The Optical Infrared Co-ordination Network for astronomy brings together all the national and international agencies and organisations which fund, support, develop and operate Europe’s facilities for optical and infrared astronomy night-time astronomy. OPTICON provides a framework allowing joint actions to improve the quality of Europe’s infrastructures, to train new astronomers, especially those from Central Europe, in modern new research methods, to develop innovative technologies to enhance research quality, to plan for future developments, and to work towards a strategic plan for Europe’s future research infrastructures.

The Lancaster aspect of the work involves scientific planing for the European Extremely Large Telscope (E-ELT) project.

OPTICON is supported by the European Commission's FP7 Capacities programme (Grant number 312430).