI roadmap as Landmarks.

In the follow-up to the Competitiveness Council Conclusions of May 2018, and the pilot review of four Landmarks assessing the scientific status and their implementation, ESFRI has set up an ad hoc Working Group on “Monitoring of Research Infrastructures Performance”. It prepared a final report containing general criteria for Landmark and RI assessment and considerations for implementing an appropriate methodology in the future. This report addressed various aspects of Landmarks and developed a set of KPIs. The report was approved and published by ESFRI in December 2019.

The ad hoc Working Group also recommended a quality standard for Key Performance Indicators (the “RACER-Criteria”)4 and a dialogue process between the RIs and the evaluating organisations to define the most appropriate KPIs that would at the same time fulfil the objectives of the ESFRI assessment.

In order to prepare and implement a fully consistent procedure for monitoring of ESFRI Landmarks, ESFRI has set up another working group, namely the “Monitoring Implementation Group”, with the mandate to propose a methodology for the monitoring of Landmarks on the ESFRI Roadmap. The working group has prepared a report, which identified options for implementation of Landmark monitoring by ESFRI and provided directions for further development of the ESFRI monitoring framework and for uptake of the ESFRI monitoring approach beyond the Landmarks.

KEY FEATURES OF THE LANDMARK MONITORING PROCESS

Landmark monitoring by ESFRI has the following objectives:

enabling regular exchange between ESFRI and Landmarks on their long-term development;
assessing the quality of each individual Landmark;
identification of possible problems and supporting the Landmarks to take appropriate actions;
gathering information on the performance, outputs and impacts of the Landmarks.

Additionally, the outcomes of the Landmark monitoring exercise will provide insights into the functioning of the European RI ecosystem as a whole and will contribute to the identification of gaps in the European landscape and future opportunities for the RIs in Europe.

Each Landmark shall be monitored at regular intervals of about five years. Monitoring will be based on qualitative information gathered through a questionnaire and quantitative information represented by KPIs. In line with the two ESFRI monitoring reports mentioned in the previous chapter, RIs are invited to use the ESFRI KPIs, however, they may be replaced or complemented by other KPIs, which capture specific objectives of the Landmarks. The obtained information will be complemented by hearings (virtual) and site visits (if considered necessary by the Monitoring Panels), as relevant. The monitoring should be based as much as possible on the information already available, which Landmarks prepare for their governing bodies and the broader public.

Monitoring will cover Landmarks which have already started their operational phase and actively provide services. All eligible Landmarks will be monitored before the end of 2024, in three batches. Monitoring of the first batch will start in September 2022, after preparatory work starting from June 2022.

The Landmark monitoring process is coordinated by the ESFRI Monitoring Committee, while each Landmark will be analysed by a dedicated Monitoring Panel.

All the details of the Monitoring process can be found in the relevant Public Guides available via the links further above and down below.

Did you miss the ESFRI Kick-off Workshop on Monitoring of Landmarks (16.09.22)? Watch the video recording: