The website of the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) has published the slides summarising the contents of the second-level public consultation promoted as part of the Convenzione signed between the Ministries of University and Research (MUR), Health, Economy and Finance (MEF), and the Human Technopole.
The consultation, open to the scientific community until 31 May, concerns the creation, at the Human Technopole, of National Platforms that can be used by Italian researchers to conduct high quality research in their respective fields, regardless of their institutional affiliation.
The Convenzione provides that the National Platforms are identified through a two-phase consultation. The first phase, which ended on 30 September 2021, involved more than 160 stakeholders including universities, scientific institutes for research, hospitalization and healthcare, public research organizations, industry, regions, third sector organizations and social partners. The initiative resulted in a number of proposals that were then analysed by the Technical Committee taking into consideration the proportion of the community interested in the proposed facilities, any overlapping with existing European or national research infrastructures, and current or planned public investments. The proposal evaluation led to the identification of some areas in the life sciences sector characterized by a high demand for national platforms:
– “Omics domain” area, which includes a broad spectrum of technologies, from nucleic acids to proteins and metabolites, analysed both from tissues and from single cells;
– “Imaging domain” area, which includes various imaging technologies at multiple scales, from atoms to molecules, cells, tissues and organs;
– “Data handling and analysis core for NPs” area, which is essential to collect the large amount of data produced by other national platforms and to support their analysis and use by researchers.
The second phase of the public consultation requires the results of the first phase to be submitted to the entire scientific community for comments. All researchers are invited to express their opinion on the areas identified or to propose any motivated additions or deletions. The questionnaire is available on the Human Technopole website.
At the end of the second phase, the Technical Committee will prepare a Final Report on the results of the consultations defining a list of Platforms identified as priorities by the national scientific community.
