Foreword

ESFRI chair
Prof. Giorgio ROSSI

Dear Commissioners,
the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures presents to you the updated Strategy Report and Roadmap 2018 that identifies eight scientifically leading Projects from previous Roadmaps which, after ten years of incubation, have reached the operational phase, or are well advanced in their construction, and deserved the ESFRI Landmark status, as well as six new Projects that were selected, among the collected proposals, for their strategic potential and impact for strengthening European research.

The strategy report addresses also all the key issues that were raised by you, through the subsequent mandates that the Council gave to ESFRI, ranging from sustainability of Research Infrastructures to innovation and to the role of hub of funders that ESFRI must play in the e-Infrastructure for European scientific competitiveness, including the challenging contribution to the construction of Open Science.

ESFRI has engaged in all these issues by deploying the expertise of the Forum, the Strategy Working Groups, the Implementation Group and the ad hoc Working Groups that were created on specific themes, putting at work together competences at the highest level and reaching a common vision.

The Roadmap is a collective work: as many as 100 individuals from all over Europe were involved in the writing if we count all Working Groups providing analysis and knowledge, the whole Forum extensively involved in discussing and refining the drafts along with the European Commission Officers and Secretariat, and the editorial team who managed the production of this document that represents the state-of-the-art of ESFRI: a collective vision for European Research Infrastructures to inspire European policy for maximizing competitiveness.

In fact, the impact of this work goes beyond the achieved technical and strategy report: it is a vivid demonstration of the high merit and potential of European collaboration in developing visions and sustainable perspectives for progress, in the spirit of freedom, of the rich culture that derives from the specialities that all of us represent and that we knew how to bring together, for reaching a synthesis and a pleasant perspective.

 

The Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures includes the Roadmap with ESFRI Projects and ESFRI Landmarks and the ESFRI vision of the evolution of Research Infrastructures in Europe, addressing the mandates of the European Council, and identifying strategy goals.

The Strategy Report is composed of three parts.

Part 1
Strategy Report
Part 2
Landscape analysis
Part 3
Projects & Landmarks