Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A., S.S. 14 Km 163,5 34012, Basovizza-Trieste, Italy

Department of Antiquity Science, University of Trieste,

Via Lazzaretto 6, 34123 Trieste – Italy

Tel. +39 040 375855

E-mail address: zanini@elettra.trieste.it

Research Infrastructures (RI) are multi-disciplinary institutions by nature, and provide an array of techniques and instrumentation suitable to tackle a variety of problems in material science. In most cases, these methods complement more conventional, lab-based techniques, and represent but one, albeit very prominent, weapon among many available to research groups in each field.

Cultural Heritage (CH) involvement with RI is relatively recent, if compared to that of other communities in physics, chemistry and biology. Over the years, the latter have undergone a process of reciprocal adaptation with the RIs, whereby the needs of the communities in terms of instrumentation, information and access have been identified and catered for, and new techniques are now gradually been incorporated in the portfolio to meet the evolving research requirements. It is fair to say that a very significant fraction of the research community in the physical and biological sciences is associated with RI, either directly or indirectly through collaborative projects or simply by using RI results in their research.

In recent years, RIs have seen a significant growth of the demand in the field of CH research, mainly coming from experts in specific RI techniques who have developed interests and connections in CH. This research has at times produced high-profile results, and is always well received by access panels, to the point that management of several RIs is envisaging a broader, mainstream role for their facilities in CH research. However, the number of CH operators that are active at RIs is still small, and probably not fully representative of the broader CH community. This creates an obstacle for RIs to assess their potential “markets” and direct their effort towards the most promising ones, and for the CH community to become collectively aware and focus on the best “products” that RIs can offer.

In assessing the potential of RIs in CH research, one should not be limited to look at individual techniques, as powerful as they are, but must consider the synergies between different RI-based as well as more conventional tools. More and more frequently, large-scale facilities are co-located in clusters within what are becoming true “cities of science” (such as the Polygone Scientifique in Grenoble, France, the RAL site in Chilton, UK and the AREA Science Park in Trieste), increasingly endowed with “research complexes” to support RI research with more conventional lab techniques. In other cases, RIs have formed form regional networks with universities or other research institutions. These entities are being fully exploited by other communities (once again, the biological sciences are an excellent example), and have the potential to be future “hubs” to coordinate and support a variety of CH research activities.