Research Infrastructures are facilities that provide resources and services for research communities to conduct research and foster innovation. These facilities include major equipment or sets of instruments, knowledge-related facilities such as collections, archives or scientific data infrastructures, computing systems and communication networks.
Through this programme, Europe wants to build and exploit top-class sustainable research infrastructures which are open and accessible to the best researchers from Europe and beyond.
Sharing knowledge and resources will always lead to better results. By providing scientists with access to state-of-the-art research infrastructures to test their ideas, this effect can be boosted. Therefore, the EU helps to develop shared European Research Infrastructures by:
- opening national research infrastructures to top scientists from around Europe through EU funding
- pooling research data for easy access and analysis
- connecting national scientific communities
- avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort as EU countries jointly plan ahead
- granting key facilities the status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) which is a stable legal structure with administrative advantages or international organisations.
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