Research Papers

The introduction of a new legal form, the ‘European Research Infrastructure Consortium’ (‘ERIC’) was heralded by the Council Regulation No 723 on the Community Legal Framework for a European Research Infrastructure Consortium in June 2009 and realised in March 2011 with its first award. ERICs are ‘research infrastructures of pan-European relevance’ and are routinely identified in EU policy, including the Europe 2020 Strategy, as central pillars of the European Research Area. The creation and governance of the ERA, which is to be fully realised by 2014 and populated with pan-European Research Infrastructures (the majority which will it is anticipated, hold the ERIC legal status) provides an opportunity to consider in detail the process of ‘Europeanisation’ of one specific domain of research policy, that relating to research infrastructures. ERICS will operate at the level of the Community but governed by the Member States. However, the governance arrangements themselves are largely determined by the legal requirements set out in the Council Regulation. The case of ERICs provide an interesting case study to explore the interplay between different modes of governance within a specific policy field, illuminating interactions between the EU institutions, Member States and other actors. Official discourses, enunciated in different sites, provide the basis for this empirical analysis of an oft-neglected field of policy.