Research infrastructures (RI) activities

Support for research infrastructures in the present action is open to infrastructures throughout the fields of science and technology. Five schemes for support will be implemented:

1. Transnational Access (TA): to sponsor new opportunities for research teams (including individual researchers) to obtain access to individual major research infrastructures most appropriate for their work. Community financing will cover the necessary operating costs of providing access to such infrastructures.

2. Integrating Activities: to support through coordinated and integrated activities the provision of better services to the research community at European level.

2.1. Integrated Infrastructures Initiatives (I3): combines, within a single contract, the following activities essential to reinforce research infrastructures and to provide an integrated service at the European level. More specifically, it will cover: networking activities (including consortium management); provision of access to transnational users; and joint research activities. The latter will in particular aim at raising the level of the performance of the infrastructures concerned.

2.2. Coordination Actions (CA): is an "Integrating Activity" limited to networking activities paving the way towards more ambitious initiatives.

3. Communication Network Development (CND): to create, in conjunction with the priority thematic research area on Information Society Technologies, a denser network between related initiatives, in particular by establishing a high-capacity and high-speed communications network for all research workers in Europe (GEANT) and specific high performance Grids and test-beds (GRIDs), as well as electronic publishing services.

4. Design studies (DS): to contribute, on a case-by-case basis, to feasibility studies and technical preparatory for those new infrastructures which have a clear European dimension and interest, taking into account the needs of all potential users.

5. Construction of new infrastructures (CNI): to provide limited support for the development of a restricted number of projects for new infrastructures in duly justified cases where such support could have a critical catalysing effect in terms of European added value.

6. Accompanying measures (AM): are aimed to support the Research Infrastructures scheme.