The strong interaction is one of the cornerstones of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, and its experimental and theoretical study attracts an active community of about 2500 researchers in Europe. The list of fundamental open questions at the frontier of our current knowledge in the strong interaction is very rich and varied including a full understanding of (i) the partonic structure of hadrons, (ii) exotic hadronic states, properties of (iii) dense quark matter and of (iv) hot and dense quark-gluon plasma, as well as (v) precision tests of the SM. Such research topics are studied experimentally and theoretically mostly via particle collisions at low (a few tens of GeV) and high (up to 14 TeV) energies. Associated developments in state-of-the-art detectors/data-acquisition/beams/targets are required, as well as in theoretical (lattice, effective field, perturbative) calculations. The STRONG-2020 project brings together many of the leading research groups and infrastructures involved today in the study of the strong interaction in Europe, and also exploits the innovation potential in applied research through the development of detector systems with applications beyond fundamental physics, e.g. for medical imaging and information technology. The Consortium includes 44 participant groups, embracing 14 EU Member States, one International EU Interest Organization (CERN), and one EU candidate country. Together with host institutions of 21 other countries, without EU funds benefits, the project involves research in 36 countries. The project is structured in 32 Work Packages (WP): 7 Transnational Access Activities, 2 Virtual Access Activities, 7 Networking Activities and 14 Joint Research Activities. Furthermore, 2 WPs take care, respectively, of the “Management and Coordination” of the project and of “Communication and Outreach".

The THRILL project deals with providing new schemes and devices for pushing forward the limits of research infrastructures (RI) of European relevance and ESFRI landmarks. To do so, the project partners have identified several technical bottlenecks in high-energy high-repetition-rate laser technology that prevent it from reaching the technical readiness level required to technically specify and build the needed devices, and guaranteeing sustainable and reliable operation of such laser beamlines at the partnering RIs. Advancing the technical readiness of these topics is strategically aligned with the long-term plans and evolution of the ESFRI landmarks FAIR, ELI (-BL) and Eu-XFEL, and RI APOLLON, bringing them to the next level of development and strengthening their leading position. The project is well focused and it is deliberately restricted to three enabling technologies, which require the most urgent efforts and timely attention by the community: high-energy high-repetition-rate amplification, high-energy beam transport and optical coating resilience for large optics. To reach our goals, the major activity within THRILL will be organized around producing several prototypes demonstrating a high level of technical readiness. Our proposal is addressing not yet explored technical bottlenecks - such as transport over long distances of large-aperture laser beams via relay imaging using all-reflective optics - and aims at proposing concrete steps to increase the performances and effectiveness of the industrial community through the co-development of advanced technologies up to prototyping in operational environments. The project is not only pushing technology, it is also offering an outstanding opportunity to train a qualified work force for RIs and industry. With this in mind, the structure of THRILL promotes synergetic work, fast transfer to industry and integrated research activities at the European level. Access to the RIs will be granted as in-kind contribution.

ESCAPE (European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle physics ESFRI research infrastructures) aims to address the Open Science challenges shared by ESFRI facilities (SKA, CTA, KM3Net, EST, ELT, HL-LHC, FAIR) as well as other pan-European research infrastructures (CERN, ESO, JIVE) in astronomy and particle physics. ESCAPE actions will be focused on developing solutions for the large data sets handled by the ESFRI facilities. These solutions shall: i) connect ESFRI projects to EOSC ensuring integration of data and tools; ii) foster common approaches to implement open-data stewardship; iii) establish interoperability within EOSC as an integrated multi-messenger facility for fundamental science. To accomplish these objectives ESCAPE will unite astrophysics and particle physics communities with proven expertise in computing and data management by setting up a data infrastructure beyond the current state-of-the-art in support of the FAIR principles. These joint efforts are expected result into a data-lake infrastructure as cloud open-science analysis facility linked with the EOSC. ESCAPE supports already existing infrastructure such as astronomy Virtual Observatory to connect with the EOSC. With the commitment from various ESFRI projects in the cluster, ESCAPE will develop and integrate the EOSC catalogue with a dedicated catalogue of open source analysis software. This catalogue will provide researchers across the disciplines with new software tools and services developed by astronomy and particle physics community. Through this catalogue ESCAPE will strive to cater researchers with consistent access to an integrated open-science platform for data-analysis workflows. As a result, a large community “foundation” approach for cross-fertilisation and continuous development will be strengthened. ESCAPE has the ambition to be a flagship for scientific and societal impact that the EOSC can deliver.

This CREMLINplus project proposal is about European-Russian scientific and technical collaboration in the field of research infrastructures. It takes up and addresses all recommendations that have been worked out in close European-Russian collaboration within three years of the Horizon 2020 project CREMLIN. CREMLINplus is a voluminous project, a grand endeavour, setting out to fully implement jointly elaborated European-Russian collaboration roadmaps and to ensure that the framework conditions will be improved and continually harmonized. The project will operate in two directions, following two main strategic goals: (1) CREMLINplus will strongly advance the five Russian megascience projects in close European-Russian collaboration. This objective refers to the technical preparation of the megascience projects for European and international utilisation. The project will allow European-Russian collaborative top teams to develop and deliver finest, novel cutting-edge technologies for both the Russian megascience projects and their European RI counterparts. (2) CREMLINplus will prepare a defined set of Russian research infrastructures, hosted at eleven laboratories, for not only Russian, but also European and international access and utilisation. For this purpose, suitable framework conditions for opening and accessing these Russian facilities will be developed and implemented. A comprehensive base of knowledge and expertise for RI managers and scientists at various levels will be created. The 35 European and Russian participants of the project have come together to build the broad and balanced consortium, connected through a history of trustful collaboration. They are the relevant entities in the domain of research infrastructures in Europe and in Russia, and thus provide the necessary strength, commitment and power to implement the project plan.