About FUND-RI

FUND-RI develops evidence-based approaches to support more coherent, sustainable, and strategically aligned funding and investment models for European Research Infrastructures.

Why FUND-RI

Research Infrastructures are essential to Europe’s scientific excellence, technological capacity, industrial innovation, and policy delivery. They support researchers, companies, public authorities, and wider society by providing access to advanced facilities, data, expertise, services, and technologies.

However, the funding landscape for Research Infrastructures is often complex and fragmented. Different instruments, governance levels, lifecycle stages, and policy expectations can create misalignment between long-term infrastructure needs and available funding approaches. This can affect sustainability, access, investment planning, and the capacity of Research Infrastructures to respond to evolving European priorities.

FUND-RI addresses this challenge by combining stakeholder co-creation, comparative case studies, and evidence-based analysis. The project focuses on what works, under which conditions, and for whom, with the aim of supporting funders, RI managers, policy actors, and strategic decision-makers.

Core objectives

Map funding streams across the full lifecycle of Research Infrastructures.

Identify and test business and funding models through real-world cases.

Develop a cost estimation methodology relevant to different RI types.

Produce actionable policy recommendations and an uptake toolkit.

Support long-term sustainability and better alignment across funding, governance, access, and policy priorities.

Who the website should speak to

Research Infrastructure managers and operators.

National and European funders.

Policy makers and public authorities.

ERICs, universities, RTOs, and RI-hosting organisations.

Industry and innovation stakeholders interested in RI sustainability and access.

What FUND-RI is not

FUND-RI is not a public funding portal and does not manage open calls for applicants. Its focus is to develop evidence, models, methodologies, recommendations, and tools that can support better funding and investment strategies for Research Infrastructures.