European Research Infrastructures

What are research infrastructures?

Research infrastructures conduct and support excellent research activities in the various scientific fields. Research infrastructures include facilities, equipment, resources or services of a unique nature identified by the scientific communities. They may also include scientific equipment, scientific resources such as collections, archives and scientific data, e-infrastructures such as data and computing systems and communication networks, and any other tools essential to achieve excellence in research and innovation.

European research infrastructures play a crucial role in producing knowledge and innovation to help address today's European and even global environmental, societal and economic challenges.

ESFRI - European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures

ESFRI - European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, aims to guide, through a long-term strategic vision, the establishment of a sustainable and efficient ecosystem of research infrastructures in Europe, maximizing the impact of national and European investments. The most recent revision of the ESFRI Roadmap was published in December 2021 and includes 63 European research infrastructures.

What are the European research infrastructures in which Portugal participates?

Portugal is a member of several European research infrastructures already established as independent legal entities; the national community also maintains collaborations with other infrastructures and infrastructure projects, included in the ESFRI Roadmap.

These collaborations are usually established by national infrastructures present in the National Roadmap of Research Infrastructures, by national networks of scientific institutions, or by individual scientific institutions.

European research infrastructures have competitive access to funding through Calls of the European Commission's Framework Programme (currently "Horizon Europe"). In Portugal, the PERIN network (Portugal in Europe Research and Innovation Network) promotes the participation of the national scientific community in all future Calls of Horizon Europe.

Portugal also participates in the EU-LAC Working Group on Research Infrastructures. This group aims to promote collaborations between research infrastructures of the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean. In this context, the FCT also participates in the European project ResInfra: Towards a new EU-LAC partnership in Research Infrastructures.