The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), launched by the Italian government in 2021 as part of the EU NextGenerationEU program, dedicated substantial resources to reinforce research infrastructures in strategic areas. In 2022 the Ministry of University and Research approved the IRIS project (Innovative Research Infrastructure for applied Superconductivity), allocating about €60 million for its construction (almost €8 million at University of Milan-UNIMI), recognizing superconductivity as a key enabling technology, both for advancing fundamental science and for addressing societal challenges in energy and health.
IRIS is conceived as a distributed infrastructure, with a central hub at the LASA Laboratory in Milan (INFN and University of Milan-UNIMI) and five additional poles: Genoa, Frascati, Naples, Salerno, and Lecce (Salento). Each site contributes specific expertise and facilities: together, they form a national network that integrates existing strengths and upgrades them with new laboratories, cryogenic systems, and advanced instrumentation.
The project addresses two complementary missions. The first is to support large-scale science, particularly the development of superconducting magnets and systems for future particle accelerators such as the Future Circular Collider at CERN or the proposed Muon Collider. The second is to foster societal applications, focusing on green energy and medical technologies. This dual orientation is embodied in two flagship demonstrators currently under construction:
• The Green Superconducting Line (GSL): a 130 m cable rated for 1 GW (25 kV–40 kA), designed to demonstrate efficient, sustainable long-distance power transmission at 20 K.
• The Energy-Saving HTS Magnet (ESMA): a 1 m-long, 10 T dipole with a large bore, conceived as a technological demonstrator for future accelerators based on sustainable technologies. It will serve as a platform for testing superconducting cables, too.
The project is structured in work packages (WPs), with WP1 dedicated to project management and technical coordination, 6 WPs (WP2 to WP7) dedicated each one to a territorial pole, while WP8 and WP9 are for the two technological demonstrators.
Beyond building facilities and demonstrators, IRIS will operate until at least 2035, ensuring continuity in research, industrial collaboration, and open access.
6.1 Milan – LASA: The IRIS Superconducting Magnet Laboratory (WP1 and WP4)
Beyond its experimental and engineering capabilities, LASA (Laboratorio per Acceleratori e Superconduttività Applicata, established in 1987) plays a central management and coordination role within IRIS. The laboratory hosts the project office that oversees planning, budgeting and reporting to the national PNRR authorities, and it ensures alignment of activities across the six poles. LASA also manages the shared digital infrastructure, from collaborative design platforms to the central database, where experimental results from Genoa, Salerno or Lecce will be archived under FAIR principles.
A key mission of LASA in IRIS is training and human-capital development. The laboratory coordinates participation to specialized schools and advanced courses in applied superconductivity, often co-organized with major international conferences. The training is offered to all IRIS hired staff and also to a few young staff already present in the IRIS poles under synergic projects. An interesting figure is the almost 1300 days of training provided by IRIS to young scientists, engineers and technicians. In this way LASA, and all IRIS, acts as a hub for knowledge transfer, preparing the next generation of scientists and engineers to sustain Italian leadership in superconductivity.
LASA is equally committed to external engagement. Industrial partners, from cable manufacturers to cryogenic companies, are invited to validate their products or innovative process in the LASA facilitie
