ITINERIS

CNR is the largest public research institution in Italy, the only one under the Research Ministry performing multidisciplinary activities. CNR’s mission is to perform research in its own Institutes, to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalization of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advice Government and other public bodies, and to contribute to the qualification of human resources. Part of the CNR activities is devoted to the dissemination of science, with the aim of stimulating public knowledge and excitement around the research activities of its scientific community.
CNR is involved in many relevant activities that will be submitted to the Charter separately. One example is the CSA project that Support the Mediterranean Sea basin lighthouse (BlueMissionMed, start Jan 2023, coord: Prof F. Fava); a second example is the National Biodiversity Future Centre (NBFC), funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) from the European Union – NextGenerationEU and aimed at addressing interdisciplinary and frontier research and innovation activities devoted to the monitoring, conservation, restoration and valorization of Italian biodiversity by creating an extended national network of universities, research centers, associations, and other private and societal stakeholders to take effective and immediate action to halt the loss of biodiversity and the impairment of its delivered ecosystem services while enhancing a sustainable use of biodiversity-derived resources and new job opportunities.
Here is proposed the following Action:
ITINERIS Infrastructure will build the Italian Hub of Research Infrastructures in the environmental scientific domain for the observation and study of environmental processes in the atmosphere, marine domain, terrestrial biosphere, and geosphere, providing access to data and services and supporting the Country to address current and expected environmental challenges, in line with the objectives of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and waters”. ITINERIS coordinates a network of national nodes from 22 Research Infrastructures (17 from the environmental domain, 3 from agri-food with strong link with the environment and 2 from the PSE domain, supporting services for the marine domain). The main goal is to develop cross-disciplinary research in environmental sciences through the use and re-use of existing (or pre-operational) data and services and new observations, to address scientifically and societally relevant issues such as sustainable use of natural resources, implementation of Nature-Based Solutions, Green and Blue Economy, pollution reduction, critical zone and ecosystem management and restoration, carbon cycle, mitigation of the downstream effects of climate and environmental change, thus contributing to the 3 objectives of the Mission. This broad-scale vision of environmental research, sustained by the main Italian environmental scientists involved in European RIs, is truly innovative and it will support our Country in taking a leading role in European environmental research, designing the framework for the next decades. The project is coordinated by Gelsomina Pappalardo (CNR) and the Marine Domain-WP5 by Rosalia Santoleri (CNR).