The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) launched the new Roadmap 2016 at its conference in Amsterdam on 10 March 2016. A discussion at the conference was focused on strategic roadmapping, long-term sustainability and the socio-economic impact of research infrastructures.

ESFRI identifies research facilities of pan-European importance that are necessary to strengthen scientific excellence and competitiveness in the EU. The updated Roadmap now consists of 21 ‘ESFRI Projects’, which are research infrastructures in the development phase. It also includes 29 ‘ESFRI Landmarks’, denoting projects that are being implemented or have been completed.

The ESFRI Roadmaps reflect the long-term needs of the European research community. The EU strives for high-quality research facilities that are accessible to all top researchers to enable the scientific world to realise its full potential.

In 2006 ESFRI published its first roadmap for the construction and development of the next generation of pan-European research infrastructures. In May 2014, the Council of the EU acknowledged the work done by ESFRI to identify priority projects and welcomed the plans of ESFRI to update its roadmap in 2015/2016.

The first roadmap for the development of pan-European infrastructures was published in 2006. The process of renewal of the roadmap for European research infrastructures was started in the fall of 2014 at a conference in Trieste (Italy).

The 2016 Roadmap highlights the strong socio-economic impact of research infrastructures as well as their potential to generate innovation through collaboration with industrial partners.

It was noted in the 2016 Roadmap: “The study of the hadron-QGP phase transition and the investigation of the properties of strongly interacting baryonic matter will be extended to the lower energy range by the CBM fixed-target experiment at the ESFRI Landmark FAIR and the colliding-beams experiment at NICA in Dubna.”