Following the recent Competitiveness Council Conclusions, which mandate ESFRI to develop a common approach for monitoring the performance of research infrastructures (RIs), a questionnaire was sent by ERF-AISBL (Association of European-level Research Infrastructure Facilities) to the community of European RIs in order to gain a better insight into how they address (or would address as the case may be) the issue of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). 36 replies were received, as listed in Annex 1. The results indicate a rather strong coherence with the proposed principles across the landscape of RIs. While half of the respondents already have KPIs in place, the other half agree that they should have them. Respondents also believe that KPIs should be used in the strategic management of the institutions and, as such, adopted by, and reported to the decision-making bodies of the RIs. There is also a strong preference for their publication, although some RIs stress the importance of putting KPIs into context when making them available publicly to ensure clarity, but also because, without such contextual information, the performance cannot be reliably compared across RIs. The quality of indicators is considered to be highly important by the RIs. Respondents believe indeed that indicators should be “relevant, accepted, credible, easy to monitor and robust”, although only three respondents report that their current KPIs already meet these criteria. The prevailing opinion of the RIs is that KPIs should be linked to the objectives of their institutions. Considering that RIs pursue some objectives that are specific to each of them, a number of respondents warn against prescribing the use of the same indicators by all RIs in a ‘top-down’ approach. Additionally, some respondents emphasize that, in addition to quantitative KPIs, attention should also be devoted to non-measurable, qualitative performance criteria and propose that KPIs be accompanied by case studies and other narratives in order to appropriately present progress in the pursuit of the objectives of their infrastructure. You can read the full report here