Some major indications from the preliminary studies are:
- the business potential in the construction of European Research Infrastructures is significant. The total construction cost for the facilities in operation is estimated at 21-33 b€.
- the annual budgets for operations and recurrent investments of these facilities are estimated at 8-9 b€
- the annual growth rate of the total operating budgets is estimated at 5.5 percent. Note than the nuclear research and the European Space Agency are NOT included in the above growth rate. The ESA alone would count for 37-44 percent of the total operating budgets.
- the industrial usage of Research Infrastructures is rather low; a large proportion of the European facilities have no industrial users at all, while others only have a minor percentage.
- 60 percent of the interviewed infrastructures have their own office for knowledge and technology transfer, while a third of the interviewed Infrastructures have no function or office for knowledge and technology transfer at all. This is also reflected in a relatively low number of patents and licences.
- human resources within the Research Infrastructure industry represents an area that can be developed further. There are no exchange programmes with industry, recruiting is difficult, salaries are perceived to be low, career opportunities are missing and traditional forms of contracts with fixed terms cause problems.