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.

When developing a new concept, applicants should assess as a first option extending the scope of already existing infrastructures and/or sustainably integrating existing pan-European and national capacities to address the specific research infrastructure service needs, identifying what is missing and the new developments necessary. Otherwise, applicants should explicitly justify why this option cannot be considered.

Proposals should demonstrate the uniqueness and added value for the European Research Area (ERA) of the new, upgraded or extended research infrastructure, considering the European landscape of research infrastructures and the ESFRI landscape analysis and, where relevant, the capacity to better tackle scientific and societal challenges, notably in support of strategic research and innovation agendas developed by key EU initiatives including European Partnerships.

Proposals for research infrastructure concept development should tackle all key questions concerning the technical and conceptual feasibility of new, upgraded or extended fully fledged user facilities.

In this respect, proposals should address all of the following aspects:

• demonstrate relevance in relation to the ERA, including to the existing landscape, and the expected advancement with respect to the state-of-art of the new, upgraded or extended infrastructure;
• highlight the research challenges the new, upgraded or extended research infrastructures will make possible to address, including at global level;
• indicate the gaps in the research infrastructure landscape the new, upgraded or extended infrastructure will cover and the synergies with other existing infrastructures at European and global level, including those co-financed from other EU instruments such as through Cohesion funds;
• indicate, when relevant, the potential impact of the new research infrastructure at regional level.

Proposals should also convincingly demonstrate that the project will effectively:

• identify technologies, with due attention to technology sovereignty, and the architecture (e.g. single site or distributed) for developing the research infrastructure;
• identify scientific user communities (and their related needs) that will benefit from access to research infrastructure services, including scientific data and instrumentation, and develop the planning of research services to users;
• identify governance options as well as strategic approaches for institutional/stakeholders’ commitment and engagement, as well as for ensuring a wide membership;
• develop initial financial plans for the implementation and operation of the new, upgraded or extended research infrastructure as well as preliminary ideas for long-term sustainability, including synergies with other funds and programmes (e.g. ERDF for construction);
• develop plans for efficient data curation and preservation and for the provision of access to data collected or produced by the future infrastructure, in line with the FAIR principles.

When relevant, ethical dimensions, environmental (including climate-related) impacts as well as the optimisation of resource and energy use should be integrated in the concept development of new, upgraded or extended research infrastructures. In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

Proposals could consider the inclusion of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) Flagship Research Infrastructure projects that the JRC is planning to set-up to address new and upcoming priorities of the European Commission in the coming decades. In that respect, the JRC will consider collaborating with any successful proposal and this collaboration, when relevant, should be established after the proposal’s approval.