PRE-EST

The EST Preparatory Phase (PRE-EST) started in April 2017 and was funded for 4 years under the H2020 Framework Programme as one of 3 European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) projects in the field of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

The primary goal of the preparatory phase was to provide both the EST international consortium and the funding agencies with a detailed plan regarding the implementation of EST. This facilitated the information necessary for them to make decisions, addressing both organisational and technical issues as well as costs and risks analysis. Moreover, PRE-EST led the detailed design of EST key elements to the required level of definition and validation for their final implementation.

Interactive communication with all stakeholder (scientific, political, industrial and financial) was key to the success of the preparatory phase. By interacting with the broad scientific community, the scientific goals and scientific instrumental requirements were updated and revised. The user interfaces and user services were also defined to enable the best scientific exploitation of the EST. Additionally, the EST’s status was presented to key stakeholders at national level (governmental authorities, funding agencies, industry, etc.) in order to let them know the opportunities offered by EST as singular infrastructure and its future needs.

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement number 739500.