The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. ?? 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Mining, water-reservoir impoundment, underground gas storage, geothermal energy exploitation and hydrocarbon extraction have the potential to cause rock deformation and earthquakes, which may be hazardous for people, infrastructure and the environment. Restricted access to data constitutes a barrier to assessing and mitigating the associated hazards. thematic Core Service anthropogenic Hazards (tCS aH) of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) provides a novel e-research infrastructure. the core of this infrastructure, the IS-EPOS Platform (tcs.ah-epos.eu) connected to international data storage nodes offers open access to large grouped datasets (here termed episodes), comprising geoscientific and associated data from industrial activity along with a large set of embedded applications for their efficient data processing, analysis and visualization. The novel team-working features of the IS-EPOS Platform facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary scientific research, public understanding of science, citizen science applications, knowledge dissemination, data-informed policymaking and the teaching of anthropogenic hazards related to georesource exploitation. tCS aH is one of 10 thematic core services forming EPOS, a solid earth science European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) (www.epos-ip.org).

Research in the field of anthropogenic seismicity (AS) requires not only seismicity data but also data regarding the progress of the technological/production activities which is the origin of the induced or triggered seismic events. Such data are typically restricted and proprietary, and therefore, usually not available for independent researchers who wish to develop, perform and verify scientific research. The induced seismicity-European plate observing system (IS-EPOS) web portal offers to its user's access to data, applications and documents in order to facilitate AS research. IS-EPOS web portal has been designed to serve as one of the main pillars of the Thematic Core Service-Anthropogenic Hazards belonging to pan-European multidisciplinary research infrastructure created within the EPOS program. IS-EPOS platform is open for research community and general public according to its rules of access. The platform is operating since January 2016 and is now integrated in the EPOS Integrated Core Services. IS-EPOS e-platform promotes new opportunities to study and comprehend the dynamic and complex solid earth system by integrating the use of multidisciplinary data, data products, analysis models and online applications. The integration of existing and new national and transnational Research Infrastructures increases the access and use of multidisciplinary data recorded by the solid earth observing systems, acquired in laboratory experiments and/ or produced by computational simulations. In this paper, we describe the structure and the main innovative characteristics implemented in IS-EPOS. The platform is open to accommodate data integrated within other research projects, and it is continuously being updated with improvements in existing features and implementations of new ones. An appendix at the end of the article provides a summary of acronyms and abbreviations in order to make the reader familiar with the terms used throughout the manuscript.

Very-High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray astroparticle physics is a relatively young field, and observations over the past decade have surprisingly revealed almost two hundred VHE emitters which appear to act as cosmic particle accelerators. These sources are an important component of the Universe, influencing the evolution of stars and galaxies. At the same time, they also act as a probe of physics in the most extreme environments known -such as in supernova explosions, and around or after the merging of black holes and neutron stars. However, the existing experiments have provided exciting glimpses, but often falling short of supplying the full answer. A deeper understanding of the TeV sky requires a significant improvement in sensitivity at TeV energies, a wider energy coverage from tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV and a much better angular and energy resolution with respect to the currently running facilities. The next generation gamma-ray observatory, the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), is the answer to this need. In this talk I will present this upcoming observatory from its design to the construction, and its potential science exploitation. CTAO will allow the entire astronomical community to explore a new discovery space that will likely lead to paradigm-changing breakthroughs. In particular, CTA has an unprecedented sensitivity to short (sub-minute) timescale phenomena, placing it as a key instrument in the future of multi-messenger and multi-wavelength time domain astronomy. I will conclude the talk presenting the first scientific results obtained by the LST-1, the prototype of one CTA telescope type -the Large Sized Telescope, that is currently under commission.

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