The October 2024 EOSC Symposium welcomed 450 in-person participants to network, exchange ideas, and discuss both present and future of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Colleagues from GÉANT and over 15 NRENs took part in the event, many contributing as speakers or session leads.
If you were walking across Berlin’s Alexanderplatz last week, chances were you heard snippets of conversation around “FAIR”, “nodes”, and “Open Science”. And if you did not, maybe you did not walk past the H4 Hotel on Berlin’s busiest square, where the yearly EOSC Symposium was hosted from October 21st to 23rd. Alongside the launch of the EOSC EU node, which was greeted with avid appraisals from the EOSC community with many researchers present, the Symposium also offered plenty of other sessions to discuss EOSC.
Helen Clare (Jisc) presented in the session on educating teachers and young researchers to bring open science into action. Ron Augustus (SURF) spoke about the Dutch perspective to get ready for the EOSC Federation. In part 2 of that same session, GÉANTs perspective was shared by Cathrin Stöver, emphasising the GÉANT community experience leading successful federations. Jenny O’Neill (HEAnet), chair of the EOSC Association Task Force on long-term data retention, chaired a session on data retention. In an Unconference session on EOSC Competence Centres, Sara Di Giorgio (GARR) talked about some results from the Skills4EOSC project.
The successful launch of the EOSC EU node!
Ivar Janmaat, Research Cloud manager at SURF, contributed to the in-depth session on the EOSC EU node that showcased three demos on use-cases of the Federation’s first node. With credits provided based on their affiliation, researchers and students (and (possibly) you and me!) can make use of the services provided through the EOSC EU node. If you had questions about the newly launched node, which will function as one of many reference nodes in the emerging EOSC Federation, you were able to ask them to EC representatives, at a dedicated booth, or when Norbert Meyer (PSNC) took the stage with Spiros Athanasiou (Athena RC) representing the contractors.
Mauro Campanella (GARR) spoke in the closing panel about what EOSC means to the existing national infrastructures. Finally, Christian Grimm, CEO of DFN, delivered a lightning talk on the role of DFN within the German research infrastructure landscape, setting the scene for the NFDI event that was co-located with the EOSC Symposium.
What were the key takeaways?
- 2025 will be the year where the first wave(s) of nodes will be set up to complement and interlink with the EOSC EU node. The EOSC Federation will become operational.
- The EOSC EU node is a reference node, not a master node, even if linking to it will be necessary for the first nodes of the federation.
- There is still further coordination and consolidation needed within the respective fields (e.g. for national and thematic nodes).
- The question of who will operate the day-to-day of the budding federation will be a significant factor to decide EOSC governance post-2027.
- FAIR vs Fully AI Ready (FAIR) vs AI for FAIR data – the topic of AI was very prevalent throughout the Symposium concerning all steps of the research cycle.
- From the 2023 summary, but still just as relevant: EOSC does not operate in isolation – initiatives like data spaces, Destination Earth and ERICs/EDICs will offer potential opportunities for synergies and joint developments with EOSC.
In case you missed it
Just in time for the EOSC Symposium, a writing group of NRENs and GÉANT staff around coordinating author Helen Clare (Jisc) published a position paper on the role of the GÉANT Association in EOSC. The paper reviews how the GÉANT Association and its membership contribute to the EOSC Association, what we can do to make sure EOSC is a success, and where we will focus our efforts in the next months. The release of the paper follows the technical launch of the EOSC EU node, where GÉANT operates the EOSC AAI for federated access based on MyAccessID and selected NRENs contribute as key providers to Lots 1, 2 and 3.
We would like to extend a big thank you to the organisers, especially Programme Committee Chair Sara Garavelli (CSC) and all the members involved in the Programme Committee and the Organising Committee, especially the colleagues from Belnet and CSC. We look forward to the EOSC Symposium 2025 in Brussels!
