05-Aug-2022
Between the 20th and 22nd of July, the Second General Assembly of the EU-LAC RESINFRA project was held in Montevideo, Uruguay. This meeting was an important milestone for the project, as it gave the opportunity to discuss the objectives for the coming months, specifically the publication of the Sustainability Plan for bi-regional collaboration Europe and Latin America in the field of Research Infrastructures.
The first day of the meeting took place in the facilities of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay, LATU, where Alberto Majó (Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, MEC), Markus Handke (Delegation of the European Union in Uruguay), Claudia Romano (Uruguayan Agency for International Cooperation, AUCI) and Inmaculada Figueroa (EU-LAC RESINFRA Project Coordinator, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain) welcomed the participants and opened the meeting. During the opening remarks, the intervention of Markus Handke was of special significance as he stressed the importance of the work of EU-LAC RESINFRA for the development of joint research infrastructures between the European Union and Latin America.
The first day continued with the presentation of the results and work developed under work packages in these 30 months of the project, highlighting the intense work of the four pilots that make up EU-LAC ResInfra. Claudia Alen Amaro, representative of Instruct-ERIC, showed the success obtained in the staff exchanges supported by the project, specifically the exchange experienced by Alejandro Buschiazzo, who develops his research in the laboratory of molecular and structural microbiology at the Pasteur Institute in Montevideo and is currently on exchange in the laboratories of Instruct-ERIC in Madrid.
The Instruct results also included two international calls, inviting researchers from institutions that hold an MOU with Instruct to access any Instruct centres. Additionally, a landscape analysis is being carried out, aiming to understand the current barriers and limitations to structural biology researchers and infrastructures in Latin America.
Concluding the meeting, Inmaculada Figueroa acknowledged what still lies ahead for EU-LAC RESINFRA, recognising the importance of Research Infrastructures and the values implicit in multi-regional cooperation, which are fundamental to face the future challenges at a global level but especially for Europe and Latin America.
