The establishment of the European Science Foundation (ESF) in Strasbourg in 1974 was one of the earliest milestones on the road to achieving real cooperation in European research. The ESF began life with a membership of 42 academies and research councils in 15 countries; in 2012 it counts 72 Member Organisations (MOs), including research funding organisations, research performing organisations, academies and learned societies, in 30 countries. As an independent, non-governmental organisation dedicated to pan-European scientific networking and collaboration, the ESF has had a key role to play in mediating between a multitude of heterogeneous research cultures and agencies. The ESF hosts an array of instruments to accommodate various types and levels of international collaboration, within Europe and beyond.
GREAT is a pan European science driven research infrastructure which will facilitate, through focused interaction on a European scale, the fullest exploitation of the ESA Gaia 'cornerstone' astronomy mission, enabling the European astronomy community to provide answers to the key challenges in our understanding of the Galaxy and Universe. GREAT provides support through its European Science Foundation Research Networking Programme for a wide range of community proposed events covering the key objective areas of the programme, largely focussed on gaining a deeper understanding of our Milky Way.