On 30 and 31 May 2012, Knowledge Exchange (KE) organised a workshop bringing together members of all working groups and several other selected experts. The participants shared the activities and plans of all the working groups and explored topics and approaches to feed into the strategic plan of Knowledge Exchange for 2013 to 2015. Additional input was collected before the event through a survey sent to all working group members.

 

In discussions three recurrent topics were raised:

·      Fresh insights into sustainable business models for shared services for the open layer are required;

·      Linking the infrastructure across disciplinary, national and global boundaries is a challenge worth addressing;

·      A new area of work is needed in KE, Open Culture, which seeks to understand researcher behaviours and encourage open, sustainable use of technologies.

 

In the discussion a commonly used metaphor was to regard the e-Infrastructures as part of an overall ‘ecosystem’. An ongoing challenge is to connect with all the stakeholders in this ‘ecosystem’, including researchers and publishers. This includes retaining engagement with the European Commission and reaching out more effectively to other European organisations and initiatives working in related areas. KE should examine working practices to increase its flexibility and responsiveness, improve impact, especially with the partner organisations and national bodies, and develop a sound communications strategy.

A report on the workshop, the presentations, a list of participants and photographs can be found on the website.

 

 

The KE Steering Group and KE Group have discussed the outcomes of the workshop. These will be translated into several actions.

A list of next steps that will be explored is now also available online.