To learn from best practice examples on sharing research infrastructure, a study tour with seven participants from the EUGLOHRIA Alliance member universities to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) was organized on 25-26th April 2022.
The EMBL’s central laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, has contributed to basic molecular biology research, technology development and advanced training since its foundation in 1978 and serves as the EMBL’s main laboratory and headquarters. Cutting-edge research is conducted in developmental, genome, cell, structural and computational biology and biophysics using state-of-the-art equipment.
The study tour program was developed to address the operational, financial and legal aspects of sharing facilities and expertise, allowing scientific and operational staff involved in the Alliance to witness how the development of such shared infrastructures works in practice.
Discussions about the interdisciplinary structure of EMBL to perform fundamental research in molecular biology, the EMBL’s activities in training external visitors through research collaborations, use of facilities, and through courses and conferences and EMBL’s services to scientists in the member states and the world were complemented with site visits and presentations on the EMBL’s Graduate Programmes. This study tour provoked exciting debates about the approaches the EUGLOHRIA Alliance applies to construct shared infrastructure in research, significantly contributing to the steady progress of the project in this sense.