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The project
PITHIA-NRF is a Research Infrastructure project funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission. Launched in March 2021 with a duration of four years, the project brings together 22 partners.
Among them 12 participating organisations across 11 European countries operate experimental facilities, known as nodes. These nodes focus on optimising their observing facilities and offer transnational access (TNA) to scientists and engineers, through eight calls issued over the course of the project.
PITHIA-NRF integrates key national and regional research infrastructures at the European level, including EISCAT, LOFAR, ionosondes and digisondes, GNSS receivers, Doppler sounding systems, riometers, and VLF receivers. These tools help scientists better understand space weather and its effects on our planet.
The e-Science Centre
The e-Science Centre is a core element of the project. Its architecture and ongoing development are controlled by a systematic ontology that governs the collection of scientific observations and research models, collectively referred to as data collections.
Several dozen data collections have already been registered, in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).
The e-Science Centre facilitates the execution of research projects initiated by researchers from within and outside the PITHIA-NRF consortium. These projects often require access to, and understanding of, data collections – comprising observations and models – residing at one or several PITHIA-NRF nodes.
BIRA-IASB participation
BIRA-IASB is an active consortium partner in this project. In February 2024, the team co-organized the second training school in Leuven, in collaboration with KU Leuven. BIRA-IASB scientists contribute by providing access to Cluster/WHISPER electron density data in the plasmasphere as well as VLF whistler data. They also offer the possibility to run a plasmaspheric model directly on the e-Science Centre (model access).
Additionally, a group of researchers at BIRA-IASB requested and successfully obtained observation time from the EISCAT node through a TNA call. The goal was to combine measurements from their instrument, the Polar Lights Imaging Polarimeter (PLIP), with data from EISCAT.
During a 10-day observation campaign in November 2022 with PLIP at the Skibotn Observatory in Norway, the team obtained 8 hours of EISCAT observations. While PLIP measured the degree and the angle of linear polarisation of the three main auroral emissions (green, red and blue) across a wide field of view, EISCAT provided complementary data from its UHF antenna in Tromsø, located approximately 50 km from Skibotn.
Unfortunately, poor weather conditions in Sweden prevented additional optical observations from the ALIS_4D camera network.
Links
References
- Belehaki, A., et al. (2025). Integrating plasmasphere, ionosphere and thermosphere observations and models into a standardised open access research environment: The PITHIA-NRF international project. Advances in Space Research, 75(3), 3082-3114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2024.11.065.
- Pierrard, V., Botek, E., and Darrouzet, F., (2021). Improving Predictions of the 3D Dynamic Model of the Plasmasphere. Front. Astron. Space Sci., 8(681401). https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2021.681401.
