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DiSSCo Prepare Milestone report MS4.6 - Capital expenditure indicators for the Cost Book

Guiraud, Michel; Landel, Salomé; Dusoulier, François; Perez, Eva; Worley, Katharine; Hardy, Helen

Abstract

Milestone 4.6 explores the commissioning and decommissioning costs of the DiSSCo research infrastructure (RI). This document opens up a wider field of reflection about the life cycle of the infrastructure and the connections between the hub and the nodes. This milestone also studies the place of data production costs covered by the member institutions. This leads to develop a method to classify these costs and to identify their role in the cost book of the RI. - This record has been migrated from the original project repository, cf. related identifiers

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Title DPP WP4 Ms4.6 "Capital expenditure indicators for the Cost Book" November 2021 Author(s) Michel GUIRAUD (MNHN) Salomé LANDEL (MNHN) François DUSOULIER (MNHN) Eva PEREZ (MNHN) Katharine WORLEY (MNHN) Helen HARDY (NHM) Identifier of the author(s) 0000-0003-3125-8947 - Michel GUIRAUD (MNHN) 0000-0001-5360-5693 - Salomé LANDEL (MNHN) 0000-0001-9062-5239 - François DUSOULIER (MNHN) 0000-0002-5752-5903 - Eva PEREZ (MNHN) 0000-0003-2377-6840 - Katharine WORLEY (MNHN) 0000-0002-9206-8357 - Helen HARDY (NHM) Affiliation Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Paris Contributors Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS - Brussels) Agentschap Planetarium Meise Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (SGN - Frankfurt) National History Museum (NHM - London) Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) Naturalis (Leiden) Publisher Michel GUIRAUD (MNHN) Identifier of the publisher 0000-0003-3125-8947 - Michel GUIRAUD (MNHN) Resource ID Publication year 2021 Related identifiers Is it the first time you submit this outcome? Yes Creation date 02/11/2021 Version 1 Citation Guiraud M., (et al.). 2021 Milestone report MS 4.6 "Capital expenditure indicators for the Cost Book" Abstract Milestone 4.6 explores the commissioning and decommissioning costs of the DiSSCo research infrastructure (RI). This document opens up a wider field of reflection about the life cycle of the infrastructure and the connections between the hub and the nodes. This milestone also studies the place of data production costs covered by the member institutions. This leads to develop a method to classify these costs and to identify their role in the cost book of the RI. Content keywords financial Project reference DiSSCo Prepare (GA-871043) WP number WP4 Project output Milestone report Deliverable/milestone number 4.6 Dissemination level Public Rights Free access License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Resource type Text Format PDF Funding Programme H2020-INFRADEV-2019-2 Contact email [email protected] 1 36 DISSCO PREPARE WP4: BUSINESS FRAMEWORK Milestone 4.6 - Capital expenditure indicators for the Cost Book DiSSCo Prepare WP4 – Task 4.1 - Milestone 4.6 Work package leader: Michel GUIRAUD (MNHN) Task leader: Muséum national d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) Authors: Salomé Landel / Michel Guiraud / Katharine Worley / Eva Perez / François Dusoulier / Helen Hardy Contributors: Eva Alonso (Naturalis); Ana Casino (CETAF); Patricia Mergen, Frederik Leliaert (Meise BG); Carole Paleco, Serge Scory, Jonathan Brecko, Patrick Semal (IRSNB); Laurence Livermore, Lisa French (NHM) 2 Abstract Key words Milestone 4.6 explores the commissioning and decommissioning costs of the DiSSCo research infrastructure (RI). This document opens up a wider field of reflection about the life cycle of the infrastructure and the connections between the hub and the nodes. This milestone also studies the place of data production costs covered by the member institutions. This leads to develop a method to classify these costs and to identify their role in the cost book of the RI. Commissioning, decommissioning, preservation costs, cost structure, physical and non-physical assets, construction costs. Grant Agreement number: 871043 — DiSSCo Prepare — H2020-INFRADEV-2018-2020 / H2020-INFRADEV-2019-2 3 INDEX INTRODUCTION 4 1. DiSSCo RI time frame and institutional perimeter 5 1.1 The time frame of the research infrastructure 5 1.2 The distribution of components and costs between the hub and the nodes 7 1.2.1 Identification of expenditure sources 7 1.2.2 The cost estimation methodology 8 1.2.3 Cost classification: in-kind or cash? 9 2. Working options for the commissioning and decommissioning costs of the DiSSCo RI 10 2.1 Construction costs of the research infrastructure 10 2.1.1 Design and preparation: preparatory and transition phase 11 2.1.2 Construction phase 12 2.1.2.1 Physical and non-physical assets 13 2.1.2.2 Personnel costs 15 2.1.2.3 Consumables, utilities and other costs 15 2.1.2.4 Start-up costs 15 2.1.3 Replacement costs 15 2.1.4 Major upgrades 15 2.2 DiSSCo RI decommissioning costs 16 3. The cost of producing DiSSCo data for its member institutions 17 3.1 Preservation costs as capital expenditure: why not? 18 3.2 Recognition of institutional costs for DiSSCo RI 19 3.3 Clarification of the scope of WP4 and DiSSCo 21 CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS 22 REFERENCES 23 INDEX ANNEXES 24 4 INTRODUCTION Milestone 4.6 of WP4 (business framework) of the European project DiSSCo Prepare (DPP) examines the costs of commissioning and decommissioning the DiSSCo research infrastructure (RI). A first approach was to study the physical nature of the RI, i.e. the physical investments needed to launch it. The scope of the question is finally broader: these costs are both tangible and intangible investments. The singularity of DiSSCo RI is that it falls into the category of distributed virtual research infrastructures. 1 At first sight, it has low construction costs because it is not about building telescopes, a particle accelerator, an air fleet, (etc.); it is about providing digital access and facilitating physical access to natural history collections held all over Europe. Its implementation therefore depends heavily on the intelligence that will have to be mobilised to both coordinate the stakeholders of the RI and design the IT tools that will facilitate access to the institutions' data. The RI is composed of one hub 2 and national and local nodes. These entities are located in different places/countries and within different infrastructures (in the case of DiSSCo, different institutions). The question of how to account for the costs of the RI requires identifying those of the hub and those of the nodes. Construction costs of the DiSSCo RI question at each stage its perimeter and the distribution of components between the DiSSCo Hub and the member institutions (nodes) that actively participate in the smooth running of the infrastructure. Within this milestone, construction costs are part of the construction phase of the DiSSCo ERIC 3 . This means that the costs of Natural history institutions are mainly eligible for the operational phase but not the construction phase. Such assumption is in line with the idea that the DiSSCo hub would liaise users and operators. Natural history institutions as operators have their own legal statutes and their own legal accounting system. It would financially be too complex to mix both. This milestone can identify the issues that need to be addressed to estimate the costs of commissioning the RI. However, it cannot provide figures that quantify these costs. The preparatory phase of DiSSCo, DiSSCo Prepare, is currently considering the services that the RI could offer and the IT infrastructure needed to make the natural history collections accessible. WP4 will be able to quantify the investments required to make the RI operational once these decisions have been made. 1 It includes physical access to natural history collections but these activities are provided by the institutions. The RI's role is that of facilitator. The costs of these services will be charged by the institutions, as operators, to the RI. The method for charging these services has yet to be developed. 2 A RI such as DiSSCo could have more than one hub. This decision has still to be considered as part of WP7: governance, policy & legal framework. Here, the working hypothesis is that DiSSCo RI has one hub. 3 European Research Infrastructure Consortium: at this stage of DPP, the work hypothesis is that DiSSCo will be an ERIC, it is a specific legal form designed by the European Commission to facilitate the establishment and operation of Research Infrastructures with European interest. 5 1. DiSSCo RI time frame and institutional perimeter Defining the costs of commissioning and decommissioning the DiSSCo research infrastructure requires estimating its duration and defining its institutional organisation. A distributed research infrastructure has the characteristic to exist through multiple entities; sometimes it is entirely hosted within several institutions/nodes. To understand its costs, it is essential to qualify the connections between the different institutions/nodes and the hub. 1.1 The time frame of the research infrastructure One of the first steps in estimating the costs of commissioning the RI is to set a “base-year”. According to the ESFRI framework document, “the base year is the point-in-time when the cost estimation is performed, i.e. the year of the ESFRI Roadmap application. Depending on whether it is ex-ante (before or approximately coinciding with the start year), in itinere (just after the set up and launch), mid-term (after some years of operations) or ex-post (after most of the operations have already been performed), costs can be forecasts/projections, actual/observed data or a mix of them. They shall be accounted for each year of the time horizon, according to the discounted cash flow approach, as described in the next section.” This base year has not yet been determined for the DiSSCo RI. This base year may be the year in which the RI receives its first in-kind contribution. The second step is to estimate the lifetime of the research infrastructure. The European Commission's 2014 guide suggests a lifetime of 15 to 25 years. The lifetime of DiSSCo is not estimated at this stage. Its specificity of being a virtual RI, could suggest not estimating its end and decommissioning given that its existence is mostly immaterial. The RI could last as long as it allows to link institutions holding natural history collections and their users. Today, DiSSCo's Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) identifies 5 phases for the RI. Decommissioning costs could represent a 6th phase. These phases correspond to different types of costs described in the ESFRI framework document. The construction phase is explored further with this milestone. Figure 1 - DiSSCo timeline 6 In order to study this construction phase, it is necessary to identify the cost structure of the RI. The three diagrams below show that the timing of the costs depends partly on the RI major upgrades. This decision has not been taken for the DiSSCo RI. A cooperative work with the other DiSSCo Prepare WPs will help to clarify the topic. Figure 2Three potential RI cost structure 7 1.2 The distribution of components and costs between the hub and the nodes Figure 3 – Schematic view distributed RI 1.2.1 Identification of expenditure sources DiSSCo is a distributed research infrastructure and not a coordinated research network 4 . In this respect it is a network of distributed resources among different national nodes and a central hub. The national nodes can themselves coordinate the actions of local nodes. In order to calculate construction costs, it is important to define on whom they depend and therefore of differentiating certain costs according to their purpose: ● Central hub costs for coordination; ● Central hub costs for research and service activities; ● National nodes costs for coordination; ● Local and national node costs for research and service activities. Within this milestone, construction costs are mainly focus on the central hub costs for coordination, research and service activities. Indeed, these costs will be fully connected to the DiSSCo ERIC and in accounting terms it will part of its budget. At this stage, it is complex to identify what would be the construction costs supported by national and local nodes for coordination, research and service activities. Solutions to integrate these costs are explained with more details within the third section of this document. 4 Coordinated research network: collaboration of fully independent research performing organizations. 14 node management teams. The equipment needed to implement the infrastructure is likely to be computers and office space for the teams. Physical assets raise the question of the programme's IT infrastructure and potential investment in servers/data centres to archive data from natural history collections in Europe. These answers depend on the DiSSCo Prepare (DPP) WP6 (technical architecture and service provision). By the end of DPP, the format of this IT infrastructure will have to be determined and it will be necessary to identify what investments are required. At this stage, the assumption is that in the short term and long term, data storage is the responsibility of DiSSCo member institutions. One possibility would be to consider these costs as in-kind from the institutions. They should be considered from the moment data starts to be accessible via DiSSCo - whether this is during the construction or operation phase remains to be seen. Two variables are identified to assess the costs of the physical assets required to make DiSSCo work: 1. The size of the team of the hub and national/local nodes; 2. The technological and other needs of the RI (IT equipment, software, etc.). These issues are the same for the cost of non-physical assets: what are the DiSSCo needs for software? Answers depend partly on WP6, WP5 (common resources & standards) but also on WP2 (human resources, training & users support) and WP3 (capacity enhancement) which could require the development of software and other tools. At this stage, the cost of their construction remains to be studied. As construction costs include non-physical assets, it would then be possible to imagine a mass digitisation campaign across member institutions as an investment for DiSSCo. Digitised collections would then become an asset for the RI. This decision depends heavily on government funding being available to support DiSSCo. At the basis of this assumption, it is understood that part of the Natural history collections has already been digitised, so DiSSCo could exist (to a certain extent) without a mass digitisation campaign. The data issued from this work could be available through DiSSCo. The cost of these operations cannot be considered as construction costs and neither as an asset for the RI as they have been spent for other purposes and by another legal entity than the DiSSCo ERIC itself. To consider a digitisation campaign as construction cost would position the RI with a capacity to mobilise a digitisation network at European level. It would give the research infrastructure a broader function than making data available: the field of data production. Such campaigns could also offer a critical mass of data across certain collection types according to scientific priorities. Digitisation campaigns could also be part of the operational phase. This is in line with the concept that when it deals with digital research infrastructure, the border is unclear between the construction phase and the operational phase. Finally, the concept of digitisation also corresponds to digitisation-on-demand. This concerns the operating phase and not the construction phase. DiSSCo ERIC would liaise external users with operators (NH institutions) who could digitise specimens on-demand. DiSSCo operators would charge these services. This question has to be studied more in-depth, notably as part of T4.2 (charging services). 15 2.1.2.2 Personnel costs The construction phase also includes personnel costs. The RI could recruit engineers, scientists and managers to design and implement the construction phase. These costs will depend on the objectives developed in the framework of DiSSCo Prepare and the transition phase. The teams will be responsible for the deployment of physical and non-physical assets. At this stage, these costs are envisaged as part of the construction of the hub. 2.1.2.3 Consumables, utilities and other costs These include costs for electricity, water, travel to operate the infrastructure. At this stage it is likely that there will be travel costs to coordinate the action of the RI member institutions. Electricity could be a cost in the case of the use of particular servers. Water is not a likely cost item for DiSSCo construction phase. 2.1.2.4 Start-up costs These costs are possible for DiSSCo and depend on WP2, WP3, WP5 and WP6. The end of DiSSCo Prepare and the final deliverables will answer these questions. 2.1.3 Replacement costs The issue of replacement costs mirrors the issue of investments to build DiSSCo. As we envisage the costs It only concerns investments in physical assets, not intangible assets. It can be assumed that this will involve the replacement of staff computers every 5 years. Office furniture could be replaced every 10 years. As regards computer servers, this has yet to be defined. On average, the lifetime of a server is estimated to be between 6 and 10 years. 2.1.4 Major upgrades This category of expenditure is in line with Figure 2. These major upgrades raise the question of the temporality of the infrastructure. Do we envisage a fixed infrastructure over time or can we imagine an infrastructure that is bound to evolve, depending on demand and technological developments? In the definition of the ESFRI document, these modifications must modify the performance of the RI in a structural way and have medium/long term effects. According to the RAMIRI handbook, virtual RIs are synonymous with permanent upgrades/updates of their equipment as “the life cycle of their hardware and software is extremely short (3-5 years) while also new applications and new methods are constantly implemented”. It will be up to WP4 to identify with the other WPs these potential needs. Example: launch of operations, training costs, acquisition of licences and patents 16 2.2 DiSSCo RI decommissioning costs Decommissioning costs are meant to happen at the end of the life-cycle of the research infrastructure. The European commission asks RIs to estimate them before the commissioning of the RI. They are particularly relevant for physical RIs such as nuclear facilities or those with materials that are expensive to dismantle. In the case of DiSSCo, a virtual research infrastructure, it is not concerned with dismantling a physical infrastructure. Meanwhile, decommissioning, to a wider extent also refers to human resources, employment and data. The impact on the RI employees (ending personal contracts) could be considered in that context as well as the way data is managed: it will be important to secure their access beyond the RI life-cycle. DiSSCo will create and manage a great wealth of data stored in servers. Decommissioning costs could be seen as the cost of migrating the data when the system implemented by DiSSCo terminates because it is obsolete. 17 3. The cost of producing DiSSCo data for its member institutions The cost of the DiSSCo research infrastructure go beyond the costs carried by the hub. DiSSCo relies on a network of institutions that hold natural history collections from which the RI will produce services. In assessing the costs of RI, the question arises as to the place of expenses assumed by the institutions. Some of these are investments, in the sense that they have a medium/long-term value, but are not considered as infrastructure construction costs. The perimeter below shows the DiSSCo data production chain available. The rationale here is to consider that without the activities of specimen acquisition, specimen preparation, collection curation and databasing supported by the institutions, DiSSCo would not exist. Figure 8 - Perimeter for the costs supported by institutions However, some of these activities have different purposes, DiSSCo being one of them. Their costs are not entirely connected to the research infrastructure. It is even possible to consider that access, which is the core aim of DiSSCo, occupies a minority position in the development of these activities. For example, at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle de Paris (MNHN), only 2% of the 68 million specimens preserved are the subject of studies and/or access requests each year. This is one the specificity of DiSSCo, which is a research infrastructure that exploits the historical activities of its member institutions. The resources are the natural history collections. These collections are useful for research and opening up access to them could increase their scientific potential. 18 Nevertheless, from a budgetary point of view, valorising the expenses that allow their preservation is an imperative for its members, and a challenge that DiSSCo Prepare should solve. 3.1 Preservation costs as capital expenditure: why not? A first assumption was to consider the costs of preservation 7 and data curation 8 as capital expenditures for the research infrastructure. The natural history collections would then be considered as assets. This first hypothesis was not validated because the concept of capital expenditure is regulated by international accounting standards (International Foundation Accounting Standards - IFRS). These standards limit the characterisation of expenditure as capital expenditure according to some rules: The future economic benefits of collection preservation and data curation are so far possible but not quantified. It is therefore complex to validate this first criterion. The cost of maintaining the collections and the cost of curating the data are at this stage difficult to measure. So far, the data obtained contains a significant potential for error. The member institutions of DiSSCo Prepare do not have analytical accounting to identify and estimate these costs. These costs therefore do not fulfil the second criterion. Added to this is the fact that the costs of data curation and preservation involve maintenance costs, which is not compatible with the notion of capital investment. 7 Preservation costs: costs of collections development, management and care, day-to-day preservation of natural history specimens (include storage and curation). This includes staff costs, capital investments, equipment and consumables. Conservation activities start from the moment specimens enter collections. This excludes specimen acquisition (collecting). 8 Data curation: corresponds to the time spent to enter, manually or computationally, information about natural history collections. This involves both initial registration of information and updates. Data curation is directly related to the Mids level of the specimen (see D2.3 - Design of a Collection digitisation Dashboard - ICEDIG). This cost area includes staffing costs associated with improving data curation activities should be classified here or under IT tools (e.g. time on external projects like TDWG collections descriptions interest group, technical staff time on internal data curation projects such as Join the Dots). Under IAS 16, property, plant and equipment (which relate to conservation costs) can be recognised as assets if: − it is probable that future economic benefits associated with the item will flow to the entity; − the cost of the item can be measured reliably. According to the IAS 38 rule on intangible assets (which relate to data curation), expenditure for an intangible item is recognised as an expense, unless the item meets the definition of an intangible asset, and: − it is probable that there will be future economic benefits from the asset; − the cost of the asset can be reliably measured. 19 3.2 Recognition of institutional costs for DiSSCo RI Most of the costs covered by DiSSCo member institutions are part of the RI operational phase but not of the commissioning phase. If we see DiSSCo as an ERIC with its own legal statutes and accounting system, it is complex to integrate the investments of the institutions which themselves depend on subsidiary accounting systems. One way to recognise them without creating an extremely complex financial system is to develop a system of fee-based services and / or service level agreements (SLAs). These working hypotheses still need to be studied more closely in WP4. This includes learning from the experience of other ERICs that have implemented SLAs. In that context, we imagine a hub that would act as a link between collections holders and demand (external users). This hub would consist of a team that would receive and coordinate requests. It would also include communication, legal services, etc. Finally, the hub would develop digital services, a platform, that would provide access to the range of information and services possible with natural history collections. If we look into the future, we can imagine that users will go to the platform to make requests for digitised images, analyses and access to collections (the scope still need to be detailed). This raises the question of the place of the institutions' activities in the budget of the research infrastructure. This question is all the more complex as it involves the natural history collections. These collections have an almost incalculable economic value due to their scientific, heritage and historical dimensions. At this stage, we question whether they could be classified as common goods. In this context, it is a question of both: 1. Giving an economic value to the natural history collections made available by the research infrastructure; 2. Thinking about an economic partnership between the hub and the operators (Natural history institutions). 1. Five variables to consider natural history collections’ economic value: • Annual preservation costs • Annual costs of curation of the data which informs the information on the specimens • Annual costs of acquisition of specimens • Annual percentage of specimens studied, accessed • Average number of years during which specimens are preserved (from 10 to 400 years?) 20 Note that this value may vary according to the type of collection (botanical, entomological, vertebrate, etc.). It will also necessarily be inaccurate but symbolic. It is a question of economically valuing an asset which, with DiSSCo, is shared on a much wider market than the one that has existed until now. A large part of its value is guaranteed thanks to the work of institutions holding natural history collections. It is then important to develop a costing system for these collections; this system cannot be accurate due to the inestimable value of the collections but it would be a way to value the work carried out by institutions to preserve all the specimens. 2. Thinking about the economic relationship between the hub and the operators The other issue is the economic relationship between the hub and the operators (institutions holding natural history collections). At this stage, WP4 has three options in mind which have different consequences: a. Create a system of charged services. In this configuration, the DiSSCo user would request a service from the hub. The hub would liaise with the operator to see how much capacity it has to handle the request. If the request is accepted, the operator would issue a quote for the requested service, and then an invoice once the service is performed. The question of "who pays for the service?" then arises. Indeed, the complexity of funding means that the RI is likely to be funded mainly by national governments, which in turn fund the operators (institutions) and many researchers from public institutions. It is then a zero-sum game if the researcher applies for funding from the same funding body to pay for services that they are otherwise paying for. Indeed, in this situation the funding body would see its funds circulating from one stakeholder to another (with all the administrative burden associated with) but the beneficiaries would not change. A way to avoid this situation would be to classify users according to their belonging and to adapt the tariffs according to the different categories of users (member institution, private sector, EU, etc.). The weakness of this system is that it does not allow for advance budgeting of requests. Institutions have limited capacity depending on the size of their teams and equipment. Without visibility, they may find themselves unable to meet unanticipated demands. b. Create service level agreements between the hub and the operators (institutions). In this configuration, in advance, the institutions declare a pluriannual service level for DiSSCo. This implies a budget that anticipates demand with DiSSCo, which then proposes available staff, workspaces and machines to meet users' demands. This solution has a strong legal dimension which requires prior negotiations and the ability to anticipate demand with DiSSCo. It also opens a window for the specialisation of institutions. Each institution / operator would specialise in one or more areas and demand would be distributed according to these areas of specialisation. With this solution, it is possible to imagine an adaptation during the year via a request that would go through the hub. c. A mix between the two solutions mentioned above: they can be complementary. 21 These proposals are only applicable if institutions are able to quantify the value of the services they could provide with DiSSCo. The calculation of these costs requires transparency from the RI member institutions. A common protocol will have to be proposed by WP4 to harmonise the calculation of these costs in order to ensure equality between member institutions. This calculation model will include institutions direct and indirect costs for DiSSCo (see figure n° 8). It means that preservation costs will be part of the tariff proposed by institutions. A question remains about the data that has already been produced by the operators and that will be shared with DiSSCo. This is difficult to quantify as these are past costs and in the context of open data. Legislation on the value of digital data needs to be studied in more detail. However, one basis for reflection is that raw data should be public and free. Any action to make the data accessible can be have a price but the basis is free. Thus, to the extent that institutions respect the FAIR principles and create pipelines between their databases and DiSSCo, there may not be a return on investment for the institutions. This issue needs to be explored in more detail in Task 4.2. 3.3 Clarification of the scope of WP4 and DiSSCo This milestone allowed WP4 to clarify the scope of the DiSSCo RI: ▪ The institutions supported the importance of measuring and valuing the costs they assume to enable the production of data from natural history collections; ▪ The work of calculating all the costs covered by the institutions cannot be carried out by WP4 alone, as it does not have the budget and therefore the human resources to measure these costs. WP4 will therefore produce a guide that will delimit the costs to be measured and how to identify them. It will be up to the institutions to carry out the exercise; ▪ At this stage, living collections (animal and plant) do not fall within the scope of DiSSCo's cost calculations. Their role has not yet been defined within the infrastructure. If it is, WP4 could work on a methodology for this cost category. 22 Conclusion and next steps By extending the question of capital expenditure to that of the construction costs of the research infrastructure, milestone 4.6 initiates the reflection on the transition between DiSSCo Prepare and the concrete commissioning of the research infrastructure. The current preparatory phase is drawing the contours of the future RI and it is collectively that the project workpackages will be able to determine the tangible and intangible investments necessary for the launch of the infrastructure. The choices are multiple and range from governance to IT infrastructure and training costs. It is also important to define the place of the institutions and the place of the hub in order to identify how the investments of one will be recognised by the others. These decisions cannot be taken at the WP4 level alone. It is essential to organise consultation meetings with the other members of the project in order to find tailor-made solutions. With these issues open, WP4 will continue to work on defining the scope of the RI. It will organise meetings with the other workpackages to raise their awareness of the issue of construction costs. The work on the cost calculation method will have to be refined and shared with all the members of the RI. The actual calculation of the expenses covered by the member institutions to produce data for DiSSCo will be their responsibility and not that of WP4. 23 References Rizutto C. et al (2013) Realising and Managing international Research Infrastructures (RAMIRI) Handbook. Accessed on 2021-09-23. Centre for Industrial Studies (CSIL) (2019) Guidelines on cost estimation of research infrastructures European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). Accessed on 2021-09-21.