Research Infrastructures (RIs) and their services are a vital element for the realization of the European Union as a knowledge-based society. Together with Core Facilities - existing in many universities, academic research centers and national nodes of distributed RIs- RIs are standing pillars for excellence in science. RIs and CFs are also at the core of the development of the Open Science and Open Innovation strategy, and a major factor in its success and in the significant achievements of European research landscape, with the development of initiatives, practices, shared facilities, common guidelines and standards.
As RIs and CFs increase in importance, questions about how to organize, maintain, manage and finance them have become a major topic for funding and research organizations. The inter-relationships of RIs in the same science domain and across domains, as well as the need to align to and contribute to the FAIR data approach, to EOSC, to equal opportunities (including gender balance and diversity) and to the open science policy, impose new competences and skills to manage a systemic evolution of the RIs, that cannot operate in isolation. As a consequence, is getting more and more relevant the need for a proper and sustainable training of the staff involved and the definition of specific programs, tailored to meet the needs in organization and management of complex entities, handling multinational operations, transnational access and data flow and management, innovation, Ethical, Legal, Societal Implication (ELSI), tools to meet Open Science and Open Innovation.