The goal of the RADIOBLOCKS project is to achieve a maximal boost for the European major world-leading research infrastructures in radio astronomy, which over the years have invested heavily in maintaining existing facilities as well as in substantial upgrade programmes, after identifying common challenges towards their mid- and long-term scientific visions. In this project, the institutes responsible of these facilities join forces, together with partners from industry and academia, in order to develop “common building blocks” for technological solutions beyond state-of-the-art, that will enable a broad range of new science and enhance European scientific competitiveness. They share the need to continuously improve their capabilities in order to enable new science: sensitivity, field of view, bandwidth, angular, time and frequency resolution, commensality and on-sky time, reaction time and RFI mitigation. Engagement with industry to co-develop advanced technologies will increase the partners’ technological levels and strengthen their market positions, creating a true European innovation system. This project carries out carefully targeted development work and addresses common aspects in the complete data chain, categorizing this in four phases: Novel detectors and components, digital receivers, transport and correlator, and data (post)processing. We will design and demonstrate common building blocks based on cutting-edge technologies, that will be enablers and extenders in the areas most critical to the RIs, and can and will be used for upgrades of several RIs. The building blocks will be new instrument components and advanced digital solutions based on newly available (HPC/AI optimized) hardware. This approach will enable a tremendous increase of the science delivery potential of Europe’s major radio astronomical observatories, for science cases that are high on their long-term agendas, aimed at the widest possible science community in Europe and beyond.

We propose a conceptual design study for a 12-metre wide-field spectroscopic survey telescope (WST) with simultaneous operation of a large field-of-view (3 sq. degree), high-multiplex (20,000) multi-object spectrograph (MOS) and a giant 3x3 arcmin integral field spectrograph (IFS). In scientific capability these specifications place WST far ahead of existing and planned facilities. In only 5 years of operation, the MOS would target 250 million galaxies and 25 million stars at low spectral resolution plus 2 million stars at high resolution. Without need for pre-imaged targets, the IFS would deliver 4 billion spectra offering many serendipitous discoveries. Given the current investment in deep imaging surveys and noting the diagnostic power of spectroscopy, WST will fill a crucial gap in astronomical capability and work in synergy with future ground and space-based facilities. We show how it can address outstanding scientific questions in the areas of cosmology; galaxy assembly, evolution, and enrichment, including our own Milky Way; the origin of stars and planets; and time domain and multi-messenger astrophysics. WST’s uniquely rich dataset may yield unforeseen discoveries in many of these areas. The study will deliver telescope and instrument designs, cost estimates, an updated science white paper and survey plan, concept studies for data management, and a facility operation concept. The telescope and instruments will be designed as an integrated system and will mostly use existing technology, with the aim to minimise the carbon footprint and environmental impact. We will propose WST as the next ESO project after completion of the 39-metre ELT. Our consortium includes institutes from Australia, which has a strategic partnership with ESO and aims to apply shortly for full membership. Together with ESO and institutes in 9 European countries, our team has the necessary technical and scientific expertise, and brings 70 years of in-kind effort to the proposed study.

When and how did the multitude of observed exo-planets form? The WANDA project aims at tackling this central question by investigating the origin of the ring-like and asymmetric structures observed in protoplanetary disks, the cradle of planets, and pushing such studies to the distant and massive star-forming regions, the locations that best represent the natal environments of the known exo-planets. The WANDA team will employ a novel multi-wavelength and multi-technique observational approach, based on a combination of high-resolution spectroscopy, spatially resolved integral field spectroscopy, and high spatial resolution imaging at near-infrared and millimeter wavelengths. My on-going Large Program at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), together with my VLT/MUSE data, and additional data to be acquired, will be combined to a number of on-going Large and normal Programs on VLT/SPHERE and ALMA. The three PhD students and two Post-docs hired in the WANDA team will work on four work packages, aimed at answering the following specific questions: - Are large cavities and rings observed in disks related to the presence of substantial winds? - Does the presence of planets in disks leave significant imprint on the accretion of material onto the star? - How do externally photoevaporating winds impact the properties of disks and how can we detect them? - How is planet formation in massive star-forming regions different than in nearby low-mass regions? WANDA will push to find a relation between the observed disk structures and the presence of disk winds, or planets, to guide us to better plan future searches for exo-planets in disks. With a better understanding on how to distinguish winds driven by massive nearby stars from those arising from the disk, WANDA will pave the way to explore massive star-forming regions with current and future telescopes, such as ELT and JWST. The quest to understand our origin in the cosmos will be a significant step closer with the WANDA project.