On 18 December, Frédérique Vidal, Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, and Guillaume Boudy, General Secretary for Investment, announced the winners of the selection of the structural research facilities ‘call for expressions of interest: EquipEx +. The 3 EquipEx + winners led by URCA and its partners are TERRA FORMA, OBS4CLIM and MesoNET

• Terra forma: Designing and testing a smart observatory of socio-ecosystems in the Anthropocene epoch: with Jon Marco Church (HABITER) as project leader and scientific and technical correspondent from URCA
• OBS4CLIM: Integrated observation system for the atmosphere (National Centre for Scientific Research): with URCA project leader Lilian Joly (GSMA)
• MesoNET: Mesocentres network: with URCA leaders Laurent Lucas and Arnaud Renard (CReSTIC)

The P.I.A.3 or E.S.R./EquipEx+ The action for structural research facilities pursues the aim of supporting new national-scale equipment, the main purpose of which is scientific research and the promotion of French scientific leadership. This action also contributes to the digital transformation of research and innovation by integrating the changes essential for effective research.

'The use of scientific equipment meeting the best international standards in terms of performance has become a condition for the competitiveness of French research. Their long-term impact on scientific production and that of new technologies is a major challenge for the scientific and economic future of France. They also constitute an important structuring factor by promoting synergies between teams and between disciplines as well as between public and private research; they are all assets in a context of increased international competition. ' says Frédérique Vidal.

Obs4Clim 'Integrated observation system for the atmosphere'

OBS4CLIM is the joint effort for innovation of the three French components of the European Research Infrastructures (RI) in the atmospheric domain: the ESFRI Project ACTRIS, the ESFRI Landmark IAGOS, and the atmospheric component of ESFRI Landmark ICOS. OBS4CLIM develops a joint strategy for investment and service developments to reinforce the integration of "atmosphere RIs" and their synergies via e.g., innovation, joint utilization of equipment and harmonization of access conditions. OBS4CLIM is, therefore, the EquipEx "atmosphere" project of the entire community concerned at a national level, and will enable the three French mirror RIs (ACTRIS-FRANCE, IAGOS-FRANCE, ICOS-FRANCE) to respond to the new challenges posed for Earth observation and provide their users with qualified and relevant data sets, as well as innovative services.

OBS4CLIM provides atmospheric RIs with adequate investment to keep serving the users at the highest level of quality over the next 15 years and to engage in developments to further respond to emerging needs, e.g. enhancing the networks in their four dimensions (longer and uninterrupted time-series, synergies with space-based observations, expanding global, denser network in specific areas, smart specializations, etc.). The 8-year investment plan in OBS4CLIM has the following main objectives: 1) Fostering attractiveness of atmospheric facilities (i.e. central laboratories, reference instruments, fixed and mobile observation, and chamber facilities) to meet the evolving needs of research communities and the private sector, 2) Enhancing the capacity of atmospheric RIs to provide state of the art data services addressing the needs of stakeholders at national, European, and international levels, and 3) Expanding spatial and temporal coverage provided by atmospheric RIs to respond to future needs of a global atmospheric observing system, including the use of non-conventional, lower-cost and autonomous instruments, to support wider coverage, faster data and efficient service delivery to users.

OBS4CLIM will offer unique services in order to remain a place for innovation in research and technology. It is integrated into a mature framework for access, recognized at both national and international levels, that includes physical and remote access to atmospheric facilities as an integral part of the RI service portfolios. OBS4CLIM will further strengthen the capacity to translate the wealth of climate and atmospheric data into data services that will drive innovation and help decision-makers find ways to achieve a clean-air, climate-resilient, and low-carbon society.

Terraforma Equipex 'Designing and testing a smart observatory of socio-ecosystems in the Anthropocene epoch'

As part of the PIA 3-Equipex 2020 call for proposals, the eLTER France network made up of research infrastructures OZCAR and RZA (Network of LTSER (Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research) site) is proposing a project which aims to invent and deploy the prototype of a new generation of observatory of socio-ecosystems (or critical zone), adapted to the scientific and societal challenges of the 'new climatic regime' which characterises the Anthropocene epoch. In particular, this involves making our observatories evolve towards greater diversity of 'points of view' through tools that capture not only physico-chemical but also biological dimensions.

The project consists in defining observation strategies to question, document, understand and predict the trajectories of socio-ecosystems in the Anthropocene epoch, to help preserve the habitability of the Earth. Understanding the Earth system and its subsystems requires understanding the interdependence between the biotic and the abiotic. Sustainability issues also require repositioning human societies as agents that regulate lifestyles, and develop and use resources. Current questions relate to the risks of crossing thresholds and their consequences on the functioning and trajectory of the system.

The relevant level is "regional". On the one hand, we need to bring the process of observation and understanding up to a level where the coupling mechanisms between biotic and abiotic state variables, between so-called natural dynamics and so-called social dynamics, can be truly understood. On the other hand, it is necessary to stay as close as possible to the environmental, economic and social issues specific to each catchment population, in interaction with its stakeholders, in an approach covering involved research and/or research action.

We need to move towards the in-situ capture of the emerging signature of complex processes. We wish to increase the number of different observations of the major changes in our region, which are reflected as much in biophysical observations as in the behaviour of living organisms. Developing these "multi-messenger" approaches is necessary in order to revisit environmental issues and produce new benchmarks as well as new representations associating humans with living and non-living organisms.

MesoNET: Network of mesocentres

The MesoNET project will unite regional computing centres around a common service and infrastructure offer for digital simulation and high-performance computing (HPC), associated with artificial intelligence (AI) methods.

The aim is to offer academic and industrial researchers, research infrastructure staff and students a response tailored to their digital equipment needs. The long-term objective is to set up a distributed infrastructure dedicated to the coordination of HPC-AI in France. This inclusive and structuring project, supported by GENCI partners (MESRI, CNRS, CEA, CPU, INRIA), aims to integrate at least one mesocentre per region, established as regional references and contacts. The infrastructure, integrated into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative, should have a significant impact on the appropriation by researchers of national and regional public digital and AI infrastructures.

A multi-architecture and hybrid HPC-Cloud "code-training" machine will be able to accommodate researchers, students and companies with the best level of service while drawing on the regional expertise of hosting centres.

The technology watch with regard to new and future computing architectures, security, support federation, and the establishment of a storage and processing federation are at the heart of the project. Among the various challenges, the distribution of research projects between national and regional centres will make it possible to take into account the needs of users at the most appropriate level, by carrying out exchanges between regional and national levels and by relying on the specifics and the unique support offered by the mesocentres.

As part of this project, URCA will be able to accommodate a storage component, a machine for the development of quantum calculations, a code-training machine dedicated to artificial intelligence and an expert engineer dedicated to support in the field of AI, for total funding of € 1.5 million.

In addition, these projects will be used to:

• Contribute by 2021-2027 to the development of greenhouse gas sensors (as action leader: GSMA) and for environmental monitoring of/by living organisms (as participant/observer: SEBIO and CERFE) with the possibility of testing the material also in Argonne;
• Contribute by 2022-2028 to the co-construction of observatories linking science and society (as co-leader of WP: HABITER) in three pilot sites (Rennes, Grenoble and Toulouse) and draw lessons applicable to all sites;
• Equip a ZARG LTSER site (Belval or Germont) by 2028-2030 with a complete suite of smart and connected environmental sensors and possibly a strengthening of the ZARG LoRa network, which we hope will be in place by then (RENETE project).