The last year has been very busy for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), with concrete progress towards implementing an operational EOSC to realise the vision of a European Knowledge Commons. EOSC aims to achieve the digital transformation of research by implementing a “system of systems” for researchers in Europe to share, process, analyse and reuse FAIR research outputs within and across disciplines and borders. EGI has contributed significantly to the ongoing implementation of EOSC through its involvement in many of the main strands of activity which have taken place during 2024.

EOSC is envisaged to be implemented as a federation of EOSC Nodes. The EOSC Nodes will be the entry points to the EOSC Federation for end users, and will each offer research services and/or resources in compliance with common rules of the federation. The EOSC EU Node, formed as a result of a public procurement exercise, is the first EOSC Node. It recently became operational, being officially launched at the EOSC Symposium in Berlin on 22 October 2024. EGI Foundation is proud to be a contractor assisting with the implementation and operation of the EU Node, taking part in consortia including several EGI Federation members to deliver the EU Node’s federating (Core) services, and its infrastructure and application services.

Work to define EOSC Nodes and the EOSC Federation they will form together, continues with the shortlisting of candidate EOSC Nodes following a call for expressions of interest. The candidate Nodes selected early in 2025 will help to further define the requirements of an EOSC Node, how they will interact with the federating capabilities currently provided by the EU Node, and how Nodes will interact with one another within the EOSC Federation.

EGI Federation has expressed its interest in becoming an EOSC Node. EGI’s vision of its contribution to EOSC, in the broader context of the Global Open Research Commons, was elaborated in a discussion paper published in May 2024. Becoming an EOSC Node is very much in line with this vision. The EGI Federation could provide a European multi-site EOSC Node offering EOSC-dedicated compute and storage capacity tailored to the needs of data-intensive open science. The EGI EOSC Node would leverage the investments of national e-Infrastructures participating in the EGI Federation, to augment EOSC’s capabilities of scientific reproducibility and research data reuse. The EGI Node could either offer services directly to EOSC user communities (B2C), or indirectly to other EOSC nodes (B2B), complementing the EOSC EU Node and enhancing the value proposition of EOSC. Importantly, the EGI Node would be able to serve as a platform for resources from research infrastructures and communities which are not currently in a position to form their own EOSC Node.

In parallel with this, the EOSC Association, with the support of the EOSC Focus project, has led an initiative on behalf of the EOSC Tripartite to draft the first edition of the EOSC Federation Handbook. The Handbook is envisaged as a single reference document describing the EOSC Federation, its operational structure and responsibilities, its legal and governance framework, and its technical operations. A draft of the Handbook was subject of a community consultation during October and November, and the first complete edition is expected to be published during the next few months. EGI has been closely involved in the Handbook work, contributing to its writing and editing, drawing in part on the knowledge developed in the EGI-coordinated EOSC Beyond project which is piloting regional and thematic EOSC Nodes and Data Spaces, connecting national, regional and thematic infrastructures to the EOSC EU Node and developing a concept for EOSC’s federation architecture and federating capabilities. The contribution of this flagship project to the continued development of EOSC is complemented by EGI’s involvement in two EOSC Task Forces: co-chairing the Technical and Semantic Interoperability Task Force, and participating in the Health Data Task Force.

EOSC is an EU co-programmed partnership, whose founding documents include the EOSC SRIA (Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda) which defines the strategic objectives, guiding principles and expected impacts of EOSC. The SRIA includes a multi-annual roadmap (MAR) which defines high-level objectives and priority action areas the Partnership will take to deliver EOSC. The MAR is updated periodically, to keep it current and relevant to the development of EOSC and its evolving landscape. The draft MAR 2026-27 was the subject of a community consultation during September 2024 and the resulting updated roadmap was adopted at the EOSC Association General Assembly on 22 November. The European Commission uses the MAR as input in the drafting of EOSC-related calls in the Horizon Europe work programmes, ensuring that actions at the European level identified in the MAR are backed where appropriate with funding to ensure they are achieved. EGI Foundation has contributed to updates to the SRIA and MAR through its involvement in the EOSC Focus project task which supports these activities.

The 2024 EOSC Symposium was held in Berlin from 21-23 October under the patronage of the German Minister for Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger. NFDI, the German national mandated member of the EOSC Association, co-organised the Symposium and held an event for its community back-to-back with it, indicating its commitment to EOSC. At the Symposium, it was clear that EOSC has support from senior politicians and policymakers, including Ms Stark-Watzinger, Iliana Ivanova, the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, and Signe Ratso, the Deputy Director-General of DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. They conveyed messages of strong EC and German national support for EOSC and the federated approach being implemented. Enrico Letta, former Italian prime minister and author of the recent “Much More than a Market” report which advocates for adding research, innovation and education as the “fifth freedom” of the EU Single Market, addressed the event to highlight his belief in the importance of EOSC for this flagship initiative.

Credits: EOSC Association.

Looking ahead, the momentum of EOSC may be expected to increase in 2025 with the enrolment of the first wave of EOSC Nodes and the resumption of discussions in the EOSC tripartite governance about the post-2027 legal entity and business models for EOSC. The EOSC Association has been supported since 2022 by the EOSC Focus project, which provides additional resource and expertise to help in the execution and delivery of the Association’s many tasks. EGI Foundation staff have made a significant contribution to EOSC Focus, and will continue to do so in the EOSC Gravity project, which will take its place from June this year, focussing particularly on governance, funding and cost models.

EGI will build on the contributions it made last year, continuing to position EGI Federation’s services and expertise as key assets for EOSC, especially for the Federating Core, with the strategic aim of being a recognised foundation of EOSC.