Lessons-learned from the Environmental research infrastructure (ENVRI) community building and engagement

ENVRI is a community of 28 Environmental and Earth system research infrastructures (RIs) in Europe. The RIs started to cooperate only 7 years ago, when the collaboration has been initiated by the European Commission funded projects.

ENVRI (2011-2014) was the first cluster project facilitating a cooperation of the 9 European environmental RIs. Even though the main focus of ENVRI was on data and software solutions, it has also built a strong foundation for the ENVRI community mindset. It was within this project where different RI groups from various fields of environmental science started to communicate together and soon realised they indeed have many things in common - not just challenges, but also common needs and visions towards the future.

The cluster now continues its work in ENVRIplus (2015-2019), a four-year European Commission project bringing together already 28 environmental RIs. Its work is organised in six "Themes" ranging from the development of common technical and data solutions, through work on joint policies and guidelines, to citizen science, but also further community building.

The community has been facing several challenges since it has started to collaborate. Most of them were linked to a fact there are different traditions, cultural and language barriers as well as viewpoints across the diverse fields of Earth science. Most of these problems can be tackled by efficient communications practices, networking activities and community management that builds up a trust among the different groups. Last but not least, developing a strong community identity, including a powerful online presence and platform facilitating the collaboration is a must.