NEWS

Research infrastructures are facilities, resources and services that are used by the 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-infrastructures, such as data and computing systems and communication networks; and any other infrastructure of a unique nature essential to achieve excellence in research and innovation. Such infrastructures may be 'single-sited', ‘virtual’ or 'distributed'. 

Research infrastructures play an increasing role in the advancement of knowledge and technology and their exploitation. By offering high quality research services to users from different countries, by attracting young people to science and by networking facilities, research infrastructures help to structure the scientific community and play a key role in the construction of an efficient research and innovation environment. Because of their ability to assemble a ‘critical mass’ of people, knowledge and investment, they contribute to national, regional and European economic development. Research infrastructures are also key in helping Europe to lead a global movement towards open, interconnected, data-driven and computer-intensive science and engineering. e-Infrastructures will make every European researcher digital, increasing creativity and efficiency of research and bridging the divide between developed and less developed regions. 

The EU framework programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon Europe, gives high importance to promoting world-class research infrastructures, in a fair, transparent and open way facilitating researcher's access to the infrastructures they need, to further developing and deploying e-infrastructures, and fostering the innovation potential of research infrastructures with a focus on instrumentation and on reinforcing international cooperation with strategic third country partners. Research infrastructures provide research opportunities and services to researchers in many areas also addressed by other Parts of Horizon Europe within Clusters, Missions and Partnerships

RIs from H2020 to HE

Main novelties

  • A new challenge driven approach will join the science driven one
  • Emphasis on customization and integration of (different) RI services to better support research addressing global challenges and political priorities
  • Integrating Activity instrument discontinued: support to access provision and higher levels of integration separated from joint research for the next generation of instrumentation
  • New efforts to consolidate the existing landscape of European RI

Strategic Orientations 2021-2024

  • Consolidate and enhance the EU research infrastructures landscape
  • Support Open Science and data driven research through the European
  • Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and high capacity network
  • Enable and drive the green and digital transformation through research
  • infrastructure services
  • Push the limits of frontier research
  • Develop cutting edge technologies for RIs and foster innovation
  • Enhance the international dimension of RIs

Total Budget: 2.4 Billion Euro 

Call Information

Related Partnership