Support Hubs Help New Researchers Break Through Bottlenecks at Big Science Facilities

Europe’s most powerful analytical research infrastructures, from synchrotron radiation sources and neutron facilities to high magnetic field laboratories and laser facilities, enable research that would otherwise be unattainable. Yet their very specialization, limited capacity, and concentration in specific locations make them bottleneck resources: indispensable for cutting-edge work, but not readily or equally accessible to all potential users. A new formative evaluation published in EPJ Research Infrastructures examines how a Horizon Europe project has tried to widen that gate, and its central finding is striking: dedicated support structures measurably raise the odds that researchers, especially first-timers, clear the technical hurdles that stand between a research idea and real experimental time.

The study, authored by Nicolas V. Rüffin and Katharina C. Cramer, evaluates the first three years of a four-year Horizon Europe research infrastructure service project that provides transnational access for Circular Economy-related research. The project pools resources across more than 50 research infrastructures from 17 EU member countries plus Switzerland and the United Kingdom, with the aim of providing roughly 50,000 hours of transnational access to specialized instruments. Users can draw on 24 types of techniques utilizing photons, neutrons, ions, electrons, lasers, high magnetic fields, or more specialized probes such as positrons. Transnational access is a well-established European funding scheme that enables researchers from one country to use facilities in another free of charge, including physical facilities, high-tech instruments, data resources, and specialized services unavailable at their home institutions.

What distinguishes this project is that access is organized as a supported pathway rather than an unsolicited transaction. A dedicated support hub of up to 18 postdoctoral researchers, backed by a network of more senior researchers recruited from the participating facilities, works with users from initial outreach through proposal refinement, experimental coordination, and post-experimental follow-up such as data analysis support and, where appropriate, co-authorship. A centralized online platform manages applications and user selection. Proposals are assessed on scientific excellence, relevance to the Circular Economy, novelty and interdisciplinarity, and anticipated commercial impact, with at least three reviews per proposal and two calls launched each year.

To evaluate how this pathway functions, the authors combined multiple data sources covering the first three years of implementation. They analyzed 178 applications from the project’s administrative platform, 690 technical feasibility assessments conducted by instrument-specific experts, feedback surveys from four outreach workshops attended by 223 participants with a 24 percent response rate, and 42 qualitative interviews with postdoctoral staff conducted in three waves at months 9, 18, and 30 of the project. Two user surveys at months 25 and 38 captured the perspectives of applicants and successful users, with 35 and 40 researchers participating and response rates of roughly one third. Bibliometric tracking identified 16 peer-reviewed publications before January 2026, and two in-depth case studies followed early-career researchers through the full access pathway.

The quantitative centerpiece of the evaluation concerns the technical feasibility check, in which instrument experts judge whether a proposed experiment can actually be executed on the requested equipment. Using a binary logistic regression model, the authors estimated predicted probabilities of a positive feasibility outcome with and without support hub assistance. For applicants with no prior experience in the requested technique, the predicted probability rose from 80 percent without support to 96 percent with support. The gains were smaller for more seasoned applicants, increasing from 90 to 94 percent for moderately experienced users and from 87 to 93 percent for experienced ones. The authors interpret this pattern as evidence that support lowers entry barriers most where they are highest, with diminishing marginal benefits as applicant experience grows.

Not every support mechanism worked as intended. Outreach activities, including workshops, conferences, and industry events, were evaluated positively by participants, but the analysis found no statistically meaningful relationship between attending outreach events and subsequently submitting an application. Instead, approximately two-thirds of applicants reported learning about the access model through colleagues, collaborators, or informal peer networks, suggesting that user acquisition runs primarily through indirect dissemination channels. Meanwhile, the optional pre-proposal stage, in which support staff give feedback on feasibility and suitable methods before a full submission, was used by 63 of the 178 applicants and was perceived positively by those who engaged with it, though overall success rates did not differ significantly between users and non-users of the mechanism.

Once researchers passed selection and gained experimental access, satisfaction was consistently high. Across two survey waves, the overall service quality score, measured on a six-point scale using a SERVPERF-adapted instrument, remained unchanged at an average of 5.19, with specific dimensions such as staff willingness to help, understanding of user needs, expertise, and problem-solving scoring between 5.38 and 5.63. Interviews revealed that postdocs played a crucial mediating role, bridging conceptual and operational gaps between users and facility infrastructure, often through iterative clarification across disciplinary languages. A minor but noteworthy tension surfaced in the second survey: slightly more than half of respondents expressed a preference for faster or more streamlined access procedures, pointing to administrative allocation rather than support quality as a relative constraint.

The outputs tell a story of incremental rather than transformative advancement. Survey evidence indicates that most user projects sit at technology readiness levels 4 to 5, corresponding to controlled laboratory validation and the integration of material components, and self-assessments showed modest increases in readiness levels or stability rather than large jumps. Fifteen of the 16 tracked publications were associated with more experienced users, and the publications appeared predominantly in first and second quartile journals, at 39 percent and 50 percent respectively. Notably, members of the support hub were listed as co-authors on ten of the 16 publications, all in the top two quartiles, underscoring their role in converting experimental activity into publishable research. Expected impacts reported by users concentrated on academic dissemination, with industrial uptake and commercialization comparatively infrequent.

The authors argue that this pattern reveals a second, downstream bottleneck that infrastructure access alone cannot resolve. While upstream constraints, including feasibility checks, peer review, and scheduling of scarce instrument time, can be partially alleviated through targeted support, the transition from validated experimental results to higher technological maturity and industrial application depends on external partnerships, market alignment, and scaling conditions that lie beyond the academic access route. The project does operate parallel access routes for industrial users and small and medium-sized enterprises at higher readiness levels, often facilitated by Research and Technology Organizations, but these remain insufficiently integrated with the academic pathway. The evaluation frames this as a coordination problem across the European innovation ecosystem rather than a deficiency of the infrastructures themselves.

The study carries clear limitations. Survey response rates of roughly one third raise the possibility of response bias, and much of the available feedback comes from successful applicants, leaving the trajectories of rejected applicants largely unknown. The findings are situated in Circular Economy and materials research, so transferability to other domains remains open, and the project’s innovative structure limits benchmarking against alternative support models. With only three of four project years covered, longer-term developments, particularly whether the identified translation gap persists, cannot yet be assessed. Still, the evidence supports the paper’s core proposal: centralized support hubs are an effective governance mechanism for challenge-driven research infrastructure access, mitigating entry bottlenecks for new users even as the harder work of moving laboratory results toward real-world application demands differently structured support beyond the facility walls.

Subject of Research: A pathway-based evaluation of support mechanisms for transnational access to European research infrastructures in Circular Economy research

Article Title: Research Infrastructures as Bottleneck Resources: A Pathway-Based Evaluation of Support in Challenge-Driven Access

Article References: Rüffin, N. V., & Cramer, K. C. (2026). Research Infrastructures as Bottleneck Resources: A Pathway-Based Evaluation of Support in Challenge-Driven Access. EPJ Research Infrastructures, 10(1), Article 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41781-026-00178-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s41781-026-00178-3

Keywords: research infrastructures, Horizon Europe, transnational access, Circular Economy, support hub, technology readiness levels, feasibility assessment, formative evaluation, innovation bottlenecks, materials science, peer review, science policy