Aims to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of European Research Infrastructures (RIs) through AI-powered eco-design, operation optimisation, real-time materials characterisation, and soil reconstitution, validated at TRL 6–7 in flagship accelerators and observatories.
iRIS (Intelligent, Resilient & Sustainable Research Infrastructures) integrates AI, FAIR data sharing, and lifecycle assessment into a sustainability-by-design framework, transforming RIs into open innovation hubs that deliver measurable energy, resource, and land-use efficiencies.
Objectives
- Develop a harmonised eco-design methodology to quantify and reduce RI environmental impacts.
- Demonstrate AI-driven tools for energy anomaly detection, non-intrusive load monitoring, and accelerator optimisation.
- Enable real-time characterisation and reuse of excavation materials, reducing landfill by up to 40%.
- Establish an AI-guided soil reconstitution process to restore land, increase biodiversity, and capture carbon.
- Build a FAIR knowledge bus for data and AI model sharing across domains.
- Upskill RI staff and engineers in sustainability assessment and green AI technologies.
- Engage communities and regulators to accelerate uptake and certification of solutions.
Innovation Beyond State of the Art
iRIS advances beyond isolated RI optimisation by creating an integrated, transferable sustainability framework:
- AI-powered eco-design and accelerator optimisation reducing hidden energy losses by 5–20%.
- Open-source NILM system disaggregating up to 100 devices in harsh RI environments.
- Multi-sensor, AI-driven material analysis enabling ≥85–90% classification accuracy at up to 2 m/s conveyor speed.
- AI-guided soil–plant ecosystem modelling for adaptive soil restoration aligned with EU Soil Strategy 2030.
- Synthetic lifecycle assessments (LCAs) accelerating impact studies by orders of magnitude.
Expected Impacts
- Scientific: Harmonised sustainability assessment adopted across ≥50 RIs; open datasets and models for reproducibility.
- Technological & Economic: Up to €200M savings in large-scale projects (e.g. FCC excavation reuse); NILM and eco-design applicable to commercial buildings and campuses.
- Environmental & Societal:
- 5–15% energy savings in accelerator operations.
- 40% reduction in excavation waste and logistics emissions.
- Soil reconstitution restoring biodiversity (+100% Shannon index), cooling microclimates (–1.5–3.5 °C), and capturing 500 tC/ha over 20 years.
- Policy: Contribution to EU Green Deal and “no net land take by 2050”; integration into standards via JRC and alignment with EU sustainability frameworks.
Supporting Institutions
This initiative is backed by leading RIs and industry partners, including CERN, CNRS (GANIL, Spiral-2), GSI/FAIR, BOKU, VITO, WSP, MUL, and others, with formal endorsement from Future Circular Collider (FCC) and Einstein Telescope (ET) communities.