Strengthening Visibility and Stakeholder Engagement in Research Infrastructures: Evidence from Imaging Core Facilities

Research infrastructures (RIs) play a critical role in advancing scientific discovery by providing access to specialised technologies, expertise, data, and services. In the life sciences, distributed RIs comprise networks of imaging core facilities (CFs) that deliver advanced microscopy technologies and image analysis expertise across institutional and national boundaries. Despite their importance for scientific excellence, imaging CFs face persistent challenges related to visibility, user acquisition, and long-term sustainability. While strategic communication and stakeholder engagement could help address these challenges, their application within RIs remains largely unexplored. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to investigate communication, outreach, and stakeholder engagement practices in imaging CFs within the Euro-BioImaging community. The analysis combines expert interviews conducted across ten European countries with quantitative survey data from RI stakeholders. The results reveal a gap between the recognised importance of communication and its practical implementation, which is often characterised by informal, reactive, and insufficiently targeted outreach activities. Stakeholder mapping further highlights a mismatch between outreach efforts and influential stakeholder groups, particularly funders and decision-makers. The findings also demonstrate that strategic engagement frameworks, including segmentation, targeting, and positioning, can be adapted to the RI context. In addition, four dimensions of visibility—informational, local, user-centred, and stakeholder-oriented—emerge as key components of effective communication compass. Overall, this study provides an empirically grounded framework for strengthening stakeholder engagement, visibility, and sustainability in distributed RIs.