On 18 July 2017, Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, handed over the INSTRUCT-ERIC Plate to Jo Johnson, Minister of State of the United Kingdom responsible for universities, science, research and innovation. The official handover followed the granting of the legal status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to INSTRUCT, a European research infrastructure hosted by the UK, on 4 July 2017.

INSTRUCT-ERIC will provide high-quality working conditions for researchers in structural biology. Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia are also members of INSTRUCT-ERIC, while Spain, Greece and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) are currently observers. INSTRUCT-ERIC is the seventeenth ERIC established by the European Commission and the second ERIC after the European Social Survey hosted by the UK. The European Union has supported INSTRUCT with around €8.5 million. The ERIC status provides the facilities with many administrative advantages enjoyed by international organisations and therefore helps to successfully implement the infrastructure projects.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/