Research Infrastructures

AARC Tree: Authentication and Authorisation for Research Collaboration Technical Revision to Enhance Effectiveness

The AARC TREE project, rooted in the successful AARC model and its Blueprint Architecture (BPA), aims to drive the next phase of research infrastructure integration: expand federated access management to integrate user-centring technologies, expand access to federated data and services, consolidating existing capacities and avoiding fragmentation and unnecessary duplication.

The main objectives are to capture and analyse new Authentication and Authorisation interoperability requirements and provide a landscape analysis of AAI services in the RIs represented in AARC TREE, define and validate new technical and policy guidelines for the AARC BPA that address RIs use-cases, expand the number of research communities that can implement the AARC BPA and the AARC guidelines, by providing a validation environment and toolkits and bring RIs, e-Infrastructures and relevant stakeholders together to align strategies to integrate new technologies, better interoperate and share resources.

Coordinator: NORDUNET A/S

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Hannah Margaret SHORT

EU funding: € 2 372 921,38

EU funding for CERN: € 174 460,00

Date: 01/03/2024 - 28/02/2026

EOSC Beyond: Advancing innovation and collaboration for research

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is an environment for hosting and processing research data to support EU science. The EOSC-Core and EOSC-Exchange provide the technological backbone of the federated EOSC ecosystem, supported by the EOSC Interoperability Framework and guidelines, allowing users to discover, share, and exploit resources on the EOSC platform. Data-driven user experience is a fundamental aspect for further development of the EOSC Core, allowing user feedback for the continuous improvement of the EOSC platform’s functionality in an open manner. EOSC Beyond is planning to enhance the EOSC Platform in two main areas, the EOSC Core Infrastructure and the EOSC Core Execution Framework by enhanced composability and interoperability of cross-domain data, services, tools and other research objects and resources. CERN will be involved in both areas, to design and develop core transfers services, leveraging on the File Transfer Service (FTS) developed and operated in IT by the Storage and Data Management group. The enhanced FTS service will be used to integrate the Core Execution Framework and enhance the composability and interoperability of cross-domain data, services and tools. CERNcontribution will also span in the Core Infrastructure area, where reference API for data transfer will be designed and developed, modelled around the current FTS API, and that will abstract over a particular implementation of a transfer system.

Coordinator: STICHTING EGI

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Luca MASCETTI

EU funding: € 10 000 000,00

EU funding for CERN: € 318 487,50

Date: 01/04/2024 - 31/03/2027

ESSnuSBplus: Study of the use of the ESS facility to accurately measure the neutrino cross-sections for ESSnuSB leptonic CP violation measurements and to perform sterile neutrino searches and astroparticle physics

The ESSnuSB+ project is a sequel to the successfully concluded H2020 ESSνSB Design Study, which affirmed the viability of utilizing the European Spallation Source (ESS) proton linac to generate the world’s most potent neutrino beam simultaneously with the operation of the spallation target at 5 MW of beam power. The ESSνSB Conceptual Design Report (CDR) laid the groundwork for a European neutrino facility, delving into the fundamental physics question of the Universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry.  ESSnuSB+ aims to pave the way for ESSνSB by incorporating additional studies such as geotechnical assessments at the ESS site and the detector locations. Moreover, it broadens its horizons by exploring the feasibility of synergistic initiatives, including the implementation of an initial target station linked to a "low-energy" nuSTORM decay ring or Monitored Neutrino Beam decay tunnel. These endeavors will allow measuring neutrino cross-sections of wider interest in the field.

Coordinator: CNRS

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Ilias EFTHYMIOPOULOS

EU funding: € 3 000 000,00

EU funding for CERN: € 236 000,00

Date: 01/01/2023 - 31/12/2026

EuPRAXIA: Study of the use of the ESS facility to accurately measure the neutrino cross-sections for ESSnuSB leptonic CP violation measurements and to perform sterile neutrino searches and astroparticle physics

The main objective of the EuPRAXIA-Preparatory Phase project is to bring the EuPRAXIA project at a level of organizational, legal, financial, and technological maturity such that it can be implemented at the end of the Preparatory Phase. The EuPRAXIA concept, as described in detail in its published Conceptual Design Report, is a distributed, compact and innovative accelerator facility based on plasma technology. The EuPRAXIA Research Infrastructure (RI) will demonstrate an innovative electron accelerator based on plasma wakefield acceleration, with a beam energy of 1 to 5 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), a beam quality (single pulse) equivalent to present radiofrequency (RF) linear accelerators and demonstrated benefits in size and cost compared to RF-based machines.

Coordinator: INFN

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Steinar STAPNES

EU funding: € 2 490 000,00

EU funding for CERN: € 15 000,00

Date: 01/11/2022 - 31/10/2026

EURO-LABS: EUROpean Laboratories for Accelerator Based Science

European Laboratories for Accelerator Based Sciences ( EURO-LABS ), aims to provide unified TransNational Access (TNA) to leading Research Infrastructures (RI) across Europe. EURO-LABS brings the nuclear physics, the high-energy accelerator, and the high-energy detector R&D communities together to foster collaborations and to stimulate synergies. With 33 partners across Europe, EURO-LABS forms a large network of RIs which offer TNAs, ranging from a modest size test infrastructure to large scale ESFRI facilities. The offered access will enable research at the technological frontiers to explore new physics ideas and will open wider avenues in both basic and applied research in diverse topics ranging from optimal running of reactors to mimicking reactions in the stars. Within this large network, EURO-LABS will ensure diversity, and actively support researchers from different nationalities, gender, age, grade, and variety of professional expertise.

Coordinator: INFN

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Ilias EFTHYMIOPOULOS

EU funding: € 14 174 110,00

EU funding for CERN: € 3 033 942,00

Date: 01/09/2022 - 31/08/2026

EVERSE: European Virtual Institute for Research Software Excellence

EVERSE will create a framework for research software excellence, collaboratively designed and championed by the research communities across five EOSC Science Clusters and Software Expertise Centres, such as NLeSC and SSI. We shall build a European Network of Research Software Quality and set down the foundations for a future virtual institute.This framework for research software excellence will incorporate community curation, quality assessment, and best practices. This will be captured in the Research Software Quality toolkit (RSQkit) and embedded into the EOSC Science Clusters to improve the quality of research software and maximise its reuse. We will drive recognition of software and support career progress for all scientific software developers. We will further cross-fertilise different research domains, act as a lobbying organisation, and raise awareness of software in research, with the ambition to accelerate research and innovation by improving the quality of research software.

Coordinator: ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Stefan ROISER / Graeme A Stewart

EU funding: € 6 789 468,75

EU funding for CERN: € 908 048,75

Date: 01/03/2024 - 28/02/2027

FAIRCORE4EOSC: Core Components Supporting a FAIR EOSC

The FAIRCORE4EOSC project focuses on the development and realisation of core components for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The project will develop nine new EOSC-Core components aimed to improve the discoverability and interoperability of an increased amount of research outputs. Zenodo participates in the development of the EOSC Research Software APIs & Connectors, in particular the integration of Zenodo/InvenioRDM with Software Heritage.

Coordinator: CSC-TIETEEN TIETOTEKNIIKAN KESKUS OY

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Jose Benito GONZALEZ LOPEZ

EU funding:€ 9 997 558,00

EU funding for CERN: € 267 812,00

Date: 01/06/2022 - 31/05/2025

HORIZON-ZEN: EU research programme beneficiary depositing solution in Zenodo

HORIZON-ZEN will help the EC's research programme beneficiaries comply with the FAIR and open science requirements of Horizon Europe by implementing an easy go-to solution in Zenodo.
The project will specifically:
- develop an enhanced Zenodo-community with EC-branding
- develop and implement a data curation framework
- implement FAIR principles enablers in the Zenodo deposit workflow
- use a community-driven methodology involving early adopters and Zenodo/InvenioRDM users and partners.

Coordinator: CERN

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Lars Holm NIELSEN

EU funding: € 429 536,25

EU funding for CERN: € 429 536,25

Date: 01/06/2023 - 31/05/2025

interTwin: An interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine for science

interTwin aims to co-design and implement a prototype of an interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine, an open source platform that provides generic and tailored software components for modelling and simulation to integrate application-specific Digital Twins (DTs). The ambition is to develop a common approach to the implementation of DTs that is applicable across the whole spectrum of scientific disciplines. The co-design involves DT use cases for High energy physics, Radio astronomy, Astroparticle physics, Climate research, and Environmental monitoring, whose complex requirements are expected to significantly advance the state of the art of modelling and simulation. The validation of the technology with multiple infrastructure facilities will boost the accessibility of users to technological capacity and the support of AI uptake in research. interTwin key exploitable results will be continually co-developed and aligned with the contribution of external initiatives such as Destination Earth, EOSC, EuroGEO and EU data spaces

Coordinator: STICHTING EGI

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Maria GIRONE

EU funding: € 11 731 665,00

EU funding for CERN: € 1 336 250,00

Date: 01/09/2022 - 31/08/2025

iSAS: Innovate for Sustainable Accelerating Systems

Beyond fundamental physics, particle accelerators are more and more used in chemistry, biology, as well as in societal applications improving our well-being, health, environment, and safety. Accelerating particles to high- energies require large amounts of electric energy. In a society where energy sustainability is critical, keeping energy needs as low as reasonably possible is a necessary challenge for both research infrastructures (RIs) and industrial applications. The growing number of accelerators in Europe could consume up to 1% of Germany's annual electricity demand. To keep the ambitions of European RIs compatibly with Europe’s Green Deal, Innovate for Sustainable Accelerating Systems (iSAS) is an initiative aiming at an enhanced collaboration in Europe to foster novel energy-saving technologies

Coordinator: CNRS

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Vittorio PARMA

EU funding: € 4 660 023,75

EU funding for CERN: € 821 086,25

Date: 01/03/2024 - 29/02/2028

MuCol: A Design Study for a Muon Collider complex at 10+ TeV center of mass

The MuCol Project is a Design Study to address the most critical areas of a muon collider with a centre-of-mass energy of 10TeV, including accelerator and detector design. It has 30 participants among beneficiaries and associates. 
Mucol is a key part of the larger International Muon Collider Collaboration (IMCC), a joint effort of currently more than 60 laboratories and universities, which is hosted at CERN. It develops a muon collider design and addresses the challenges in order to judge the potential of this unique opportunity to reach the highest lepton collision energies with high luminosity. This effort has been initiated by CERN Council as a part of the European Accelerator R&D Roadmap. In the US, the Particle Physics Project Prioritisation Panel has recently endorsed the muon collider as a very important project and recommended the US community to join the IMCC.

Coordinator: CERN

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Daniel SCHULTE

EU funding: € 2 195 000,00

EU funding for CERN: € 210 000,00

Date: 01/03/2023 - 28/02/2027

OSCARS: O.S.C.A.R.S. - Open Science Clusters’ Action for Research and Society

OSCARS is based on the co-participation of the five science cluster collaborations in Europe: ESCAPE (European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle physics ESFRI research infrastructures), ENVRI-FAIR (Environment and Earth Sciences), EOSC-LIFE (Biomedical Sciences), PANOSC (Light and Neutron Facilities and SSHOC (Social Sciences and Humanities). The project will focus on two main activities: 1) Consolidation of the Science Cluster approaches between the research infrastructures (RI) communities, where ESCAPE focuses on Data Management and Data Lakes models, Virtual Research Environments and training, and 2) Demonstrate and pilot the use of EOSC resources by multiple research communities through cross-RI and/or cross-domain open science projects and services, by running 'open calls with cascading grants'.

Coordinator: CNRS

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Javier ESPINAL CURULL

EU funding: € 24 998 586,25

EU funding for CERN: € 351 090,00

Date: 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2027

RF2.0: Research Facility 2.0: Towards a more energy-efficient and sustainable path

The Research Facility 2.0 aims to develop solutions towards a more energy-efficient and sustainable path. The project focuses on innovative solutions to minimize the environmental impact of research infrastructures. Four themes are developed: AI-assisted load management, efficient components, sustainable technology integration, and flexible energy systems. For CERN, the objective is to identify solutions for the Future Circular Collider for a sustainable electrical grid based on renewable energy supply and energy storage.

Coordinator: KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Jean-Paul BURNET

EU funding: € 4 999 625,25

EU funding for CERN: € 448 596.75

Date: 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2026

SPECTRUM: Computing Strategy for Data-intensive Science Infrastructures in Europe

The amount of data gathered, shared and processed in frontier research is set to increase steeply in the coming decade, leading to unprecedented data processing, simulation and analysis needs. The research communities in High Energy Physics and Radio Astronomy are preparing to launch new instruments that require data and computing infrastructures several orders of magnitude larger than what is currently available. New data-intensive architectures, heterogeneous resource federation models, and IT frameworks will be needed, including large-scale compute and storage capacity to be procured and made accessible at the pan-European level. In this context, the SPECTRUM project aims to deliver a Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda and a Technical Blueprint for a European compute and data continuum. The consortium is composed of leading European science organisations in High Energy Physics and Radio Astronomy, and leading e-Infrastructure providers covering HTC, HPC, Cloud and Quantum technologies.

Coordinator: STICHTING EGI

Scientist in Charge from CERN: Maria GIRONE

EU funding: € 2 499 542,50

EU funding for CERN: € 503 196.25

Date: 01/01/2024 - 30/06/2026