Abstract:

The paper presents the critical conclusions of comparative analysis, aiming to examine the common functions, offered by the websites of European research infrastructures (RI) to propose a model of optimal e-content structure and functionalities for successful collaboration between research teams, educators, and businesses, a further enlargement of a multi-actors" digital distributed research infrastructure (DDRI). The study considers 12 RI from France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Romania, and Bulgaria. Each website is investigated by applying for a preliminary prepared registration card with fixed parameters where the access to information that the website provides is evaluated into 10 categories. The paper presents the results from the study and they are discussed in terms of the specific features of the establishment and development of DDRI given the European policy for open science and open universities and the need to raise visibility, internationalization, and the partnerships between universities and other economic entities (both public and private).

The obtained results indicate how the functionalities of a RI website are related to its research area, and conclude the minimum set of functionalities for DDRI that are necessary to be developed to strengthen the collaborative basis and the further enlargement of a DDRI. The full version of the paper provides detailed information about the research infrastructures and their research focus and activities, which allow identifying the dependencies.

Keywords:

Research infrastructure, website, minimum set of functionalities.