ESO played an instrumental role in forging the EIROforum Partnership and has given strong support to it since its creation. EIROforum was established in 2002. Its aim is to exploit synergies between its members: CERN, EFDA, EMBL, ESA, ESO, ESRF, ILL, and XFEL. The vision of EIROforum is to create a climate in Europe in which relevant, competitive scientific research can be undertaken in an efficient, cost effective and successful way.

For that reason one of EIROforum's functions is to provide a political platform among the members and vis-à-vis the EU institutions. Besides that function EIROforum conducts concrete projects in cooperation with the European Commission, from which especially the Science and Society activities have been highly successful.

EIROforum is a collaboration at the level of Director Generals, supported by 'the Coordination Group' (performing essential support functions) and a number of permanent and ad-hoc thematic working groups (at the moment Education and Outreach TWG; Human Resources TWG; European Affairs; Instrumentation; Grid Technologies).

EIROforum, besides being a political platform, conducts concrete projects in the form of Joint Actions with the EC. In 2003 October the EIROforum DGs and the Commissioner for Research signed a Statement of Intent, which establish a base for these Joint Actions. The main fields for the Joint Actions are:

• Science in Society;
• Human Resources;
• Instrumentation;
• International Cooperation.