The goal of the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ACTRIS ERIC) is to produce high-quality integrated datasets in the area of atmospheric sciences and provide services, including access to instrumented platforms, tailored for scientific and technological usage.
ACTRIS ERIC will coordinate activities for documenting concentrations, understanding processes and quantifying impacts of short-lived atmospheric constituents on Earth’s climate, air quality, human health and ecosystems. It will offer open access to a large portfolio of services, including training activities, physical and remote access to world-class research facilities, and tailored services, for the scientific community and other stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
ACTRIS ERIC is constructed around large and comprehensive atmospheric research facilities, distributed across Europe and beyond, which serve for the acquisition of reliable high-quality data to document the distribution and variability of aerosol, clouds and reactive trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Data provision follows FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) principles.
Commission Decision
ACTRIS ERIC Statutes
ACTRIS ERIC website
Integrated access to state-of-the-art experimental and analytical platforms for ecosystem research throughout Europe
AnaEE-ERIC offers capacities to develop multidisciplinary approaches at the frontiers of life sciences, agronomy and environmental sciences, combining experimentation, analysis and modelling services to answer pressing scientific and societal issues’. AnaEE-ERIC will ‘advance our understanding of the environmental impacts of ongoing global change and fosters adaptation and mitigation strategies for safeguarding ecosystem services and their economic and societal benefits.’
Putting together biobanks and biomolecular resources into a pan-European facility.
Collections of biological resources, such as cells, tissues or biomolecules are considered as the essential raw material for the advancement of biotechnology, human health, and for research and development in life sciences.
BBMRI, the pan-European Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure, improves the accessibility and interoperability of existing comprehensive collections of biological samples from different (sub)populations of Europe.
Materials science facilities of Central Europe join resources to offer an integrated service to researchers.
CERIC, the Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium, puts together the national multidisciplinary analytical, synthesis and sample preparation capabilities of eight countries - Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. Serbia is in the process of appointing the Representing Entity.
CERIC-ERIC exploits the full scientific potential of the Central European area in the synchrotron light and other microscopic probes for analytical and modification techniques for a broad range of applications in the fields of life sciences, nanoscience and nanotechnology, cultural heritage, environment and materials sciences.
The Consortium of European Social Science data Archives
provides large scale, integrated and sustainable data services to the social sciences.
CESSDA brings together social science data archives across Europe, with the aim of promoting the results of social science research and supporting national and international research and cooperation.
On 9 June 2017, the European Commission granted the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the Consortium of European Social Science data Archives (CESSDA). With this measure, the EU provides the facility with many administrative advantages enjoyed by international organisations and therefore helps to successfully implement the infrastructure project.
EU language research infrastructure, making digital language resources available to all disciplines.
CLARIN, the pan-European Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure, makes digital language resources available to scholars and researchers of all disciplines, in particular humanities and social sciences.
It provides a single collection of data and tools which can be accessed by the user through a web application, requiring only one identity and sign-on. Researchers are gaining access to repositories of data with standardised descriptions and processing tools to operate them, as well as to guidance and advice through distributed knowledge centres.
A European digital research infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.
DARIAH ERIC stands for Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities European Research Infrastructure Consortium.
DARIAH ERIC enhances and supports digitally-enabled research across the humanities and arts. It works with research and education communities to explore and apply ICT-based methods to research questions, new and old.
Making translation of scientific discoveries into medical products more effective.
EATRIS-ERIC, the European Advanced Translational Research Infrastructure in medicine, will accelerate the development process for drugs and diagnostics with an unmet medical need and raise the quality of life for Europeans.
The European Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Laboratory Infrastructure
ECCSEL provides the infrastructure for research into Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) which must ensure up to 17% of the global annual CO2 emission cuts, and 14% of the accumulated cuts from now on. ECCSEL will provide a dedicated and coordinated research environment, pushing the forefront of technological development beyond the state-of-the-art, and thereby accelerating the commercialisation and deployment of CCS methods.
On 9 June 2017, the European Commission granted the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the European Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Laboratory Infrastructure. With this measure, the EU provides the facility with many administrative advantages enjoyed by international organisations and therefore helps to successfully implement the infrastructure project. ECCSEL ERIC is the first ERIC established in the Energy domain which is so important for the Energy Union, the Sustainable Development Goals and for COP21.
A non-profit organisation to develop and implement multinational clinical trials in Europe.
ECRIN-ERIC provides services to multinational clinical research, in any medical field and for any category of clinical research in order to strengthen the capacity of the European Union to explore the determinants of diseases and optimise the use of diagnostics, prevention and treatment strategies.
Commission Decision
European Commission awards EU legal status to four research infrastructures
ECRIN-ERIC website
Enabling access to the state-of-the-art high power and ultra-fast lasers for science.
ELI ERIC includes currently two world class laser facilities in Czech Republic and in Hungary both built with support from European Regional Development Funds.
These facilities will enable fundamental studies in atomic, molecular, plasma and nuclear physics. Impacts are expected in fields as diverse as oncology treatment, imaging for personalised medicine, nuclear waste processing or questions about the origin of matters.
European Marine Biology Resource Center
The European Commission on 21 February 2018 granted the status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC), setting up a pan-European Consortium for marine biology and ecology research (EMBRC-ERIC).
Hosted in France and based in Paris, EMBRC-ERIC will provide a single access point to a comprehensive portfolio of services and research platforms, marine ecosystems and genetic material, biological resources and analytical data, E-infrastructure and metadata.
New European research infrastructure to provide key data on the sea and climate change
In September 2016, the European Commission granted the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and Water Column Observatory (EMSO), a network of observatory nodes installed in European seas providing key data on marine ecosystems, natural hazards and climate change.
Based in Rome, EMSO has been established by eight countries: France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. It will collect high-resolution data from the ocean surface, water column, seafloor and sub-seafloor, and transmit it to shore via satellites or cable connection in real or near-real time. These measurements are crucial for our understanding of climate change and its impacts, and for improving geo-hazard early warning.
Commission Decision
News Alert
Statutes of EMSO ERIC
EMSO ERIC website
European Plate Observing System
The European Commission granted on 30 October 2018 the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the European Plate Observing System (EPOS), a research infrastructure that will provide a better understanding of the physical processes controlling earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tectonic movements and other such geo-hazards with potentially grave impact on the environment and the welfare of citizens.
Exploring social attitudes, measuring changes in public attitudes and behaviour patterns.
The European Social Survey (ESS) ERIC, measures changes in public attitudes and behaviour patterns both over time across nations. Based on interviews with respondents in 34 countries, the online database of the ESS ERIC reflects how Europeans view their environment, and how their values and perceptions are changing.
European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology
The European Commission on 20 March 2018 granted the status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology (EU OPENSCREEN), setting up a Pan European research infrastructure for chemical biology.
Hosted in Germany and based in Berlin, on the Science Campus BUCH, the new ERIC will provide a single access point to screening platforms as well as chemistry and biology facilities.
EU-SOLARIS ERIC aims to become the European reference Research Infrastructure in the technological development of Concentrating Solar Power/Solar Thermal Energy (CSP/STE) and related applications.
EU-SOLARIS ERIC covers research facilities with high thermal power and research facilities with low and medium power. It will offer the most favourable conditions for the development of CSP/STE technologies and the deployment of advanced pilot projects for the scientific and industrial communities.
EU-SOLARIS ERIC will link scientific communities and industry and speed up the development of research and innovation due to a closer collaboration model, knowledge exchange management and a wider dissemination of results.
Commission Decision
EU- SOLARIS ERIC Statutes
EU-SOLARIS website
Global ocean observing infrastructure reporting subsurface ocean properties to a wide range of users.
Argo is a global array of autonomous instruments deployed over the world ocean and reporting near-real time subsurface ocean properties to a wide range of users via satellite. Euro-Argo is Europe's contribution to this effort.
Euro-Argo ERIC is now a key player in the international global Earth observing systems. The consolidation of ocean observations by Euro-Argo will enable a sustainable exploration, exploitation and protection of the oceans, in line with the blue growth strategy, and will enhance the European COPERNICUS Earth observing programme.
Commission Decision
Blue Economy Innovation: examples of EU marine research
Euro-Argo website
Gateway to European biological and biomedical imaging
Euro-BioImaging is the European landmark research infrastructure for biological and biomedical imaging as recognised by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). Through Euro-BioImaging, life scientists can access imaging instruments, expertise, training opportunities and data management services that they might not find at their home institutions or among their collaboration partners. All scientists, regardless of their affiliation, area of expertise or field of activity can benefit from these pan-European open access services, which are provided with high quality standards by leading imaging facilities.
The European Spallation Source is the world's next-generation neutron source currently under construction in Lund, Sweden.
It is the largest project and one of the top priorities of the European Commission’s European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap. The European Spallation Source will use a high-power linear proton accelerator to create neutron beams to probe the structures and dynamics of materials.
Integrated Carbon Observation System European Research Infrastructure Consortium
In October 2015, the European Commission established a pan-European greenhouse gas monitoring organisation, Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS).
It was established to meet the need for a versatile and long-term greenhouse gas observation network in Europe.
The organisation consists of national networks of measuring stations, central facilities specialised in various fields and the head office in Finland, which coordinates the operations.
INFRAFRONTIER ERIC will coordinate the operation and the access to services and resources of the distributed INFRAFRONTIER RI, the European Research Infrastructure for the generation, phenotyping, archiving and distribution of in vivo/in vitro model systems and related data.
INFRAFRONTIER provides the biomedical research community with the tools needed to unravel the role of gene function in human health and disease. It enhances medical research and promotes studies that lead to breakthrough discoveries in cancer, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases, infectious diseases and the group of rare diseases, global threats to our socio-economic well-being.
INFRAFRONTIER ERIC will promote research, training and application in all fields of generating, phenotyping, archiving and distribution of disease models. It will promote and coordinate the development of new technologies to improve the scientific value of the INFRAFRONTIER RI’s resources and services. It will set and adopt quality standards and standard operation procedures.
INFRAFRONTIER ERIC will have its statutory seat in Munich, Germany. The Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece and Sweden are the founding Members.
The Integrated Structural Biology - European Research Infrastructure Consortium
INSTRUCT-ERIC will provide high-quality working conditions for researchers in structural biology. Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia and the UK are members of INSTRUCT-ERIC, while Spain, Greece and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) are currently observers. INSTRUCT-ERIC is the seventeenth ERIC established by the European Commission.
Legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium was granted on 4 July 2017.
The JIV-ERIC allows telescopes in Europe, Asia and South Africa to avail of much simpler management procedures.
The infrastructures participating in JIV-ERIC have pioneered in the field of e-VLBI – a technique that measures in real time the radio frequencies emitted by astronomical objects.
JIV-ERIC is planning to develop the most accurate timing distribution infrastructure in the world and enable additional cutting-edge applications of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) and radio astronomy technologies.
New European 'Big Data' e-infrastructure to support biodiversity research
LifeWatch aims to advance biodiversity and ecosystem research and to provide major contributions to addressing big environmental challenges such as climate change by providing access through a pan-European distributed e-infrastructure to large sets of data, services and tools that enable the creation of virtual laboratories and decision-support applications. Thanks to these virtual research environments, specific issues related to biodiversity and ecosystem research and preservation are addressed through the implementation of integrated models.
In March 2017 the European Commission granted the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to the e-Science and Technology European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research (LifeWatch). With this measure, the EU provides the facility with many administrative advantages enjoyed by international organisations and therefore helps to successfully implement the infrastructure project.
LOFAR (the LOw Frequency ARray) is a world-leading distributed research infrastructure, with cohesively operated facilities located in several countries. LOFAR has re-invigorated low-frequency radio astronomy, improving by more than a factor of a hundred on the sensitivity of previous telescopes for observations between about 10 and 240 MHz. LOFAR has an unprecedented angular resolution, an enormous field of view and multi-beam capabilities, making it by far the most powerful ~100 MHz telescope on the planet, which is revolutionising our view of the low-frequency radio Universe. LOFAR’s high angular resolution will remain unique at these low frequencies for at least the next decade.
The principal task of LOFAR ERIC will be to assure coordinated exploitation of the LOFAR infrastructure, to produce world class scientific research and to pursue further development, with the aim to maximise productivity and impact for the Members and the international scientific community, positioning LOFAR ERIC as a world-leading research infrastructure with a long-term perspective. LOFAR ERIC will provide transparent access to a wide range of science research services for the full European community.
LOFAR ERIC will have its statutory seat in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands. Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland are the founding Members. LOFAR ERIC will also have collaborating organizations located in France, Latvia, Sweden, UK.
To serve Bioscience and Bioindustry users by facilitating access to a broad range of high quality bioresources and data, in a legally compliant way.
MIRRI-ERIC will create a single infrastructure to alleviate the bottlenecks that impede faster microbiological-related developments in Europe, where multinational collaboration is currently hampered by the fragmentation of policy, resources, and expertise. MIRRI-ERIC will improve complementarity, reduce redundancy, and increase the capacity of its Partner mBRCs (Microbial domain Biological Resource Centres) to preserve microbial materials, in a cost-effective and coordinated way, contributing to the reproducibility, integrity and cumulative character of research.
The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of about 140,000 individuals aged 50 or older (around 380,000 interviews). SHARE covers 28 European countries and Israel.
SHARE is the first European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). It is hosted by the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Germany, and aims to help researchers understand the impact of population ageing on European societies and thus to help policy makers make decisions on health, social and economic policy.
Amendment of SHARE-ERIC statutes: A Commission Decision of 27 May 2014 approved amendments to the Statutes of SHARE-ERIC. The statutory seat of SHARE-ERIC transferred from Tilburg, in The Netherlands to Munich, in Germany.