EOSC News

The EOSC Tripartite Governance has agreed on the organisations that have been invited to the kick-off workshop of the EOSC Federation, signalling the opening act in EOSC’s build-up phase.

The opening of the 2nd OSCARS Open Call has been delayed due to pending legal advice from the European Commission regarding eligibility criteria. A new opening date will be announced as soon as it is confirmed.

The Day of Good Data Graz (Grazer Tag der guten Daten) took place at the University of Graz on 11 February 2025, as part of the Love Data Week 2025. The theme of the international action week was ‘Whose Data Is It, Anyway?’, which also set the theme for this day. The keynote by Dr. Katja Mayer (University of Vienna) explored the ownership and use of open research data in AI development, addressing challenges like transparency and ethical standards. Alexander Muhr (TU Graz) provided a legal overview of data ownership, copyright, and challenges like the AI Act. Walter Scholger (Uni Graz) presented best practices for managing research data in the digital humanities, highlighting initiatives by DARIAH-EU and CLARIAH-AT. Emily Kate Genatowski (Uni Vienna) discussed a project developing citation standards for digital resources in the humanities. Finally, Michael Freidl (Uni Graz) introduced the university’s new data governance policy, setting standards for data ownership and responsibilities to promote innovation and integrity.

From 21-23 January 2025, 150 participants from across the EOSC landscape flocked to Seville (Spain) to attend the second EOSC Winter School, an event organized by the EOSC Association and the EOSC Focus project. Participants, including representatives from EOSC-related projects, the European Commission, and the EOSC-A Board and Secretariat, convened under the banner “Convergence towards the EOSC Federation: Encouraging collaborative efforts among stakeholders”. The event confirmed the community’s strong interest in a bottom-up support for the emerging EOSC Federation as it advances toward operational readiness in 2025.

The Research Data Cluster Expo took place at TU Wien with over 200 guests. With presentations, a panel discussion, product demonstrations, time for exchange and specific community meetings on the following day it was colorful event. A total of 14 exhibitors were on site with their products and services, while a further 20 infrastructures, tools and services were represented with posters.

The recent General Assembly was a resounding success, bringing together key national and international voices to reflect on the progress and future of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in Austria. With (international) speakers from the EOSC Support Office Austria (EOSC SOA) bodies, the Czech Republic, the EOSC Association, and a perspective from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), the event highlighted the continued growth of the initiative, underpinned by the strength of its expansive network at both national and international levels.

As the new year begins, nine new EOSC-related Horizon Europe projects will join the group of 23 ongoing projects contributing to the development and deployment of EOSC. The nine new projects have ambitious objectives ranging from climate change adaptation to providing new innovative EOSC Exchange services.

As the year 2024 is coming to an end and the holiday season is approaching, we would like to take a moment and look back on the passing year. It has been full of EOSC-activities both in Austria and internationally as can be seen in our Activity Report 2023/2024 (https://zenodo.org/records/13839287) or on the website. For example, you may want to check out our collection of newsletters (https://eosc-austria.at/newsletter/), or past events (https://eosc-austria.at/news/#news-events).

In line with the sequencing process established by the Tripartite Governance in November 2024, the first-stage dialogue meetings were held with all 29 Potential Candidate Nodes at the end of the year. On 13 December 2024, the Tripartite issued an online questionnaire to the 29 Potential Candidate Nodes as a follow-up to the first-stage dialogue meetings. The questionnaire is an integral part of the first-stage dialogues, and will serve as input to the Tripartite’s plan to identify a reduced number of Potential Candidate Nodes that will participate in the second-stage dialogues this month. Following these dialogues, anywhere from seven to ten Candidate Nodes will be selected to be onboarded in February as the first wave of the Federation.

Take a look at the updated slide deck on EOSC-related Horizon Europe projects’ stakeholder engagement activities and see if you spot any synergies with your own work!

In an increasingly interconnected world, society’s expectations of universities have undergone significant transformations. Universities have been increasingly called upon to actively engage with the communities they are embedded in, contributing directly to societal progress and opening research processes to the public.

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.