4. RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES

The activities will aim at developing excellent European research infrastructures for 2020 and beyond, fostering their innovation potential and human resources and reinforcing European policy. Coordination with the cohesion funding sources will be pursued to ensure synergies and a coherent approach for the development of the research infrastructures. Synergies with the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions will be encouraged. The aim is to facilitate and support the preparation, implementation, long-term sustainability and efficient operation of the research infrastructures identified by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and of other world-class research infrastructures, which will help Europe to respond to grand challenges in science, industry and society. This objective will address specifically those infrastructures that are planning to set up, are setting up or have set up their governance, e.g. on the basis of the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) or any equivalent structure at European or international level. The Union funding will contribute to, as appropriate: he preparatory phase of future infrastructures (e.g. detailed construction plans, legal arrangements, multiannual planning, and early engagement of industry); the implementation phase (e.g. research and development (R&D) and engineering work jointly with industry and users, and development of Regional Partner Facilities A Regional Partner Facility (RPF) is a research infrastructure of national or regional importance in terms of socio-economic returns, training and attracting researchers and technicians, that is recognised as a partner to a pan-European ESFRI or other world-class research infrastructure. The quality of the RPF, including the level of its scientific service, management and access policy, must meet the same standards required for pan-European research infrastructures. aiming at a more balanced development of the ERA); and/or the operation phase (e.g. access, data handling, outreach, training and international cooperation activities). This activity will also support design studies for new research infrastructures through a bottom-up approach. The aim is to open up, where appropriate, key national and regional research infrastructures to all European researchers, from both academia and industry, and to ensure the optimal use and joint development of these infrastructures. The Union will support networks and clusters that bring together and integrate, on European scale, key national research infrastructures. Funding will be provided to support, in particular, the transnational and virtual access of researchers and the harmonisation and improvement of the services that the infrastructures provide. The aim is to achieve by 2020 a world-leading capability in networking, computing and scientific data in a single and open European space for online research where researchers enjoy leading-edge, ubiquitous and reliable services for networking and computing, and seamless and open access to e-Science environments and global data resources. To achieve this goal, support will be given to: global research and education networks providing advanced, standardised and scalable inter-domain services on-demand; grid and cloud infrastructures providing virtually unlimited computational and data processing capacity; an ecosystem of supercomputing facilities, advancing towards exascale; a software and service infrastructure, e.g. for simulation and visualisation; real-time collaborative tools; and an interoperable, open and trusted scientific data infrastructure. The goal is to stimulate innovation both in the infrastructures themselves and in industries, such as the supplier and user industry. To this end, support will be provided to: R&D partnerships with industry to develop Union capacities and industrial supply in high-tech areas such as scientific instrumentation or ICT; pre-commercial procurement by research infrastructure actors to drive forward innovation and act as early adopters or developers of cutting-edge technologies; stimulate the use of research infrastructures by industry, e.g. as experimental test facilities or knowledge-based centres; and encourage the integration of research infrastructures into local, regional and global innovation ecosystems. The Union actions will also leverage the use of research infrastructures, in particular e-infrastructures, for public services, social innovation, culture, education and training. The complexity of research infrastructures and the exploitation of their full potential require adequate skills for their managers, engineers and technicians, as well as users. The Union funding will support the training of staff managing and operating research infrastructures of pan-European interest, the exchange of staff and best practices between facilities, and the adequate supply of human resources in key disciplines, including the emergence of specific education curricula. Synergies with the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions will be encouraged. The aims are to exploit synergies between national and Union initiatives by setting up partnerships between relevant policy makers, funding bodies or advisory groups (e.g. ESFRI, e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG), EIROforum organisations, and national public authorities), to develop complementarities and cooperation between research infrastructures and activities implementing other Union policies (such as regional, cohesion, industrial, health, environment, employment, or development policy), and to ensure coordination between different Union funding sources. Union actions will also support survey, monitoring and assessment of research infrastructures at Union level, as well as relevant policy studies and communication tasks. Horizon 2020 will facilitate the efforts of the Member States to optimise their research facilities by supporting an up-to-date Union-wide database on openly accessible research infrastructures in Europe. The aim is to facilitate the development of global research infrastructures, i.e. research infrastructures that require funding and agreements on a global scale. The aim is also to facilitate the cooperation of European research infrastructures with their non-European counterparts, ensuring their global interoperability and reach, and to pursue international agreements on the reciprocal use, openness or co-financing of infrastructures. In this respect due account will be taken of the recommendations of the Carnegie Group of Senior Officials on Global Research Infrastructures. Attention will also be given to ensure adequate Union participation in coordination with international bodies such as the United Nations (UN) or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). During implementation independent expert groups will be consulted, as well as stakeholders and advisory bodies, such as ESFRI and the e-IRG. The implementation will follow a three-pronged approach: bottom-up where the exact content and partnership of projects are not known; targeted where the specific research infrastructures and/or communities addressed are well-defined; and named beneficiaries, for example where a contribution to operational costs is provided to (a consortium of) infrastructure operator(s). The aims of the activity lines set out under sections 4.2 and 4.3 shall be pursued by dedicated actions, as well as within the actions developed under section 4.1, when appropriate.

← anx_I__cpt_1__cpt_4__cpt_3__cpt_6__text_7 · All articles · anx_I__cpt_1__cpt_4__cpt_4__text_1 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.