Still a concept, but now with a roadmap: the planned European Extremely Large Telescope
The roadmap will allow a standardised approach to the development of the facilities, support the definition of priorities and aid in the pooling of the significant financial resources needed for their development.
Examples of suggested projects include large-scale laser systems, deep sea floor observatories, bio-banks and the European Extremely Large Telescope.
Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said, “Research infrastructures are a critical element of building research excellence in Europe. Not only can they support the work of European scientists, but world-class facilities attract the best scientific minds from around the world. We can’t afford to have 25 separate approaches to such facilities.”
35 key infrastructures
The roadmap identifies 35 research infrastructure projects currently at different stages of development and in seven key research fields of environmental sciences, energy, materials sciences, astrophysics, astronomy, particle and nuclear physics, biomedical and life sciences, social sciences and humanities, computation and data treatment.
The efforts and resources needed to build and operate such large-scale, world-class infrastructures are generally well beyond single institutions, or even countries. The roadmap will help to pool resources at European level to create and develop these facilities.
Some support for will be available from the Seventh Research Framework Programme, which will predominantly be used in the preparation phase, to help set up the most appropriate legal organisation, and assist in the financial and construction planning.
The roadmap is based on a two-year consultation and peer review process, involving over 1,000 high level European and international experts. ESFRI itself is composed of senior representatives of Member States and leading European scientists. The roadmap builds on the “List of Opportunities” proposed in April 2005.
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