The publication of the partnership proposal and the set-up of an Association looking for members moves the EOSC ahead fast on its way to implementation.
Preparations for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) are in full swing. The interim governance consisting of the Executive and Governing Board as well as the differnt working groups have been working hard over the last months to ensure the EOSC’s development beyond 2020 by establishing a partnership under the next research and innovation framework programme, Horizon Europe. Now, the work has arrived at two milestones, the publication of the draft partnership proposal and a call for stakeholders to voice their interest in joining the future EOSC Association as a member. The call addresses research performers, infrastructures and research funders alike and joining the Association will mean joining the EOSC partnership.
The EOSC Association will be the legal entity leading the EOSC partnership. It is in the process of being established as a not for profit association under Belgian law (short AISBL) and will take up its operations later this year to represent the European stakeholders of the EOSC in a collective manner. The details and statutes are currently being worked out. The association will replace the EOSC interim governance, whose mandate will end on 31 December 2020. With the association comes its own governance structure as well as a management office with an executive director to be named in autumn. All organisations interested to join the association can voice their interest already now in order to be fully involved in developing the EOSC jointly. The Chair of the current EOSC Executive Board, Cathrin Stöver, provides more information on the process in a dedicated blogpost. The Association will also be the entity entering a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Commission (EC) for the establishment of EOSC as a co-programmed European Partnership.
The partnership proposal developed in iteration between the current EOSC Executive Board and the EC defines the goals and scope of the EOSC and justifies its ‘raison d’être’. It aims to deploy and consolidate by 2030 an open, trusted and virtual federated environment in Europe to store, share, and re-use research data across borders and all disciplines. On the side, it will also offer access to a broad range of related services through the EOSC Portal. The EOSC will be Europe’s contribution to a ‘Web of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable) Data and Related Services for Science. As such, the EOSC will become a virtual space where science producers and science consumers meet.
Apart from the partnership proposal, the EOSC interim governance is working on a second document, the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The SRIA provides the multiannual roadmap on what the EOSC community shall achieve. As defined by the format of the co-programmed partnership, the EOSC partners will implement their own activities with their own in-kind or financial contribution, while the EC will draw on the SRIA to implement their part through calls under Horizon Europe. Such calls will be managed by the EC and Member State comitology, while the EOSC Association will not be in charge of any funds for calls. Developing and managing the SRIA however, will be one of the Association’s main tasks next to administration. The SRIA will become public at the EOSC symposium in October after a public consultation running from July to September.
The latest developments mark the transition of the EOSC from a Horizon 2020 supported initiative to an independent legal entity, which remains in close coordination with the EC and participating states. The EOSC portal was launched already in November 2018 and has since evolved through the contribution of different projects and pilot activities. Among them is also the launch of a research data-sharing platform for Covid-19 research, run by Elixir and EMBL-EBI as a pilot and reality test for EOSC.