10-May-2023
Greece and Slovenia have joined the Instruct-ERIC Consortium, taking the total number of Member Countries and Organisations to 16.
Following approval from the Instruct Council, researchers from Greece and Slovenia now are now members of the Instruct family and can participate in the entire portfolio of Instruct services, including the full technology catalogue, internships, training programmes and R&D funding.
Greece previously held Observer status, but is now a member. Slovenia applied for membership directly. Both countries are now part of the international distributed research infrastructure, joining Belgium, Czech Republic, EMBL, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and United Kingdom.
Harald Schwalbe, Director of Instruct-ERIC, said, “This is major step forward extending our distributed infrastructure in Structural Biology into central and southeast Europe. Given the major challenges on European society, enlarging our community will increase European cohesion and competitiveness. Recent examples have documented the impact of integrated structural biology for European innovation”.
Both Greece and Slovenia have a long history of structural biology expertise; the experience that they can bring to the consortium and the innovation that they can bring to the 11 Instruct centres as part of access visits will have profound effects on the structural biology community.
Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Director and Chairman of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Greece said, “It is a great honor for the Greek Structural Biologists whose joint efforts, patience, and perseverance to become full members of the ESFRI Landmark Instruct, have been rewarded. We plan for Greece, through NHRF, to become a regional hub for Structural Biology, develop the community further through access to Instruct Centres, and build synergies with national and European RIs contributing to the consolidation of the European Research Infrastructures ecosystem”.
Marjetka Podobnik of the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia said, “Slovenian scientists are very pleased that Slovenia has become a member of Instruct-ERIC. As active members of the excellent Instruct-ERIC community, we will continue to strive for high quality research that addresses the great challenges of our time”.
Researchers in Greece and Slovenia will be able to apply for funded access to Instruct-ERIC services from 1 July 2023.
Researchers worldwide can access Instruct-ERIC services – those in member countries and organisations can receive funded access to technology and equipment in structural biology. Get more information on how to join as a member here.
