The Group of Senior Officials (GSO) on research infrastructures is a working group under the G7 (with a broader membership).
| Vision: A world with Global Research Infrastructures (GRI) that offer robust and coordinated scientific services to promote an effective international response to societal and scientific grand challenges. Mission: The GSO exchanges experiences, and identifies and promotes guidelines, opportunities and practices for the advancement of the landscape of GRI within its members. |
The Group serves the shared policy goals of its member countries in ensuring that world class Research Infrastructures are available to promote high quality research. This, in particular, is important in areas which require international cooperation on global challenges or where it makes sense to pool investments to secure the best value for money.
The activities of the Group are:
- Defining the basic principles for the establishment and operation of global Research Infrastructures and identifying good practices
- Sharing information on plans for up-grading, new construction and/or further integration of Research Infrastructures of potential global relevance
- Outreach; providing participant governments with recommendations on the evolution and potential of the global Research Infrastructure landscape.
More information about international cooperation on research infrastructures
The GSO engages with other international and regional bodies active in RI policies and strategies:
- The OECD’s Global Science Forum carries out analytical work, often on research infrastructures and their international dimension
- The ICRI conference (held bi-annually in different countries) allows for RI managers and policy makers from around the world to meet and discuss areas of common interest
- The European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) drives the coordination of European Union countries for joint planning of and access to research facilities. ESFRI also works on the international dimension of RIs