**2.4 The European research infrastructure consortium (ERIC) EU-OPENSCREEN**

EU-OPENSCREEN [20] is a community-driven, bottom-up initiative in Europe, which brings together 21 partner sites, i.e. technology platforms and research groups at various universities and research institutions, to form an open-access research infrastructure for chemical biology and early drug discovery. Instead of building an ivory tower, the aim of EU-OPENSCREEN is to establish and operate an infrastructure that facilitates and encourages the engagement with the broader scientific community. In the framework of EU-OPENSCREEN, the partner sites and external researchers collaboratively develop novel tool compounds (or chemical 'probes') that allow researchers to interrogate and study fundamental cellular processes, such as signaling or metabolic pathways.

EU-OPENSCREEN is one of 55 research infrastructures listed on the current ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) Roadmap [21] as an 'ESFRI Landmark Project', demonstrating the relevance for the European scientific community and the European Research Area (ERA). It is jointly funded by the research ministries of eight countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Spain) and the European Commission. Since April 2018, it operates a European, not-for-profit organization ('European Research Infrastructure Consortium'), which is based in Berlin, Germany, and is legally independent from any university or research institute. EU-OPENSCREEN, and the European Research Infrastructures in general, promote open science and open innovation [22].

Many technology platforms at universities and research institutes predominantly work with the colleagues at their hosting institution. Larger European initiatives often engage with scientists from Western European countries, where these initiatives are based. Reaching out to, and encourage the active participation of, scientists from regions, which are often underrepresented in chemical biology and early drug discovery research, requires a different approach. Through its distributed network of partner sites across its member countries, EU-OPENSCREEN aims to have a more balanced engagement of local science communities. In each member country, a local partner establishes and coordinates a national network—e.g. CZ-OPENSCREEN in the Czech Republic, PL-OPENSCREEN in Poland, NOR-OPENSCREEN in Norway, Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology Consortium (DDCB) in Finland, ChemBioNet in Germany—to raise awareness about the initiative and to efficiently encourage scientists at the local level to participate.
