Hub4NGI D2.1 deliverable determines Innovation Networks as an important theme for the NGI Initiative, and therein considers the collaboration spaces as an essential network infrastructure to foster innovation in NGI related issues. As a starting point, it defines collaboration spaces as places where stakeholders concerned with the future of Internet can interact and share ideas be it physical places (incubators, etc.) or virtual (Internet forums).
To stress on the importance and need for collaboration spaces, the document includes evidence from Large-scale survey of European citizens study which acknowledges that more efforts are needed at European, national, and local levels to create spaces and places where citizens, stakeholders, and policy makers could exchange on the future of NGI related issues. Nurse [Nurse 2015] also highlights the importance of facilitating collaboration in highly interconnected research system space quoting that “most effective research systems are characterised by freedom of movement and action.”
For collaboration spaces to be effective, citing 2017 DIN Forum Report, the document asserts the need for them to be wider than simply places for people to interact, suggesting to incorporate other infrastructure types such as social networks, evidence platforms and experimentation platforms potentially bringing in open scientific data to the space. If all these platforms are brought together, there will be spaces for collaboration of people and resources from different disciplines, so that they may create and apply new and existing technologies to real world problems.
[Nurse 2015] Nurse, Paul. "Ensuring a successful UK research endeavour." A Review of the UK Research Councils, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, UK Government (2015).
