Next-Generation NFOs: Achievements and Strategic Goals of the TRANSFORM2 Horizon Europe Project

Near-Fault Observatories (NFOs) are natural laboratories situated at or near active faults experiencingcomplex geophysical processes, often close to densely populated urban areas. NFOs offer researchers from multiple disciplines access to rich, reusable datasets for generating scientificproducts. This facilitates improved understanding of the multi-scale physical and chemical processesdriving earthquake generation—a goal attainable only through continuous, long-term, high-resolutionmultidisciplinary data acquisition and consistent application of state-of-the-art processing techniques. Eight NFOs (and one under evaluation) in Europe have been identified by the European Plate ObservingSystem (EPOS) as long-term Research Infrastructures. NFOs target the enhanced understanding of themechanics of earthquakes to unravel the anatomy of complex seismogenic faults.The TRANSFORM² project has the ambitious goal to improve and transform the existing NFOs, paving theway for the next generation of NFOs across Europe. This will be achieved by: ● Evaluate state-of-the-art sensors.● Accelerate development of promising new sensors.● Develop ML-powered workflows for real-time detection, location, and characterization ofseismicity.● Create next-generation Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) paradigms and validate their societalimpact.● Strengthen stakeholder & decision-maker engagement.● Position existing NFOs as open, high-quality test-beds.● Identify sustainable funding pathways and provide recommendations to national authorities and theEuropean Commission for long-term RI support. Following the half time of the project, the design and testing of cutting-edge sensors, along with thedevelopment of automatic workflows for the detection, characterization of seismic events and sequences,and implementation of EEW systems, are actively being carried out and extended to a growing number ofNFOs. Concurrent deployment of the principal sensors, which are vital for supporting and enabling theadvancements, is already in progress. Finally, a ‘white book’ will be created to document how data, products and services from the nextgeneration Research Infrastructure (RI) can be exploited for the benefit of different target stakeholders.