The Diplomat
Last Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved a series of voluntary contributions for international science and innovation projects, amounting to almost 27 million euros from the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM).
On the one hand, the Government authorized, within the scope of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, a contribution of 14,293,000 euros, charged to the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, to the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC)-European Spallation Source (ESS). ESS ERIC is a European consortium of research infrastructures to which Spain belongs as a full founding member since 2018. The objective of this fund is to finance the project for the construction, installation and commissioning of the various equipment of the ESS, a “genuinely pan-European facility, participated by thirteen partner countries and considered of a strategic nature by the European Union”.
In addition, the Government authorized a contribution of 6,340,000 from the MRR for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as part of the Spanish contribution to the upgrade of the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments and to the new ISOLDE and n-TOF projects.
The third most important contribution is the 4,400,000 euros, also under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism and within the scope of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, for the construction project of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) satellite dish subreflectors to be installed in the Republic of South Africa. The fourth contribution corresponds to two million euros for the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in relation to the Spanish contribution to the project for the design, manufacture and commissioning of different components of the HARMONI instrument of this observatory.
