EIROforum, a collaboration representing Europe’s leading scientific institutions, CERN, EMBL, ESA, ESO, ESRF, EUROfusion, European XFEL, and ILL, has called for a significant increase in funding and other measures in the forthcoming EU Framework Programme (FP10) to improve support for research infrastructures across the continent.
Professor Thomas Feurer of European XFEL and current chair of EIROforum underlined the key role of European Research Infrastructures (ERI): “Strong investment in our research infrastructures is crucial to maintain and foster Europe’s innovation potential. They are a backbone of the European Research Area (ERA), driving technology innovation and scientific excellence in many fields and addressing societal and industrial challenges.”
EIROforum is concerned about the reduction in funding for ERIs under Horizon Europe compared to Horizon 2020 and advocates for a substantial increase in the budget of the FP10 programme.
In addition, EIROforum suggests strengthening the future Research Infrastructure Programme in FP10 by
- Integrating ERIs as a transversal programme across all pillars and clusters of FP10
- Strengthening policy instruments to support both emerging and established research infrastructures
- Continuing to support the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the adoption of AI methodologies
- Providing broad, flexible, and transnational access to infrastructures for curiosity-driven projects
- Strengthening collaboration with European industry for technology transfer and co-development
- Introducing new funding instruments for long-term support of technology development of advanced research infrastructure communities
- Providing support to continuous training of young researchers and innovators
Research infrastructures promote integration with other key components of the Framework Programme and foster collaboration across different scientific domains. As repositories of scientific data and sources of innovation, ERIs also play an important role in training the next generation of researchers and are driving new applications and the development of AI and other emerging technologies. Adequate funding for ERIs in FP10 is therefore an important factor in keeping Europe at the forefront of scientific excellence, competitiveness, and technological sovereignty.