16 October 2026 – The KM3NeT Collaboration is thrilled to announce that it has been recognized as a Landmark in the ESFRI Roadmap 2026.
ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) is the strategic body fostering a coherent European policy on major scientific facilities. Its Roadmap is updated periodically to identify the most critical, next-generation research infrastructures that Europe needs over the next 10 to 20 years. Within this framework, “Landmarks are Research Infrastructures that were successfully implemented or reached an advanced stage of implementation under the ESFRI Roadmap and that are key pillars for the competitiveness of the European Research Area (ERA)”.
This achievement marks the culmination of a 20-year journey. KM3NeT was first included as a project in the very first ESFRI Roadmap in 2006, when neutrino astronomy in the Mediterranean Sea was just beginning. By 2016, after pioneering the first steps of construction, the project evolved to target two compelling scientific goals, neutrino astronomy and neutrino oscillations respectively, with its ARCA and ORCA detectors. Today, in 2026, achieving Landmark status is a prestigious recognition of our extraordinary progress in building a unique, two-site deep-sea research infrastructure.
In its evaluation report, ESFRI stated: “KM3NeT is a unique facility in Europe and world-wide with demonstrated scientific capacity and potential […]. The scientific vision, mission and identity are fully defined and address frontier science in neutrino astronomy and particle physics, being competitive and complementary to other neutrino observatories in China, Japan and the US.”
The forum also praised the “robustness of the underlying technological solutions” proven by the successful deployment of our detector units.
