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What are research infrastructures?
Research infrastructures (RIs) consist of facilities, resources, and services that enable high-quality scientific research across diverse disciplines. They provide access to world-class technology, tools, expertise, and data, fostering collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing at national and international levels.
As essential components of the European Research Area, RIs support both fundamental and applied research, and often contribute to education, training, and technology transfer.
EMPHASIS is a distributed pan-European research infrastructure for plant phenotyping, with facilities and services located across multiple countries. This model allows costly installations to be placed where they are most needed, with access available to all across Europe. It also enables technical teams to cooperate in solving complex challenges once — for the benefit of all — and supports multi-site experiments where shared standards and methods deliver robust, comparable results.
ESFRI - European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures
ESFRI, established in 2002, brings together delegates from EU Member and Associated States and the European Commission to guide strategic policy for research infrastructures in Europe. It produces the ESFRI Roadmap, a regularly updated plan identifying high-priority research infrastructures that are essential for Europe’s scientific leadership and long-term collaboration.
EMPHASIS was first included in the ESFRI Roadmap in 2016, and aspires to reach Landmark status by 2026.
ERIC - European Research Infrastructure Consortium
An ERIC is a unique form of legal entity recognised under EU law, designed to establish and manage research infrastructures of pan-European interest. ERICs are jointly governed by participating EU Member States, and facilitate transnational collaboration, including by pooling resources and expertise. An ERIC enjoys legal recognition across all EU Member States, operating on a non-profit basis (with limited related economic activities), and benefitting from a simplified governance model and certain tax exemptions.
Belgium, as the Statutory Seat for EMPHASIS, is spearheading the establishment of EMPHASIS as an ERIC, anticipated during 2026/27.
Better crops for a sustainable future
Empowering European plant science with cutting-edge phenotyping infrastructure.