WP4 : Financial work Elisabeth KOHLER Helle PEDERSEN (CNRS)

WP4 Financial work Main objective : securing long term national funding by Member States Main benefits for the community: building EPOS through national facilities by pooling them into a European infrastructure Main contributors: scientists and administrators in close collaboration

Financial work is about money…but not only! We all want optimal use of ressources What is money for EPOS : high level technology AND highly experienced personnel and the services they provide The financial WP is dealing with in-kind and cash contributions The WP is seeking to get the best value of human and financial resources by pooling them together

How to proceed? Task 4.1 Identification and estimate of construction and operation costs Contact the financial experts/officers of your organisation and explain the aim of EPOS (we will provide a support document) Send to CNRS (Alice Clémenceau) the name and contact of your financial officer CNRS will work with this network of financial officers to estimate the cost of the infrastructures your organisations are currently operating and that you intend to integrate into EPOS

How to proceed? Task 4.1 Identification and estimate of construction and operation costs Taking into account technical requirements and the services provided by the future EPOS infrastructure, we will estimate the construction and running costs over the next 20 to 30 years (D4.1 = April 2012) The initial ESFRI estimate: - construction costs : 500 M€ (mainly existing in-kind contributions) - running costs 80 M€ per year We need to refine these figures!

How to proceed? Task 4.2 Business plan for the construction and operation phase Financial engineering will aim at reducing costs (i.e with the integration of the national infrastructures into a pan-european one, the costs are less than having them operating in parallel) A funding model will be elaborated, combining –core contributions from national research funding organisations and ministries –in-kind or cash contributions from research organisations or universities through their own observation and data systems and services (D4.2 = October 2012)

How to proceed? Task 4.3 Secure funding commitments from national governments and funding agencies We will organise 2 roundtables with stakeholders (April 2012 and April 2013) to convince them to invest (long term commitment) in EPOS We plan to be able to write a report on successful commitments after the second meeting (D4.3 = May 2013) Your job : –identify the stakeholders and key players in your country –Convince them of the importance of EPOS –Make them participate in the roundtables This task 4.3 (lead by INGV, ETHZ and IGF PAS) is critical to successfully pass the EPOS Preparatory phase.

How to proceed? Task 4.4 Inclusion of EPOS in national, european and international funding schemes To get more funding all partners should make best endeavours to increase EPOS participation in various regional, national, European and international fund-raising applications and programs that can complete the EPOS co-financial support provided by national governments and funding agencies. This task is lead by ORFEUS. (D4.4 = April 2014)

How to proceed? Task 4.5 Involvement of private investors We also plan to get funding from private investors. In order to achieve that, UIB and ORFEUS (which are the 2 partners involved in this task) will be charged to motivate them during round table meetings (around April 2013). (D4.5 = April 2014)

Final Result of WP4 At the end of the project, we need to have our final sustainable financial plan for the construction phase approved by as many possible stakeholders with long-term commitments (D4.6 = October 2014) For getting these commitments, you need to be very persuasive (we are competing with many other projects)