Research infrastructure categories

The science and art sectors of the Austrian fields of sciences 2012 (ÖFOS 2012) are categorized in the following manner.

• 1 NATURAL SCIENCES
  101 Mathematics; 102 Computer Sciences; 103 Physics, Astronomy; 104 Chemistry; 105 Geosciences; 106 Biology; 107 Other Natural Sciences.
• 2 TECHNICAL SCIENCES
  201 Construction Engineering; 202 Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Information Engineering; 203 Mechanical Engineering ; 204 Chemical Process Engineering; 205 Materials Engineering; 206 Medical Engineering; 207 Environmental Engineering, Applied Geosciences; 208 Environmental Biotechnology; 209 Industrial Biotechnology; 210 Nanotechnology; 211 Other Technical Sciences.
• 3 HUMAN MEDICINE, HEALTH SCIENCES
  301 Medical-Theoretical Sciences, Pharmacy; 302 Clinical Medicine; 303 Health Sciences; 304 Medical Biotechnology; 305 Other Human Medicine, Health Sciences.
• 4 AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, VETERINARY MEDICINE
  401 Agriculture and Forestry, Fishery; 402 Animal Breeding, Animal Production; 403 Veterinary Medicine; 404 Agricultural Biotechnology, Food Biotechnology; 405 Other Agricultural Sciences.
• 5 SOCIAL SCIENCES
  501 Psychology; 502 Economics; 503 Educational Sciences; 504 Sociology; 505 Law; 506 Political Science; 507 Human Geography, Regional Geography, Regional Planning; 508 Media and Communication Sciences; 509 Other Social Sciences.
• 6 HUMANITIES
  601 History, Archaeology; 602 Linguistics and Literature; 603 Philosophy, Ethics, Religion; 604 Arts; 605 Other Humanities.
• 7 MUSIC
  701 Conductorship (Conducting); 702 Interpretation – vowel; 703 Interpretation – instrumental; 704 Jazz / Improvisation; 705 Computer Music; 706 Composition; 707 Sound Engineering; 708 Music Therapy; 709 MUSIC: Education / Mediation.
• 8 FINE / VISUAL ARTS
  801 Fine Arts; 802 Stage Design; 803 Design; 804 Architecture; 805 Conservation and Restoration; 806 Media Design; 807 Language Arts; 808 Transdisciplinary Art; 809 FINE / VISUAL ARTS: Education / Mediation.
• 9 PERFORMING ARTS
  901 Drama; 902 Theatre Direction / Musical Theatre Direction; 903 Film and Television; 904 Dance; 905 PERFORMING ARTS: Education / Mediation.

The selection list is based on the categorisation of the DFG (Research infrastructure portal of the German Research Foundation) and the European MERIL-Project (Mapping of European Research Infrastructure) and it comprises the following 40 research categories:

1. Scientific Collections:
   Sets of often unique objects and items of different types collected usually to be exhibited. Collections normally include a collecting policy for new acquisitions, so only objects and items in certain categories and of a certain quality are accepted into the collection. Objects in a collection are normally catalogued, traditionally in a card index, but nowadays this is being replaced by computerized database also for physical collections. These types of RIs are particularly relevant for the humanities, which often deal with the study of unique artifacts, but they can be relevant for other domains, such as social sciences, life and environmental sciences.
2. Artistic Media Centers:
   Artistic Media Centers: Artistic large infrastructure (e.g. film or multimedia infrastructure installations); digital archives, infrastructure for video installations or sound archives etc.
3. Research Archives:
   Accounting normally for organised sets of unpublished and almost always unique historical records, or the physical place they are located, archives contain primary source documents (texts, maps, pictures etc.) in physical but also increasingly digital form (e.g. text archives structured in databases) that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organisation's lifetime. In general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value. This makes archives RIs that are relevant particularly to the Humanities, chiefly to historians but also to many other Humanities researchers dealing with primary sources of various kinds. A scientific discipline called archival science, dedicated to the study and practice of organising, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives, has established itself within the Humanities (History, Archives, Literature and Text Archives).
4. Data Archives, Data Repositories and Collections:
   Digital data archive is a centre of expertise in data acquisition, preservation, management, dissemination and promotion of an access to the national and international collections and repositories of digital data. These type of RIs are particularly acute to the social sciences, which often rely on the aggregation of longitudinal data, and to the humanities, which often rely on preservation, but they can be relevant for other domains, particularly, the life and environmental sciences and the medical sciences.
5. Large Scale Research Bibliographies:
   Large scale systematic list of books and other works such as journal articles, reference and access resources. They can be physical publications (i.e. bound volumes) or digital (indexes and catalogues usually in the form of databases). They can be generally divided into enumerative bibliography (also called reference or systematic), which results in an overview of publications in a particular category, and analytical, or critical, bibliography, which studies the production of research material (in the form of books as well as other formats, including recordings, motion pictures, videos, graphic objects, databases, CD-ROMs and websites). As a bibliography can be produced in any field, it could be considered a transversal category; however it is humanities research especially that has traditionally relied on such tools to systematise its fields of enquiry – spanning centuries of relevant publications for many humanities disciplines - and circumscribe its research domain.
6. Telemedicine Laboratories and Technologies:
   e-Health is an emerging concept relating to the use of networked digital ICTs (primarily the Internet) to facilitate the organisation & delivery of health care and services. It encompasses applications for providers and organisations (e.g. for storing, exchanging and using clinical or administrative data, or aiding evidence-based practice) and for citizens and patients (e.g. web-based health information, education, virtual consulting), as well as research applications of e-Health technologies.
7. Seismic Monitoring Stations and Simulation Laboratories:
   Drilling platforms and sensor technologies deployed to collect solid earth data and material in support of solid earth research and management activities. This includes facilities that collect seismological data to be added to the European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA) and made available to the scientific community.
8. Atmospheric Measurements Facilities:
   meteorological stations (all physical parameters that can be observed); Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW); Airglow; Ionospheric stations (all sky cameras, ionospheric radar); brewers; lidars; chemical compositions, pollution and radionuclides facilities; This includes Atmospheric test chambers which are used to conduct controlled experiments for climate change research and atmosphere related problems.
9. In situ Earth and Ocean Observatories:
   Platforms and sensor technologies deployed in situ to collect environmental data (including physical, chemical and biological observations) in support of terrestrial environmental research and management activities. These facilities, including ecological habitat field stations, provide a base for trans-disciplinary research and training, with access to terrestrial field sites for survey and experimental opportunities and often supporting environmental observations and the collection of long-term time series data sets (a.o. on biodiversity).
10. Earth Observation satellites:
    Including Optical-IR Earth Observation satellites and Radar Earth Observation satellites.
11. Biomedical Imaging Facilities:
    Facilities equipped for visualisation, characterisation, and measurement of biological processes at the cellular and tissue levels in humans and other living systems.
12. Bio-informatics Facilities:
    Bioinformatics facilities generate knowledge through computer analysis of biological data. These can consist of the information stored in the genetic code, but also experimental results from various sources, patient statistics, and scientific literature. Research in bioinformatics includes method development for storage, retrieval, and analysis of the data. Bioinformatics is a rapidly developing branch of biology and is highly interdisciplinary, using techniques and concepts from informatics, statistics, mathematics, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, and linguistics. It has many practical applications in different areas of biology and medicine.
13. Genomic, Transcriptomic, Proteomics and Metabolomics Facilities:
    Multiple sites ranging from single laboratory DNA sequencing and RNA transcript analysis facilities run by biologists for their own department's research to high-throughput facilities aimed at providing a sophisticated service for a broad community of biologists run by informaticians, biologists and engineers. Proteomics: physical chemistry developments for clinical and biological applications getting access to proteins network linked to the physiological and pathological stated of the cells. This includes nutrigenomics research.
14. Biobanks including Seed banks:
    Facilities for storage of collections of microorganisms, biological material and the associated data and information facilities for a population or a large subset of a population, maintained under controlled conditions (temperature, humidity, atmosphere, etc.). The biological resources, including microorganisms, human/animal cells, tissue, blood and DNA, seeds of crops, trees and wild plant species, are conserved for their genetic endowment. Databases established on these provide holistic information on each accession with scientific descriptors, ethno-botanical/ zoological/ microbiological/medical knowledge, including for the purpose of establishing intellectual property rights and ownership over the biomaterial stored.
15. Animal facilities:
    Facilities that provide husbandry of animals and services to the biomedical research community, usually equipped with highly automated systems that provide the best possible conditions for animal reproduction and maintenance. The main activity is the reproduction and maintenance of animal stocks either of inbred strains or genetically engineered animals, such as transgenic and knockout mouse lines, or even chemically-induced mutants.
16. Chemical Libraries and Screening Facilities:
    Digital libraries related to chemistry as well as screening facilities.
17. Cell Culture Facilities:
    Facilities that are equipped to provide robust support for isolation and culture of a variety of cell lines (like mammalian and insect cell lines, mouse and human embryonic stem cells), including serum preparation, feeders, growth factors and mycoplasma testing, this may be on serum-based or serum-free media.
18. Translational Research Centers of Competence:
    Translational Research Centres support the integration of evidence based medicine, social sciences and political sciences with the aim of optimising patient care and preventive measures which may extend beyond healthcare services. This is the process of turning appropriate biological discoveries into drugs and medical devices that can be used in the treatment of patients.
19. Clinical Research Centers:
    Facilities that support patient-oriented research, involving a particular person or group of people or uses materials from humans. This research can include: Studies of mechanisms of human disease; Studies of therapies or interventions for disease; Clinical trials; Studies to develop new technology related to disease.
20. Structural Biology Facilities:
    Facilities equipped for visualisation, characterisation, and measurement of biological processes at the molecular level in humans and other living systems. Main technologies include protein crystallisation, X-ray diffraction, mass spectrometry, DSC.
21. Agronomy, Forestry and Plant Breeding Centres:
    Facilities that enable open field and forest experiments to test the impact of management practices and of environmental conditions on soil, crop, and primary production. These include plants and trees ex-situ collections, experimental facilities for controlled crosses and propagation, and population genetics field testing. The facilities are relevant for Biological- and Environmental Sciences.
22. Systems Biology/Computational Biology Facilities:
    Laboratories that combine all relevant scientific disciplines and the know-how to integrate experimental data with computational and theoretical approaches with the aim of targeting, understanding and engineering pathways, cells, organs and complete organisms.
23. Intense Light Sources:
    All facilities that provide access to intense light radiation sources as used for lasers, synchrotrons, Free Electron Lasers. The facilities are relevant to the scientific domains of Physics, Chemistry, Bio-Medical Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Humanities & Arts, Information Science & Technology; Laser Sources for materials synthesis laboratories; Laser Sources for spectroscopy laboratories; Synchrotron Light Sources and X-Ray Diffraction Facilities.
24. Intense Neutron Sources:
    Accelerator-based neutron source facility that provides the intense pulsed neutron beam.
25. Extreme Conditions Facilities:
    All facilities where materials are studied under extreme physical conditions as in High Magnetic Field Laboratories, High Pressure Laboratories, Low Temperature Laboratories, High Radiation Facilities, Microgravity platforms.
26. Analytical Facilities:
    All facilities where analytical tools are used that are based on one of the following probes or methods: electrons, photons, neutrons, radio frequency, NMR, or analytical chemistry. It does include Surface Science Laboratories dedicated to analysis and characterization of surface and interface phenomena. Different users would come from the scientific domains Chemistry, Earth science, Bio-Medical (including forensic) science and different sensativities (Analytical Chemistry, electron microscopy laboratories); NMR facilities; surface science laboratories; x-ray diffraction; Electron Microscopy Laboratories, aspects in life sciences, earth, forensics; Surface Science Laboratories.
27. Materials Synthesis and Testing Facilities:
    All single or multi sited facilities run by engineers and materials scientists to process or test materials with regard to predefined specifications. It includes testing and processing equipment, structural and properties characterization instruments. The facilities are relevant to the scientific domains: Engineering, Materials Sciences, Physics, Chemistry.
28. Pilot Plants for Process Testing:
    Plants where processes in biological or chemical systems, including bioenergy/biorefinery research and food processing research, are tested on a pilot level scale. (Biology, Chemistry).
29. High Energy Physics Facilities:
    High Energy Physics Facilities include accelerators, colliders, targets, light sources and detectors of high energy particles through electrostatic or oscillating fields accelerating particles to speeds sufficient to cause nuclear and particle reactions.
30. Nuclear Physics Facilities:
    Nuclear Physics facilities include accelerators, colliders, targets and detectors to study the atomic nucleus, the nuclear matter including its fusion and fission. The facilities can be classified according to their objects of study (hadrons, nuclei, applications), the probes that are used to investigate them (lepton/ photon or hadron/heavy ion beams), or simply by the size of the facility and the type of reactions involved in the various nuclear processes.
31. Astro-Particles and neutrinos detectors and observatories:
    Range of detectors/observatories, using interactions in water or ice for detecting astrophysical neutrinos, interactions in liquid noble gases or solids for searching for dark matter particles, and light emission in the atmosphere for the detection of gamma rays from astrophysical sources.
32. Gravitational wave detectors and Observatories:
    Instruments using laser interferometry between freely hung test masses up to several km apart in vacuum. The lengths of two perpendicular arms, defined by the test masses, are compared and fluctuations in the arm length differences are recorded and analysed for potential GW signals. (Links to earth observation).
33. Telescopes:
    Includes Ground-based telescopes with (1) optical and/or near infrared telescopes, interferometers or (2) reflector telescopes with mirrors of different diameters, operating at radio frequencies, or infrared and/or optical wavelengths and (3) Space-borne telescopes orbiting the earth including a wide range of wavelengths, from gamma-rays to the radio.
34. Electrical and Optical Engineering Facilities:
    Single or multi-sited facilities that offer scientists and engineers access to devices for handling light, utilizing properties of light, and detecting light or access to infrastructure for research and development in the fields of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. These infrastructures may either broadly deal with electrical or electronic engineering, or be focused specifically on some of the numerous subtopics, like electronics, electric power, telecommunications, control systems, or other.
35. Mechanical Engineering Facilities:
    Facilities dedicated to manufacturing, assembly and testing of components and systems offering services related to control, integration and realization of products and processes including modeling and simulation tools. Processing technology, road-transport vehicle development and testing are included.
36. Energy Engineering Facilities (non-nuclear):
    combustion, solar, wind, production & distribution, includes, Combustion Test Facilities and Associated Technologies.
37. Micro- and Nanotechnology facilities:
    Micro and Nanotechnology facilities deals with the understanding and control of matter at the nanoscale and microscale, at dimensions between approximately 1 and 1000 nanometers, involving imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale.
38. Aerospace and Aerodynamics Research Facilities:
    Single sited facilities providing a controlled wind stream in which objects (aircrafts, vehicles, buildings) are placed in order to measure their aerodynamic properties, using for instance lasers and/or simulate an operation and control during flight/ drive; includes wind tunnels.
39. High Performance Computing, Computing Centre:
    Single-sited facilities with a centralised control that enable high performance computing through supercomputers. These are relevant to all scientific domains.
40. Mathematics Centres of Competence:
    Mathematics centers of competence develop mathematical models for applications in all sciences and engineering, including social sciences, and medicine. They analyse the models, develop and implement algorithms for the simulation of the models as well as for the optimization and control of the involved processes. They provide transversal competences, which allows to transfer concepts and methods from one specific science to another and they also provide consulting concerning the use of methods and their implementation for specific applications. When needed, they generate the basic mathematical theory that is needed to perform the described tasks (Mathematical modelling; Numerical and statistical simulation; Control theory; Optimization; Mathematical algorithm repository).
41. Other RI-Category: Any other research infrastructure, which can be used for the research and development of the arts and which cannot be assigned to another category of research infrastructure.