Landscape analysis is a type of organisational analysis. The concept focused on finding a cohesive and consistent view of the main organisations and initiatives in some analysed area of operations and analysing chosen key aspects of them. In many business-oriented situations this kind of analysis is a part of a business plan – finding out on potential collaborators, market analysis, competitors, etc.

The key elements of a landscape analysis are defining users (stakeholders), the scope (what kinds of organisations are analysed, i.e. the targets of the analysis), methods used, and parameters to study.

In the case of RISCAPE, these elements are

• The users of the RISCAPE analysis are meant to be the primarily national and regional funding agencies, the European Commission services, ESFRI and other national and international bodies developing science infrastructures. Secondary user groups are European and international research infrastructures, researchers and users of the research infrastructures.
• The scope of the RISCAPE analysis is focused on international research infrastructures. As there is no global definition on what actually is a research infrastructure, we define in the Methods workpackage a common scope definition. (see page What are research infrastructures?)
• Methods of the RISCAPE analysis are based on interviews, information collecting from existing available sources (reports, previous landscape analyses, etc.), questionnaires and reaching to the European ESFRI research infrastructures.
• Parameters of the study are still open. Any landscape analysis must include some basic parameters regarding to the existence of an organisation (research infrastructure), but the rest of the parameters are strongly dependent on the needs of the Stakeholders.