ELI Preparatory team submitted project application to the Ministry
On 12th November 2009 at 2 pm the Institute of Physics of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic submitted to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic application to Research and Development for Innovations Operational Programme and thus accomplished another stage of long term work.
With the support of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; Academy of Sciences and ELI- CZ Consortium of academic and scientific institutions, the Institute of Physics intends to build a unique centre of excellence – international laser infrastructure ELI. The deadline for submission of applications was 16th November 2009:
ELI is an international project mentioned in ESFRI European Roadmap for Research Infrastructure with the aim to build and operate a unique laser infrastructure.
Czech Republic together with Hungary and Romania got in October 2009 official mandate from all 13 European partners to implement the project, which consists in building three laser centers in the future managed by a common consortium so called ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium).
ERIC is a new legal entity which enables to build and manage such international scientific centers as ELI. There have to be at least three founders (in this case Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania). Other members will most probably become Germany, Great Britain and France.
The Czech infrastructure („Beamline facility“) will be built near Prague in Dolní Břežany. Main interest will be research of ultra intensive secondary sources for interdisciplinary applications in Physics, Medicine, Biology and Material Engineering.
The realization of ELI in the Czech Republic will be beneficial in many directions:
- Job creation (there will be 250-300 scientists from home and abroad working, also jobs for non-scientists eg. technicians will be created)
- Training of new generation of scientists, possibility of high quality postgraduate education, connections to world scientific elite and direct access to scientific information.
- Upgrade of Czech fundamental and applied research to the world level
- Acquisition of centre of excellence, attractive and respected by experts from the whole world
- Synergy among existing scientific institutes, technological companies and ELI center
- Creation of new hi-tech companies
- Economic development of the region
Institute of Physics applies for a sum below 7 billion CZK, two thirds of which are costs for unique scientific technologies.
