e-IRG is a collaboration between a number of national e-Science organisations in Europe. The goal of the initiative is to support the creation of a political, technological and administrative framework for the easy and cost-effective shared use of distributed electronic resources across Europe. e-IRG aims to define and recommend best practices for each of the European Grid efforts.

One of the six axes of the Framework 7 programme that is currently under discussion, is e-Infrastructures. According to Dahlsten, this should build on the success story that e-Infrastructures in FP6 is: with GÈant 2, EGEE and DEISA, amongst others, Europe is clearly leading in this field. Ulf Dahlsten is Director of "Emerging Technologies and Infrastructure Applications" at the European Commission.

What is needed to continue this leadership is a clear picture of where we are heading. A roadmap of Grid technology could be an important tool. e-IRG seems well suited to provide and maintain such a road map.

The tentative schedule to achieve this could be:

• November 2004: consolidation of the current e-IRG white paper and group structure.
• Summer 2005: provide the first road map
• Autumn 2005: commission draft communication
• Beginning 2006: aim for a a council resolution and presentation of specific programmes.

The e-IRG could use results from both national programmes, for instance in the UK and on a European level, for instance Gridstart and GridCoord apart from the white papers they already have produced in several areas.

There is alrady a wider organisation involved in infrastructures in Europe, called ESFRI. e-IRG could become one of the four ESFIR Steering Committees.