Focus 1

The dynamics of knowledge creation via open source research infrastructures

RIs are central elements in the dynamics of innovation. Their analysis and evaluation cannot therefore be made in a purely static framework. It is important to think about the benefits of RI in a dynamic, ongoing context. Since research projects on RI are flourishing and in the same time feed RI, we expect that once a RI succeeds in fostering research and industrial projects, those projects will enrich the RI (via an additional content and/or reputation effect), which in turn will foster new projects, thus triggering an ongoing endogenous dynamics.

A promising approach to understand and analyse the dynamics of RI can be found in the recent but already abundant literature on open source. Originally applied in the context of software, the principles of open source now emerge in other fields such as life sciences or pharmaceuticals for instance.

Our proposal is to develop the approach of open source research infrastructure (OSRI) to evaluate the enrichment effect of RI by ensuring that feedbacks from users effectively contribute to the improvements of RI.

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