📋 Tender Overview
The European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) on 7 January 2025. This significant step paves the way for the CTAO to become the world's largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy.
The CTAO ERIC was established with the support of 11 countries - France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the Czech Republic. In addition, Switzerland is an observer, Japan is a strategic partner and Australia is a third party - as well as the European Southern Observatory. It not only provides the central project organization with a formal framework to operate the existing telescope prototypes, but also enables the immediate start of construction of the entire array with more than 60 telescopes at the two sites in La Palma (Spain) and the Atacama Desert in Chile. The observatory is expected to be able to operate first configurations of the array in 2026, thus bringing scientific results within reach.
The CTAO was designated a ‘ Landmark ’ in the 2018 Roadmap of the European Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and was identified as a top priority among new ground-based infrastructures in the ASTRONET Roadmap 2022-2035.
A European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) is a special legal form in Europe that is awarded by the European Commission to research associations in order to jointly establish and maintain research infrastructures. With Commission Decision 2017/499 of March 17, 2017, the ERIC is considered a legal entity and is given the opportunity to establish and operate new or existing research infrastructures on a non-commercial basis.
