The ESFRI Roadmap is Europe’s strategic plan that identifies and supports the most important research infrastructures needed for future scientific and technological development.

NFFA2050 will enrich the European research landscape by offering a new infrastructure that provides integrated access to a combination of unique resources –  from large-scale facility methods to highly specialized instruments in academic laboratories and theoretical modelling, enabling multi-technique experiments on quantum matter, advanced energy materials and biomaterials.  

Building on 11 years of  successful operation of the NFFA-Europe research infrastructure,  which has offered access to 180 methods and 600 instruments to more than 3000 users, the NFFA2050 ESFRI Research Infrastructure will advance the state of the art by further integrating digital services into its offer. These include tools such as an orchestration layer, Digital Twins, and FAIR-by-design data management, allowing users to select optimized research workflows tailored to their research needs.

By combining the most advanced instrumentation with AI-based solutions for access optimization and new user services (the so-called “hybrid research workflow”), NFFA2050 will create an “augmented” research environment supporting both curiosity-driven research and innovation-driven projects, including deep-tech validation and co-creation of prototypes in collaboration with industry at intermediate technology readiness levels.

A key feature of NFFA2050 is that the user will be in the driving seat, steering the research strategy through real-time, continuously updated workflow options that are refined as data are acquired, maximising instrument efficiency and reducing time to results.

Beyond its impact on academic research, NFFA2050 is expected to become an important reference point for industry, including innovative companies and deep-tech startups. By providing access to advanced instrumentation, specialised expertise, and integrated research services, it can support the co-development of new technologies and help translate scientific results into real-world applications.

The initiative is coordinated by CNR (Italy) and brings together multiple countries and institutions across Europe. Its ESFRI RI status brings high visibility as well as responsibility supporting the establishment of the European governance model, the identification of the resources needed, and the development of synergies with other initiatives across the Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) domain and beyond.

Based on a broad European collaboration involving partner institutions and user communities, NFFA2050 invites researchers and innovators to follow its development and  consider it a key opportunity for future research on physics of matter and related innovation projects.