News

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.

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.