Europe has invested heavily in e-science programmes over the past years both at the National and the European levels with impressive results. Grid technology is recognized as a fundamental component for e-infrastructures. Many countries have launched National Grid Initiatives (NGI) to establish National grid infrastructures.

Driven by the needs and requirements of European research community, the EGI Design Study represents a project for the conceptual setup and operation of a new organizational model of a sustainable pan-European grid infrastructure.

To this day already 38 National Grid Initiatives in Europe have recognised the need to link existing national grid initiatives and to support the setup and initiation of new grid initiatives. The EGI project will interact and encourage the member states to make the strategic decisions required to establish and support a sustainable grid infrastructure and initiate its implementation.

To ensure that Europe capitalises fully on its large investment in grid infrastructures, middleware development and applications, the objectives of the future EGI are:

• Ensure the long-term sustainability of the European e-infrastructure
• Coordinate the integration and interaction between National Grid Infrastructures
• Operate the European level of the production grid infrastructure for a wide range of scientific disciplines to link National Grid Infrastructures
• Provide global services and support that complement and/or coordinate national services (Authentication, VO-support, security, etc)
• Coordinate middleware development and standardisation to enhance the infrastructure by soliciting targeted developments from leading EU and National Grid middleware development projects
• Advise National and European Funding Agencies in establishing their programmes for future software developments based on agreed user needs and development standards
• Integrate, test, validate and package software from leading grid middleware development projects and make it widely available
• Provide documentation and training material for the middleware and operations. (NGIs may wish to make the material available in turn in their local language)
• Take into account developments made by national e-science projects which were aimed at supporting diverse communities
• Link the European infrastructure with similar infrastructures elsewhere
• Promote grid interface standards based on practical experience gained from grid operations and middleware integration activities, in consultation with relevant standards organizations
• Collaborate closely with industry as technology and service providers, as well as grid users, to promote the rapid and successful uptake of grid technology by European Industry