This deliverable describes the work to date regarding Fed4FIRE+’s sustainability. The approach is founded upon a set of key principles, which are described below.

The federation should operate as a public good for the benefit of the European research and innovation community.

Sustainability comes from funding and funding comes from demonstration of value.

Public funding is needed for Fed4FIRE+. Public funding is needed and is actively being pursued in the form of RI funding, where the target of ESFRI has been identified and is pursued via a scoping design study.

Evidence is required to build a case for funding. In this deliverable, this has taken the form of analysis of user types, user feedback and testbed status. The overall conclusion is that Fed4FIRE+ provides genuine, unique value to experimenters, where the highest valued aspects are that Fed4FIRE+ provides a real environment for testing, the support provided by testbeds, the tools that enable easy setup of experiments, access to resources they cannot access otherwise.