The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) was established in 2002 with the purpose of developing a common European approach to research infrastructure policy. The strategy of ESFRI aims at overcoming the limits brought about by fragmentation of individual national policies and providing Europe with the most up-to-date research infrastructures, responding to the rapidly evolving science frontiers, the needs of knowledge-based technologies and societal challenges of our day and age. As a result, today Europe has a rich landscape of research infrastructures (RIs), covering all scientific domains, enabled by a coherent investment- and funding policy on national, regional and European levels. The role of RIs is indispensable in the course of economic, social and environmental transitions.
From time to time, ESFRI takes stock of the European research infrastructures, monitors their development, prepares analyses and gives recommendations for future directions of development. The first ESFRI Roadmap has been published in 2006 and the latest 6th edition became available in 2021.
Hungary published its first National Research Infrastructure Roadmap in 2018 in relation to the 5th update of the ESFRI Roadmap in 2018. Since then our roadmapping cycle was harmonised with the ESFRI Roadmapping cycles and in 2021 our National Roadmap was complemented by the Top Research Infrastructures of Hungary publication which demonstrates the embeddedness of Hungarian RIs in the EU RI ecosystem. In 2019, a nationwide survey was launched to learn which existing European research infrastructure Landmarks, Projects and newly forming RIs are at the focus of the interest of Hungarian researchers. Following the scientific evaluation and the recommendations of the National Research Infrastructure Committee (NRIC), Hungary has joined two existing ESFRI Landmarks and will participate in four new RI Projects about to start. As a result, at present Hungary participates in twenty Projects and Landmarks listed on the ESFRI Roadmap 2021.
It cannot be emphasised enough that a coherent European RI landscape is not conceivable without a well-developed, interlinked and interdependent national RI ecosystem. With this current website, -introducing the features and making the services of the national large-scale RIs available-, we intend to promote this organic interoperability in order to foster the embeddedness of the national RIs to the European landscape through international collaboration.
