Meet MERIL

Martin Hynes and Sarah Moore introduce us to MERIL, a recently launched public database of Europe’s scientific research facilities

MERIL has been established as an open online resource providing information on high quality research infrastructures in Europe of all sizes and profiles, across all scientific domains – from high-profile laboratories (e.g. the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory) and large equipment (the Nordic Optical Telescope), to less widely exploited national resources such as the Debrecen NMR Centre or digital data archives (ECHO – Cultural Heritage Online). The mapping produced by MERIL really gives a better picture of Europe’s existing scientific capacities, and this information will help to support cooperation, collaboration and mobility within and beyond European borders.

The MERIL Portal, which was launched at the Lithuanian EU Council Presidency Conference “Horizons for Social Sciences and Humanities” in Vilnius on 24 September 2013, is the result of a pan-European, EU-funded project called “Mapping of the European Research Infrastructure Landscape”. In sum, the MERIL project has been the most ambitious effort to date to produce a comprehensive inventory of Europe’s most valuable scientific research facilities

Europe has been in need of such a resource for quite some time now. The importance of research infrastructures themselves, in virtually all domains of modern science, from physics to the humanities, is undisputed, and there is general consensus in Europe that an overview of existing facilities would be extremely helpful to both the scientific and the policy communities. There have already been two serious attempts in the past to establish a database, neither of which succeeded, for various reasons. In 2009 the ESF and the European Heads of Research Councils (EuroHORCs) made a joint statement regarding their vision for action towards a globally competitive European Research Area which highlighted the need for such an inventory. As the financing of research infrastructures falls to a great extent on the shoulders of research funding organisations such as the members of the ESF, the development of such a tool has thus been a strategic priority for us.

There are two main sets of reasons to create such a database. Firstly, in a diverse geographical and political space such as Europe, in which research infrastructures are still largely funded, operated and used at national, or even regional level, MERIL will facilitate greater scientific collaboration and more efficient use of resources by helping scientists to locate and access the most appropriate equipment and services to support their research, across geopolitical and disciplinary borders.

Secondly, the information contained in the MERIL database will serve to better inform policy makers in the process of planning and deploying funding for existing and new research infrastructures.

An ESF Member Organisation Forum on Research Infrastructures (MOFRI, 2010-2012) was a first attempt to bring together national agencies from all over Europe for joint discussions of research infrastructure policy. Complementing the work of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) on future needs for pan-European research infrastructures, the Forum focussed on the efficient utilisation of existing RIs, including the need for an inventory of existing RIs on national and European level.

In 2009 the European Commission issued a call with a view to updating and upgrading an earlier inventory of research infrastructures (www.riportal.eu) and the ESF responded with a successful proposal for the MERIL project in line with the objectives of the MO Forum. The MERIL project was subsequently launched in October 2010 with significant involvement of the ESF member organisations, its scientific Standing Committees and other stakeholders, including ESFRI.

Research excellence requires high quality facilities that not only host and support research activity, but also provide an attractive environment for researchers. All facilities indexed in MERIL have to have met three threshold criteria concerning the quality of their operation, the access they offer to the facility and their management standards, in combination with clear relevance to research beyond national borders. For example, the inclusion of facilities in the MERIL database is dependent on allowing access to external scientific users, nationally and internationally, through a transparent selection and admission process.

Another novelty of MERIL in comparison to previous attempts to create a database is that the responsibility for checking and validating entries for the portal is assumed by responsible national and international “Data Intermediaries”.  As a result, inclusion in the portal is a sign of quality and reliability and may also help to promote lower-profile research infrastructures by increasing their visibility to the wider world.

MERIL provides valuable information in a user-friendly and accessible format. Apart from basic information such as the name, website, location, etc., each entry contains information on the equipment and services available at the facility. By providing such a resource to researchers, which dramatically simplifies the process of identifying and contacting facilities of interest, it is expected that ultimately research outcomes will benefit, as researchers in all domains will be more likely to find the best and most convenient tools for the job.

The detailed information on each facility is provided by the facility staff themselves, who have access to the “back-office” of the portal through personalised user accounts. They can therefore log in at any time to make sure their entry is complete and up-to-date.

MERIL will have a profound effect on strategic European policy through the preparation of research, innovation, and funding decisions, which ultimately affects the direction of research and its outcomes.

Analysis of the data from MERIL will enable stakeholders, research organisations and networks to draw conclusions about strengths, gaps and needs and opportunities, and to issue recommendations that feed into future research and innovation programmes at the national and EU level.

The MERIL portal is likely to contribute significantly to the success of Horizon 2020 – the European Commission’s €70 billion programme for research and innovation for the period 2014 to 2020. Particularly in the planning stages, MERIL will help policy makers to determine exactly where our strengths currently lie and to assess what can and needs to be achieved in the future.

Similarly, it supports assessment of the current value we are getting out of existing resources, identifying room for improvement and supporting long-term development. MERIL is especially ground-breaking because it truly encompasses all subject areas, including the social sciences, libraries and language databases, which means that it reflects the entire research base. This is a huge step forward.

The MERIL project is still in its relative infancy. It was initially funded for two years by the European Commission under the coordination of the European Science Foundation (ESF), and is being maintained in 2013 with the financial support of ESF’s member organisations. Looking further ahead, the project hopes to take advantage of opportunities for further development offered by H2020.

The database will be continuously open to the addition of research infrastructures that meet the criteria for inclusion, which we hope will encourage more facilities to engage with us and with each other and ensure they provide acceptable levels of access and information to the wider world.

In our ambition for the development of the database we envisage integrating more information on the resources invested in research infrastructures, such as capital costs and personnel. Over the long run, such information would allow for a really novel analysis of the evolution of the costs of various types of facilities over their lifespan. This kind of information would be invaluable to policy makers and facility managers. We also intend to be consonant with the open data movement, meaning that the data we gather will be publicly available, but also that MERIL as a platform would support the integration of various information sources relevant to research infrastructures.

The onus now lies on the facilities themselves to help secure MERIL’s future. Facility managers have a responsibility to provide useful, accurate, and up-to-date information on an on-going basis in order to maintain the value of the database. Poor information will mean that the database is not used.

Conversely, research facilities will not feel compelled to contribute unless the portal has a sizeable user base; therefore all stakeholders, researchers, policy-makers, and others, bear a responsibility to utilise the data to the best effect for their research programmes and policies.

With so much at stake, the scientific community as a whole must recognise MERIL’s value and contribute to developing and maintaining its quality.

More information MERIL can be accessed at: http://portal.meril.eu

Authors Martin Hynes & Sarah Moore

Martin is Chief Executive of the European Science Foundation, and Sarah is ESF Science Officer