ESFRI Roadmap Update 2026: Towards a Robust & Sustainable Ecosystem of European Research Infrastructures
It is with great pleasure that ESFRI announces the beginning of the process that will lead to an updated version of its Roadmap, to be completed in 2026.
To kick-start start this process, ESFRI organised an Infoday on 8 October 2024 in Brussels, where over 130 representatives of existing and prospective RIs, research policy makers, funders, and RI experts had the opportunity to get detailed information from ESFRI members about the scope of the planned update, requirements from new initiatives and the methodology for the selection of new Research Infrastructure projects. They also discussed their questions and concerns and networked with other stakeholders and key agents of the process.
The Info Day marked the official invitation to the research community to propose new Research Infrastructures for inclusion on the ESFRI Roadmap 2026. The deadline to submit proposals is 8 April 2025.
Launching the call for proposals for the ESFRI Roadmap 2026, Jose Luis Martinez Peña, Chair of ESFRI, envisioned “a set of new projects that will maintain and improve a very diverse, strong and balanced ecosystem of RIs in Europe”. He underlined that “this European RI ecosystem will significantly contribute to bolstering the European Union competitiveness and advancing the European Research Area, as well as maintaining a high standard of excellence that will contribute to the prosperity of our citizens, economic growth, sustainable development and science-driven, evidence-based decision-making processes”.
Since its first edition in 2006, the ESFRI Roadmap has featured the best European science facilities, based on a rigorous evaluation and selection process. This has been made possible thanks to the meticulous work done by a large number of scientists and ESFRI delegates. Through its six editions, including the most recently published ESFRI Roadmap 2021, 63 European facilities represent more than €20 billion worth of investments.
The updated version of the ESFRI Roadmap strengthens the approach of collaborating towards building a robust and sustainable European Research Infrastructure Ecosystem, resulting in bolstering the European Union’s competitiveness and excellence, and advancing the European Research Area.
Gelsomina Pappalardo, Vice-Chair of ESFRI and Chair of the ESFRI Drafting Group on Landscape Analysis and the update of the ESFRI Roadmap, underlined the new methodological features included in Roadmap 2026: “we strongly encourage the different stakeholders to present both focused and very mature proposals. ESFRI Roadmap 2026 will put significant focus on the financial sustainability of the RI ecosystem, while introducing the new dimension of ‘environmental considerations’ to foster environmental sustainability”.
With a vision to maximise the impact of Pan-European investments in Research Infrastructures in terms of science, European and international collaboration and innovation, ESFRI has decided to decouple its comprehensive analysis of the current infrastructure landscape (ESFRI Landscape Analysis) from the Roadmap exercise. This gives the necessary reflection time to the Research Community to present new proposals for RIs (RI projects), solidly based on the gap analysis and strategic approach presented in the Landscape Analysis. As a consequence, the ESFRI Landscape Analysis 2024 was presented in June 2024 (https://landscape2024.esfri.eu), along with the new RI portfolio (https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu).
All information about the ESFRI Roadmap 2026 is available at https://www.esfri.eu/roadmap-2026. This page will be continuously updated to provide guidance to all interested parties for every step of the two-year process.
For any queries, please contact us at roadmap@esfri.eu.
Please find the Press Release linked here.
About ESFRI
The European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) is a common endeavor between Member States (MS) and Associated Countries (AC), together with the European Commission (EC), to support a coherent and strategy-driven approach to policy-making on Large Research Infrastructures (RI) in Europe. The competitive and open access to high quality Research Infrastructures supports and benchmarks the quality of the activities of European scientists and attracts the best researchers from around the world.
On the ESFRI Roadmap
In 2006, ESFRI published its first Roadmap for the construction and development of the next generation of pan-European research infrastructures. The Roadmap was updated in 2008, 2010, 2016, 2018 and 2021, to include projects and landmarks that intend to foster European leadership across a broad range of scientific fields. The latest Roadmap from 2021 includes 41 Landmarks and 22 Projects, RIs of scientific excellence. Visit ESFRI Roadmap Archive
