At the annual General Assembly of the Extreme Light Infrastructure Delivery Consortium (ELI-DC) in Brussels, members made significant decisions and outlined the work ahead of it, namely the implementation of a significant R&D project in the new community member states: a research infrastructure consisting of four sites with complementary scientific profiles. Three of the sites are presently being constructed in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, respectively, ELI-DC said. The combined investment volume exceeds €850 million, the majority of which was granted to the host countries in the form of community structural funds. The implementation of ELI’s fourth pillar, the highest intensity pillar, will be specified later, the organization said. “ELI will be the world’s first international user facility for laser-based research and applications,” said Catalin Miron, acting director general of ELI-DC. “Only after 10 years, as its construction is nearing completion, ELI is about to be declared one of the ‘ESFRI Landmarks’ for its role as a reference project for the scientific excellence and competitiveness of the European Research Area.” ELI-DC said the infrastructure will open a gateway to unexplored scientific fields within physics, and allow scientists to address new technical challenges, such as relativistic microelectronics and compact laser particle accelerators. The ELI Delivery Consortium International Association (ELI-DC AISBL) is the international body in charge of the coordination of the implementation of the three research centers of ELI and of the transition, before 2018, from the implementation phase to the user operation phase of ELI under the unified governance of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium, ELI-ERIC. These activities are supported by the European Commission through the project ELITRANS, coordinated by ELI-DC and involve all ELI-pillars and additional European partners. ELITRANS received funding in 2015 under the INFRADEV 3 topic of the H2020 framework program. For more information, visit https://eli-laser.eu.