(ANSA) - TRIESTE - The signature of EC President José Manuel Barroso marked the launch of Ceric-Eric, European consortium for analytic and synthetic research infrastructure for life sciences and nanotechnology. This new entity includes Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. Some other countries, such as Croatia, Hungary and Poland, will soon join the consortium, which will be based in Trieste, at the Elettra Synchrotron Research Centre. This consortium is an Eric (European Research Infrastructures Consortium). Funded with an overall investment of over 100 million euros, Ceric includes different centres which are involved in the development of innovative materials, such as synchrotron radiation, magnetic resonance imaging, spectroscopy, neutron and electron microscopy, with regard to topics ranging from life sciences to nanoscience and nanotechnology, from cultural and environmental Heritage to materials science.

According to Carlo Rizzuto, president of Elettra Synchrotron Trieste, "the pan-European approach which is typical of Ceric-Eric, which is aimed at overcoming useless duplications and fragmentation in our research system - he added - has the goal to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe's research system, and will be supported by the EU in co-operation with Horizon 2020 programme". (ANSA).