Facilities, resources and services used by research communities to conduct research and foster innovation in their fields. Where relevant, they may be used beyond research, e.g. for education or public services. They include: major scientific equipment (or sets of instruments), knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives or scientific data, e-infrastructure such as data and computing systems and communication networks, any other dedicated research infrastructure — whether 'single-sited', 'virtual' or 'distributed'.