Europlanet Priorities in Upcoming Call for Access to Research Infrastructures

Preparations are underway in communities across the European Research Area (ERA) to respond to the upcoming EC call (HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-01) to provide large-scale pilots for access to Research Infrastructures (RIs), their resources and services across groups of ESFRI domains.

Planetary science will be covered by a grouping that covers the Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) and Data domains.

While the 35M€ call is characterised by smaller numbers of direct beneficiaries of grants compared to past EC Multiannual Framework Programmes (like the Europlanet 2024 RI project), a broader range of facilities and services providers will be able to participate as ‘Third Parties’ affiliated to cluster organisations.

Europlanet’s current legal structure, as a non-profit membership association and distributed RI, means that it will be able to act as a cluster and cascade funding to organisational members that wish to offer facility access and digital services.

We are now seeking input from users and facility/service providers in the planetary community about their priorities for Transnational Access (TA) to field sites, simulation facilities and analysis laboratories, as well as data services and training.

The call will open in March and the submission deadline will be 15 June 2027.

We now invite your responses to the questionnaire below.

This questionnaire will remain open until the end of this year. However, we would be grateful for any initial feedback by 10 September 2026 to allow us to prepare for initial negotiations with the Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science communities, which will begin in mid-September and continue through the coming months.