Author: Bernd Saurugger

The digital developments of recent decades have created opportunities for a new era of open science, influencing the way that science in all disciplines is done, used and embedded in society. While the UNESCO Recommendation for Open Science (2021) provided a general framework with a set of complementary reports and toolkits to foster a change in scientific practices, few resources do target universities, critical actors in this process, with tools to address challenges and embed new approaches to open science within their institutions.

The EOSC Association’s 9th General Assembly (GA) on 22 November 2024 brought together more than 220 online participants, including delegates and guests. The meeting served to lay the foundation for a pivotal year ahead in which the EOSC Federation will advance toward operations and the future governance of EOSC will start emerging.

To ensure progress toward a new era of open science while preserving the quality of the scientific process, the university ranking, assessment, and the scientific publishing systems must be urgently reformed.

Here you will find the key takeaways and materials from this pivotal event, where stakeholders from the EOSC community gathered in Berlin on 21-23 October 2024 to discuss and shape the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC Association’s General Assembly filled three positions on the EOSC-A Board of Directors, and re-elected Sara Garavelli to a second three-year term. The three new directors are Kamran Naim of CERN and Roxanne Wyns of LIBIS – KU Leuven Libraries, who will both serve three-year terms, and Licia Florio of NORDUnet, who will fill a one-year position. The Directors will take up their responsibilities on 01 January 2025.

At the EOSC Association’s 9th General Assembly meeting, held online on 22 November 2024, five new Members and four new Observers were voted into the Association. These nine organisations are based in seven different countries, representing research-performing organisations, research-funding bodies and service providers. Three of the new Members (SIB, NORDUnet and RDA Europe) upgraded from their previous status as Observers, while the other six organisations are new to EOSC-A.

We are happy to share news about a significant collaboration between the EVERSE and FAIRCORE4EOSC projects (see descriptions below), alongside the launch of the new EOSC-A Opportunity Area Expert Group, OA7: Research Software. Through this collaboration, we are committed to recognizing software as a first-class output, advancing the broader objectives of Open Science, enhancing the EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) ecosystem, and ensuring the sustainability of research software infrastructures.

Networking EOSC and NFDI even better – that was the aim of the two-day EOSCxNFDI event. As a side event of the EOSC Symposium 2024, EOSCxNFDI took place on 23 and 24 October at the H4 Hotel Berlin-Alexanderplatz. A total of 122 people attended.

Die österreichische Datenstrategie bildet einen zentralen Pfeiler für den wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Fortschritt im Land. Sie legt den Grundstein für eine gezielte und verantwortungsvolle Nutzung von Daten, die insbesondere im Bereich der öffentlichen Verwaltung zu evidenzbasierten Entscheidungen beitragen und die Entwicklung neuer, innovativer Dienstleistungen und Produkte vorantreiben sollen. Durch den verstärkten Zugang zu Daten soll nicht nur die Effizienz und Transparenz staatlicher Prozesse verbessert werden, sondern auch ein Beitrag zum Wohl der gesamten Gesellschaft geleistet werden.