At the end of the project, several achievements have been reached over different dimensions : legal, financial, member states commitments and technicals.
From the legal perspective, the consortium has reached a consensus on the decision to establish an ERIC structure in December 2022 and has collectively set-up an Interim Supervisory Board (ISB) in charge of its creation since March 2024. At the date of this report, the ministries of 10 countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Ireland and Switzerland) have nominated their representatives. Partners agreed on first governance rules and assessed it with the signature of a new MoU during the second period.
The statutes content and the technical and scientific description have been approved on November 25th 2024 and the financial annexes have been approved on March 26th 2025 by this ISB. This financial annexe details in particular the funding of the central hub by each country. At the date of this report, six letters of intent have been issued (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Hungary) and four letters of commitment have been promised (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy). The ISB has scheduled to meet every two months until the ERIC is established.
To date, 6 national roadmaps include SLICES-RI: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Switzerland. In addition, several countries have committed in the pre-ERIC CMO establishment. France has provided the funding for hiring the interim executive director and of the interim technical director (hiring in progress), a full time engineer (hiring in progress) and other engineer resources. Italy, Germany, Spain and Norway have agreed to complete the funding for hiring these key staffs from the CEO to attract top candidates. Greece provides in-kind to manage all communication aspects. Belgium and Spain commit additional technical resources to develop the basic services of the infrastructure.
Step 1 of ERIC creation is expected before summer 2026.
The implementation phase will be followed within the SLICES-IP project that will start in June 2026.
