Time for an update from the EOSC Association. As you may have read in my last blog, the EOSC Association was registered at the end of July and we currently have four founding members (CESAER, CSIC, GARR and GÉANT) and founding directors (Karel Luyben, José Luis de Miguel, Federico Ruggieri and Cathrin Stöver). Supported by volunteers from our own organisations, as well as from candidate members of the EOSC Association, we are working on several important steps which need to be taken between now and the end of this calendar year.
And a big THANK YOU to all these volunteers. Bit by bit the EOSC Association is being created through an enormous voluntary effort by many of you, we all thank you so much for your ongoing commitment! Together we will make EOSC happen.
The most important step to take now is the admission of new members to the EOSC Association. In early summer, we had collected a list of over 90 interested organisations, which we have all contacted to ensure all the necessary paperwork is done before the four founding organisations will hold the first pre-decree meeting on 28 October 2020. This pre-decree meeting will ensure the provisional acceptance of all those organisations, who have applied for the membership by the deadline of 15 October 2020 and have their paperwork in order. Why do I say provisional – this is because we will have to ratify all decisions taken in a pre-decree meeting during the first constitutional General Assembly (GA) which is set to take place on 17 December 2020. The pre-decree admission will allow us to invite the provisionally admitted members to the GA and will allow them in turn to nominate candidates to the governance of the EOSC Association. The application process will of course remain open after 15 October, so additional organisations can be admitted in future General Assemblies after the 1st GA.
As you can imagine, all this requires a lot of preparation and it also requires the EOSC Association bylaws to progress to a form where they support the above process. To ensure this, we have formed a Bylaws WG out of a group of volunteers from candidate members organisations, which has set itself up into the following five sub-groups:
- Sub-group 1: Memberships provisions (Article 2)
- Sub-group 2: Financing (Article 7)
- Sub-group 3: Bodies of EOSC Association (GA, Board, Secretariat) (Articles 3, 4, 5)
- Sub-group 4: Adding specific counsels – or determining rules when special groups/counsels that might be created by GA, who can lead WG (members or/and observers) (Article 6)
- Sub-group 5: General terms and provisions of BYLAWS (Articles 0, 1, 8 & 9) and adding list of Policies – how introduced, discussed, accepted & general idea behind policies
Important here is that the Bylaws will go into broader consultation, which will commence on 10 October and will be open until 21 October.
As with anything we have done towards the creation of the EOSC over the past two years, we are again driven by a very tight timeline. Check out the timeline below and make sure to connect with us (eoscassociation[at]eoscsecretariat.eu)!
Thanks again for reading and stay in touch via the EOSC secretariat website!
Your organisation can apply for becoming a member of the EOSC Association via this link.
Originally published on EOSCsecretariat.eu: https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/news-opinion/next-steps-eosc-association
