ELI is the first ESFRI Landmark constructed in the Central Eastern European Member States. With an investment exceeding 850 million euros from the European Regional Development Funds, three world-class high-power, high-repetition-rate laser facilities have been established in Czech Republic (ELI Beamlines), Hungary (ELI-ALPS) and Romania (ELI-NP).

In terms of research, ELI’s lasers enable a broad range of discovery possibilities from the most theoretical and exotic disciplines to very practical material and engineering problems. Techniques being deployed at ELI decrease the pulse duration to the attosecond-zeptosecond time scale. In this way, exawatt power can be reached with a simple joule of energy. As the technology develops and spreads, it becomes one of the more cost-effective means to conduct ‘big science’ in physics, biology and materials science.

The commissioning of the facilities is foreseen to be completed in 2022-2023, and advanced, specific experimental capabilities have already come online since 2019. The special vibration-free buildings that host the lasers and the experiments have been commissioned. Installation of lasers, secondary sources and the experimental equipment is nearly completed.  On 30 April 2021, the ELI European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ELI ERIC) was established to jointly manage the operations of the ELI facilities (initially ELI-ALPS and ELI Beamlines) for the benefit of international academic and industrial researchers.