Research Infrastructure
AnaEE-ERIC is a distributed ‘research infrastructure’ or RI. The European Commission defines RIs as ‘facilities that provide resources and services for research communities to conduct research and foster innovation’ (learn more).
Distributed RIs, like AnaEE, have their facilities spread over multiple locations, rather than a single site. A central coordinating office brings together and coordinates the activities of national partners across Europe.
Since 2022 AnaEE has the legal status of an ERIC – European Research Infrastructure Consortium. As of 2024 there are 28 ERICs established and on average, each ERIC includes 14 members, representing half of the EU Member States, while some already cover most of the Union. The total investments in the ERICs to date is estimated at around 9 billion euros.
A global competitor
Within the European landscape of RIs, the ERICs are playing an increasingly important role in supporting ground-breaking research and innovation, addressing societal challenges, and helping Europe collaborate and compete globally. Research infrastructures are an elegant solution to make science more effective and sustainable in the complex European backdrop of interactions among nation states. They enable an organised, fair and transparent system to share knowledge and resources, and in doing so, they contribute to the pooling of data, facilities and equipment, thereby avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort.
By making high-quality facilities, resources and services available to everyone, research infrastructures ensure that science is driven by excellence and not by the research capacity of individual countries, economic sectors, or institutions. They also ensure that this excellence is aimed at solving bottlenecks, pushing forward the frontiers of scientific disciplines, and enabling transformative technological development. RIs are selected by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI, an instrument created by the Commission to guide the use of RIs) based on their ‘pan-European interest’ and ability to meet the strategic research needs of European research communities.
Objective
AnaEE operates a pan-European network of facilities in experimental ecology that is open to the scientific community and other stakeholders such as the industry, land managers and the farming community. AnaEE applies the full scientific experimental method “modelling – manipulating – measuring”. Our network features all European climates from sub-Arctic to overseas, and includes all types of ecosystems including managed and unmanaged land, freshwaters and lakes, forests, wetland, shrubland and more. The installations are either in the open-air or enclosed in simulation chambers (ecotrons). AnaEE offers access to models to check and interpret results from experiments, and to analytical facilities. AnaEE provide expertise and guidance to the stakeholders, including farmers, industry, land managers and policy makers on how to adapt and mitigate ecosystems under pressure from global change.
AnaEE became an ERIC
Jean-Éric Paquet, DG Research and Innovation of the EU Commission, and Michel Boër, DG of AnaEE-ERIC, with the AnaEE-ERIC official plate in 2022 ©ESFRI
AnaEE-ERIC and other open European research infrastructures contribute to the new European Research Area (ERA) objectives with larger R&D investments, more evenly distributed capacities and access to excellence across Europe, better circulation of knowledge and technology and finally increased EU competitiveness. Research infrastructures such as AnaEE-ERIC also enable science-based solutions, delivering in particular on the European Green Deal.
AnaEE was also acknowledged as an as an ESFRI Landmark in 2021.
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