Project Background

By providing the underpinning facilities that European planetary scientists need to conduct their research, Europlanet 2024 RI will create cooperation and effective synergies between its different components: space exploration, ground-based observations, laboratory and field experiments, numerical modelling, and technology. The project is a collaboration between over 50 beneficiaries (partner institutions) with a further 44 affiliated partners providing support and contributions resourced from their own institutions or other funding routes. The project is based around 12 Work Packages that will enable a coherent and integrated approach to the challenge of unifying and optimising the capabilities among the European planetary science community.

The overarching aims of the project are to:

• Consolidate the integration of the planetary science community in Europe, which started with Europlanet’s FP6 Co-ordination Action (EuroPlaNet), FP7 Integrating Activity (Europlanet RI) and the Horizon 2020 Research Infrastructure (Europlanet 2020 RI), and support capacity building in new countries.
• Integrate a major distributed European infrastructure to be shared, fed and expanded by all planetary scientists.
• Support and promote on-going and future planetary research.
• Create new research opportunities and new science through innovative tools, experiments and novel approaches pushing the limits to extreme environments and models.
• Exploit interdisciplinary capabilities through Europe, supporting cross-fertilisation between fields and inter-community exchanges to further develop capabilities of all groups.
• Facilitate and promote academic industry partnerships.
• Engage the wider public, the media, policy makers, educators and young people with planetary sciences, attracting a new generation of scientists and engineers.
• Ensure the sustainability of the project and beyond as a legacy for the next generations.