Network
The main scientific networks and projects in the Earth Sciences including many major scientific institutions in Europe support EPOS. Each country is represented by a national team composed by several research institutions and universities and has a coordinating institution.
A detailed description of the participating institutions is explained in Annex 1.
The following 18 countries participate to the EPOS proposal: Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Norway, Turkey, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Poland, Denmark and Czech Republic (see map).
Because EPOS has been designed to be inclusive at both geographical and disciplinary levels, new contacts have been undertaken and will be further promoted with other European and Mediterranean countries. This will allow us to further enlarge the partnership in the near future.
Building upon existing partnerships and networks
The new infrastructure builds upon existing pan-European research networks and infrastructures.
EPOS proposes a timely integration of a number of on-going (or recently completed) European scale coordinating initiatives.
A list of the major existing pan-European networks contributing directly at the EPOS conception phase is shown in Annex 2.
Of particular relevance is the role of two international organizations such as ORFEUS (Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology, www.orfeus-eu.org), representing more than 60 research institutes and the EMSC (European-Mediterranean Seismological Center www.emsc-csem.org), representing more than 70 seismological observatories. KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, www.knmi.nl), is also participating to EPOS PP as a farther partner because it hosts the legal representative of ORFEUS.
Moreover, two EC-FP7 Infrastructure projects and the European Science Foundation program strongly contributed to the conception phase:
Related initiatives in Europe and worldwide
EPOS is willing to create real and feasible interconnections with other proposals to stimulate interactions across disciplines. Some of these proposals belong to the existing ESFRI roadmap (such as EMSO, European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observation; a network of deep-seafloor observatories that will allow continuous monitoring of the ocean margin environment around Europe, www.emso-eu.org/management); others concern distinct European initiatives (such as the ESA GMES Terrafirma (www.terrafirma.eu.com or DEISA) and several others concern both international programs (such as the UNESCO-NEAMTWS North Eastern Atlantic Mediterranean Tsunami & Warning Systems, ioc3.unesco.org/neamtws/, or OneGeology, www.onegeology.org, Making Geological Map Data for the Earth Accessible) and relevant national projects (such as EarthScope, www.earthscope.org, in the USA or EarthSimulator, www.es.jamstec.go.jp, in Japan). These links may facilitate the creation of a cross disciplinary system of Research Infrastructures at international level.
How to join EPOS
EPOS is willing to implement the partnership favouring the enlargement of the international participation. For this reason the preparatory phase will be organized to promote such integration. To this task it has been envisaged the formation of an Inter-Activity preparatory council (IAPC) which will act as preliminary executive board, oversee the different working groups, and devise the mechanisms that can be implemented to encourage additional countries join the implementation of the research infrastructure.