Research infrastructure concept development including major upgrades or extensions of existing infrastructures

Expected Outcome:Projects are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:support to planning and decision making for research infrastructures at the national (e.g. funding bodies, governments) and European level (e.g. ESFRI) through solid science cases, including expected scientific breakthrough, gaps analyses and feasibility/design studies for future research infrastructures or major upgrades or extensions of existing ones;a better alignment of the development of the European research infrastructure landscape with the advancements of excellent science, frontier research and technology innovation;increased performance, scientific capacity and excellence of the European research infrastructure landscape;new services and access opportunities available to the research community, allowing to better tackle scientific and societal challenges, notably in support of strategic research and innovation agendas developed by key EU initiatives;reduction of environmental (including climate-related) impacts as well as optimisation of resource and energy consumption integrated in the very early phase of development of new research infrastructures or major upgrades or extensions of existing ones. Scope:This topic aims at supporting the development of new concepts for the next generation of research infrastructures of European interest[1], single- or multi-sited, distributed or virtual, that none or few countries might individually be able to implement. All fields of research can be considered.Major upgrades or extensions of existing infrastructures may also be considered if the result is significantly transformative with regards to the scientific outputs or the technical approach of the infrastructure and equivalent to a new infrastructure concept. Proposals considering routine maintenance, incremental gains or just a new component of a research infrastructure are not in scope of this topic[2].When developing a new concept, applicants should assess as a first opti