In November, kickoff meetings were held for three of the seven INFN-led projects that have been funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. In particular, on the 24 and 25, the two-day work session of the ICSC National Centre for Research in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing was held, which brought together, both in presence and online, about 400 representatives of the project's 52 partners from both the research and business worlds at the Bologna Technopole. The kickoff meeting followed the inauguration of CINECA's Leonardo supercomputer, a project in which INFN is a partner and which will be one of the main nodes of ICSC's infrastructure.
On the other hand, the kickoff meeting of KM3 Neutrino Telescope for Recovery and Resilience (KM3NeT4RR), the project through which the NRRP is funding crucial actions for the expansion of the KM3NeT submarine neutrino observatory at the Italian site of Capo Passero, off the coast of Sicily, was held on 11 November. Thanks to this project, approximately 2/3 of the final infrastructure will be completed in 30 months, also equipping INFN with the laboratories and personnel needed for the expansion, construction, and installation of the seabed network and submarine detection systems. INAF, National Institute for Astrophysics, and the Universities of Campania Vanvitelli and Catania, Naples, Salerno, Genoa, Sapienza University of Rome, and Bari Polytechnic University are also participating in the project, of which INFN is the proponent and lead partner, and which will be funded with a grant of 67.2 million euros.
Finally, 15 November saw the kick-off meeting of the IRIS, Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructures System, project, among the winners of the NRRP call for Research Infrastructures. IRIS, of which INFN is again the proponent and lead partner, will consist of a nationwide distributed infrastructure to develop high-temperature, high-magnetic-field superconducting technologies both for civilian applications, such as connecting cables for the transport of electricity and the reduction of energy losses, and for the implementation of magnets for next-generation particle accelerators, in particular for the Future Circular Collider (FCC), the large particle collider proposed to take over from the LHC at CERN. With an expected duration of 30 months, the project will be funded by a grant of 60 million euros. INFN will participate in the project through the Genoa Division, the associated group in Salerno, the Frascati National Laboratories and the Laboratory for Accelerators and Applied Superconductivity (LASA) in Milan, which will play the role of coordinating IRIS activities. Many partners will be alongside INFN: the Universities of Genoa, Milan, Naples, Salento and Salerno, and the Superconductor, Innovative Materials and Devices Institute (SPIN) of the CNR.
