European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures launched

European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures launched.

The first ever European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures has been presented.

The document outlines 35 research infrastructure projects identified as being vital to the development of science and innovation in Europe.

Research infrastructures are large-scale facilities, major pieces of research equipment or databases and networks that help scientists in their work. Examples in the Roadmap include the European Extremely Large Telescope, a European icebreaker for Polar research, a network of clinical research centres and an upgrade of the European Social Survey. However the costs of setting up and running these infrastructures are usually too high for one institution or even one country to bear alone.

‘Europe has a long-standing tradition of excellence in research,’ commented ESFRI Chairman, Professor John Wood. ‘However if we don’t come together we will fail to reach critical mass.’ over 1,000 experts have contributed to the process, identifying vital infrastructure projects in seven fields: environmental sciences; energy; materials sciences; astrophysics, astronomy, particle and nuclear physics; biomedical and life sciences; social sciences and humanities and computation and data treatment.

The European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik emphasised that while the EU would be able to provide some financial support to the projects, the bulk of the funding would have to come from the Member States. However, he noted that all the projects in the roadmap had backing from some of the Member States, and he would shortly be writing to the national research ministers to formally ask for their support. €1.7 billion has been earmarked for research infrastructure projects under the Seventh Framework Programme; the total estimated cost of all 35 projects comes to over €13 billion.

Research Infrastructures roadmap

Information on the EU’s research infrastructures activities ,