Research infrastructures (RIs) are facilities, resources and services that are used by the research communities to conduct research and foster innovation in their fields. Where relevant, they may be used beyond research, e.g. for education or public services. They include: major scientific equipment (or sets of instruments); knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives or scientific data; e-infrastructures, such as data and computing systems and communication networks; and any other infrastructure of a unique nature essential to achieve excellence in research and innovation. Such infrastructures may be 'single-sited', ‘virtual’ or 'distributed'.
Research infrastructures play an increasingly important role in the advancement of knowledge and technology. They are a key instrument in bringing together a wide diversity of stakeholders to look for solutions to many of the problems society is facing today. RIs offer unique research services to users from different countries, attract young people to science, and help to shape scientific communities.
The European research infrastructures (including e-Infrastructures) work programme 2018-2020 consists of six calls for proposals in which proposals are invited against specific topics:
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Autoship is, as the name suggests, an acronym for autonomous ship. Just like with self-driving cars, the possibilities of an unmanned boat seem endless. It can create more efficient freight transport, around the clock deliveries and these are just a few of the examples. The project has two societal challenges.
At first, De Vlaamse Waterweg was a bit hesitant as their experience with FP7 or Horizon 2020 projects was limited and they had not been very successful up until then. The fact that they were already doing basic research on the topic of autonomous boats, and the administrative help of NCP FLanders helped De Vlaamse waterweg to cross the line and get involved.