The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures – ESFRI – identifies Research Infrastructures (RIs) of pan-European interest meeting the long-term needs of Europe’s research communities across all scientific areas. The publication, since 2006, of periodically updated ESFRI roadmaps provides to the Council of the European Union a coherent and strategic vision to ensure Europe has excellent RIs accessible to all leading researchers and to exploit fully the potential for scientific advancement and innovation.

ESFRI RIs are facilities, resources or services of a unique nature identified by European research communities to conduct top-level research activities in all fields.

In developing this Roadmap 2016, ESFRI has widened its horizon and scope compared to previous roadmaps and evolved its methods. The European RI system has been marked by 10 years of ESFRI strategic planning, together with the synergetic action of the national RI roadmap exercises that built upon and integrated the ESFRI vision. A more general analysis of the RI system, and of its progress as a key-supporting element of the European Research Area (ERA) and for global science, was needed. Therefore ESFRI in 2014 started a thorough analysis of the landscape of RIs that operate in Europe under the general criteria of international open access to facilities and data, peer-review based selection of proposals, excellence and uniqueness of scientific services provided.