Mission & Activities

Speeding up scientific discoveries, by making

technology development an integral part of the research infrastructures

careers in research infrastructures attractive to best STEM experts
training in RI professional skills available to all RI scientists

Raising funds for technology development and training of RI staff

Europe needs more technology developers and innovative technologies. There is an unused potential in public funding, that can be mobilized to work on development of novel technologies, with and by research infrastructures.

Working at European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL, I built the ARISE program to train technology developers for careers in Research infrastructures. The European Commission MSCA COFUND program supported the ARISE generously, to hire over 40 fellows and train them for 3 years each.

RIcapacity works on preparation and implementation of capacity building programs with academic organisations. We normally act as partners on the grants which we raise, implementing training programs, and partnership relations.

MSCA Cofund grants are excellent for establishment of large training programs.
Yet, there are other ways (and other grants) to build the capacity in RI:

build knowledge about technology development or about management of research infrastructures

create interactions with other local RIs and pan-European ESFRI RI

make smaller training programs, also on doctoral level

Enabling more collaboration and interaction with industry

Companies are interested in collaborating with academia on technology development, through which they often invest in personnel costs of RI technology developers and bring expertise or tools needed for product development.

In all our projects, we aim to connect RI to industry and other technology developing RIs, to speed up the processes and exchange of knowledge and share of instrumentation or materials..

Getting engineering expertise in life sciences

Life sciences have witnessed tremendous progress in the past decade, thanks to breakthroughs in methods and technologies. However, the real experts in technology development are engineers, who can develop new technologies and methods, and bring expertise and solutions from the fields that were not familiar to life sciences.

How do you get engineers in life sciences?

Engineers have excellent career chances in private sector. To attract them to academia, we need defined career paths, with clear roles and possible progression, and intellectual freedom to innovate.

Engineers traditionally are motivated to solve the problems of others, and this makes them ideally suited for the RI roles.

What can RIcapacity do to get more engineers in life sciences?

We can build initiatives to bridge the gap between these two disciplines, fostering a closer collaboration between researchers and engineers. Technology development projects, programs for careers in RIs, forums, workshops, summer schools are all the methods that can be used for this specific inter-disciplinary networking.

Designing training content for future and current RI staff

Scientist working already in RIs got trained on work. Various initiatives offer training programs for RI scientists who are already in the workforce. Through RIcapacity, my plan is to establish a training pathway to transition STEM experts into RI roles, ensuring that over 1000 RIs in Europe can recruit well-trained personnel.

Defining a career path for RI scientists

Best scientists want careers with progression possibilities, and a possibility to strategically influence developments in science. They are not operators, they are innovators.

If we want best scientists in RIs, we need to offer them positions that are attractive to them. This is especially true for technology developers and engineers.

If we want operators only, we will not have innovative core facilities and other RIs.

FAQs

What is in it for RIcapacity and what do you do?

I run RIcapacity for altruistic reasons – I want to see that people working in research infrastructures get their right place in academic ecosystem. They are extremely important for fast discoveries, and are exceptionally skilled, managing technologies better than most of the other regular researchers, while also understanding the scientific questions, model systems and reagents. They work for the whole community and this needs to be valued.

Who is behind RIcapacity

Tanja Ninkovic, PhD, started RIcapacity to be able to continue working on improvement of RIs in Europe, without limitation of focusing on individual technology, or country or institute. She brings her 15 years of experience in RI world, 10 years in training and 6 years in research and technology development together.

What are the achievements till now?

RIcapacity is a partner on ARISE2 project, hosted by EMBL, and is leading training and partnership development.
With ARISE (MSCA COFUND project – Career accelerator for future research infrastructure scientists), Tanja worked with colleagues to define the needed curriculum for learning to becoming an RI scientist, competencies needed and possible roles one can take in the RI.
RIcapacity is participating in the Elixir Career development working group, defining the roles in the bioinformatics and life science data services.

RIcapacity is also member of the COGAC COST action for the career development and advising, where we are focusing on emerging careers, especially those triggered by the developments of new technologies.

Can I join some of the initiatives?

Please do contact us if you are interested in working together.

How will RIcapacity work on these challenges?

RIcapacity raises funds for technology development in cooperation with different organisations, supporting organisations to implement the training for future and current RI staff, working with the community on defining the career path and the roles in RI.

RIcapacity is dedicated to advancing the technology development capacity of facilities, fostering collaboration between engineering and life science organizations through joint programs. This approach aims to promote intersectoral permeability and talent mobility, fostering innovation in life sciences. Additionally, RIcapacity seeks to advocate for the standardization of the RI career track, recognition of the impact of RI roles, and the establishment of a standardized training path for future RI scientists.