On March 10 and 11, EATRIS hosted the first RItrain Staff Exchange at its headquarters in Amsterdam. Eleven participants came together with EATRIS staff to share best practices for research infrastructure management regarding strategy, governance and business development. After an introduction to the topic, participants had time to discuss their challenges in small groups with their peers.
The fact that the participants represented different RIs from physics to biomedical, distributed and single-sited, and had different roles, from director to finance officer, contributed greatly to fruitful discussions that opened new perspectives. All participants agreed that it was a valuable experience and many of them stated that they got new ideas on how to tackle their challenges and how to avoid common mistakes. Thus, this staff exchange was the first of a series of RItrain events that will provide valuable support for managers of RI infrastructures.