COordination, Management, Planning And Strategic Support for the Einstein Telescope Project​

The Einstein Telescope (ET) is Europe's next-generation Gravitational Wave (GW) observatory, designed to detect ripples in spacetime caused by cosmic events like black hole mergers and neutron star collisions. This underground set of interferometers, being 10 times more sensitive than current instruments, has an undisputed and spectacular science potential, providing a hundred thousand to a million of observations per year, many of which with an extremely high signal-to-noise-ratio and spanning the whole Universe, even back to the ‘dark ages’ before the first stars and galaxies were formed. For Europe, ET represents technological leadership in cutting-edge research, fostering international collaboration and innovation, positioning Europe at the forefront of 21st-century astronomy while inspiring future generations of scientists. Included in ESFRI’s 2021 Roadmap, ET completed its conceptual design in 2017 and entered the preparatory phase in 2021, making significant scientific, technical and organizational progress. The ET ongoing preparatory phase has already laid strong foundations for this landmark research infrastructure, and, despite the fact that the central management authority, the Einstein Telescope Organization (ETO), is still in its beginning stages, essential coordination activities have been initiated and the project's vision has been established. The ET-COMPASS project acts as the catalyst to address specific needs of the fledging organisation and turns them into opportunities for the early implementation phase of ET. By focusing on realistic and pragmatic objectives, independent from complex political dynamics, the project will strengthen ETO’s role as the central coordinating body. It will develop concrete solutions for in-kind contributions, costing strategies, and international funding coordination and it will actively broaden the ET stakeholder network, fostering stronger engagement with governments and institutions.