The EuPRAXIA project: A plasma-based accelerator user facility for the next decade.

The EuPRAXIA project, European Plasma Research Accelerator with eXcellence In Applications, is expected to provide by the end of 2028 the first European Research Infrastructure dedicated to demonstrating usability of plasma accelerators delivering high-brightness beams up to $1\mbox{--}5 {GeV}$ for users. Recently the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has assessed the maturity of the EuPRAXIA project during the last review of new research infrastructures for Europe, leading to the inclusion of EuPRAXIA in the ESFRI Roadmap 2021. Among the possible EuPRAXIA applications the realization of a short-wavelength Free Electron Laser (FEL) able to provide radiation in the "water window" of the e.m. spectrum for bio-physical investigations is one of its main goals. The production of high-quality electron beam as the one required to drive an FEL is expected to be also a fundamental milestone towards the realization of a plasma driven future Linear Collider (LC). In this talk we report about the recent progress in the context of the EuPRAXIA collaboration with particular emphasis to the recent breakthrough results obtained at the EuPRAXIA test facility SPARC_LAB at INFN-LNF.