In December 2014 the Commission, working in close coordination with the ERA Stakeholders, ESFRI and the e-IRG finalised the current draft version of the "Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures". It was published on the European Commission website in June 2015.

The current draft builds on a set of access principles and guidelines, fosters a common understanding of what an access policy for Research Infrastructures is, and encourages the different infrastructures to ensure a maximum level of transparency of their access processes and procedures.

Since the completion of this draft new priorities have been presented by Commissioner Moedas at the Conference "A new start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation" held in Brussels on 22/23 June 2015. The purpose the current Consultation, is therefore to verify whether the Charter needs to be updated to better reflect these new priorities.

For the Consultation a set of questions has been developed to specifically address issues pertaining to the responsibility of Research Infrastructures in the Open Innovation, Open Access and Open to the World dimensions. As a follow-up of the Consultation, the European Commission will analyse the contributions and summarise them in a dedicated report. The group drafting the Charter will then use the report as a basis for discussion and for assessing if and how the current draft Charter needs to be reviewed.

The Consultation is conducted on-line until 11 October 2015. More information and access to the Consultation is available through the following link (password: charterconsultation2015).