General information

The Astronomy Infrastructure Network (RIA) was created in 2007, under the coordination of Prof. Xavier Barcons, in order to advise the General State Administration on Singular Scientific-Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) in Astronomy and to establish a forum that promotes coordination between them. The RIA is constituted by order of the General Secretariat for Scientific and Technological Policy of the Ministry of Science and Innovation to the National Astronomy Commission, of which the RIA was a working group.

The Scientific, Technological and Innovation Policy Council, at its meetings on October 7, 2014 and November 6, 2018, recognized the need and recognized the importance of the work of the RIA for the coordination of ICTS in the field of Astronomy and incorporates the RIA in the Map of Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) for the periods 2013-2016, 2017-2020 y 2021-2024.

Given the need to configure a new framework, stable and of indefinite duration, which would allow the objectives of the RIA to be addressed in the medium and long term by coordinating the actions of the agents involved, work began in 2016 on the consolidation process of the RIA. This process culminates and is formalized through the signing, in March 2021, of the “General Action Protocol for the management and coordination of the Astronomy Infrastructure Network” (BOE June 7, 2021, provision 9487) in which the terms and conditions of coordination between the signatory entities are agreed, and through the simultaneous extinction of the CNA Working Group established for this purpose in 2007, which was agreed by CNA at its meeting of November 12, 2020.