Working Groups (WGs)
The aim of the Working Groups (WGs) is to advance EOSC-relevant topics. To this end, they may organise events and workshops, launch surveys or write recommendations on specific topics
The WGs deal with substantive issues, which may include scientific analysis or the development of guidelines for operational standards. They report to the Management Board and the General Assembly and publish the results according to the criteria of good scientific practice. If the results of the work are to be transferred into binding guidelines for the EOSC Support Office Austria, a resolution of the General Assembly is required.
The WGs are convened and confirmed by the General Assembly. Proposals for the creation of new WGs can come from the entire community. WGs are limited in time and work on specific topics. Accordingly, they can be very diverse in composition and correspond more to the specific competence profile of the members than to a general representation. They are set up in a comprehensible way. If necessary, external experts can be invited.
Researcher Engagement in Austria:
Katharina Flicker (TU Wien)
Active Working Groups (WGs)
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) serves as a central European infrastructure providing open research data, services, and computing resources for a diverse community. Although Austria has an active open science environment, institutional and practical use (and awareness) of the EOSC remain limited.
At the European level, this challenge is being addressed through the Skills4EOSC project, which has established a Competence Centre Network, and through the ongoing EOSC Gravity initiative that is currently working to establish an EOSC Academy. These initiatives aim to increase the use of the EOSC and explicitly target (potential) users of EOSC services.
Accordingly, it would be appropriate to set up an inter-university working group — EOSC‑Connect Austria — within the framework of EOSC Austria, which will ensure at the national level that EOSC services are actually used. The group would do so by familiarizing educators and researchers with EOSC offerings, developing usage scenarios, and identifying needs — primarily through existing in-kind resources and the networking of existing partners.
Goals
- Engage and onboard diverse EOSC SOA partners to act as multipliers
- Identify concrete application areas for EOSC services in research and education
- Gather evidence-based insights on needs, gaps, and required actions
- Foster knowledge exchange and capacity building within Austria’s open science community
Connection to existing initiatives
The working group builds on existing national initiatives that, in recent years, have been involved in developing and consolidating services and offerings related to research data management (RDM), such as FAIR Office Austria, RDA Austria, SharedRDM, ClusterForschungsdaten, EOSC_SOA, and the Skills4EOSC Competence Centres. The aim is not to discuss the creation of new services or offerings, but rather for the working group to contribute to making the work of EOSC SOA and the services provided by the EOSC more visible and sustainably accessible.
As a starting point, existing directories and documentation of research infrastructures (for example, the Research Infrastructure Database of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research), international needs and competence mappings, as well as national empirical findings will be used. These document researchers’ and educators’ accessibility, attitudes, and practices regarding open data, data management, and secondary data use. They serve as the basis for additional needs analyses and provide opportunities to select services in a targeted way and make them accessible to researchers and educators.
Timeline
| Time | Content | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | Establishment of the working group; kick-off with EOSC_SOA members Definition of structure, working mode, and thematic areas | Working group formed and operating framework defined |
| Q2 to Q4 2026 | Three thematic online workshops (e.g.: “EOSC in Teaching”, “FAIR Use & Data Sharing”, “Disciplinary Use Cases”) Collection and presentation of usage ideas, possibly experimental | Workshop outputs and documented innovative use cases |
| Q4 2026 | Synthesis and recommendations at the EOSC_Austria General Assembly Documentation of results and final workshop “EOSC Application Areas in Austria” | Consolidated recommendations and dissemination within EOSC Austria community |
Members
Coordinator: Dimitri Prandner (JKU), Stefan Reichmann (TU Graz)
Members: open for new members to join
Expected Outputs
- Activation of the EOSC_SOA community and strengthened national networking
- Documented usage scenarios and overview of needs
- Recommendations for the institutional anchoring of EOSC services
- Visible positioning of Austria as an active partner in the European open science landscape
Past Working Groups (WGs)
Establish data stewardship programmes by aligning efforts and activities on a national and international level. Transform the way how research is carried out by direct support from highly skilled professionals with discipline specific knowledge and knowledge of standards, applications and tools for reproducible research.
Goals
- Align data stewardship efforts and activities on a national and international level, (e.g., FAIR Data Austria, RDA IG, EOSC Association TK)
- Finalise the concept on models, roles, tasks, competences and training offers for data stewards
- Develop guidelines for the implementation of data stewardship programmes and potential career paths at Austrian institutions
- Investigate the differences and similarities of data stewardship in industry, museums and academia
Timeline
A report on models, roles, activities, competences and training for data stewards has been published. The report is available for download under this link. It is anticipated that the processes in the WG will be evaluated after 2 years.
Members
Coordinator: Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi (TU Graz)
Members: Stefan Eichert (NHMW), Alexander Gruber (TU Graz), Tereza Kalová (University of Vienna), Lisa Hönegger (University of Vienna), Michael Kranewitter (JKU), Heimo Rainer (NHMW), Hermann Schranzhofer (TU Graz), Christiane Stork (TU Wien)
Outputs
The WG KPIs develops measurable indicators to make the success of EOSC visible at the national and international level, with special focus on the overarching goals for Austria (“readiness indicators”). In addition, KPIs serve as a steering instrument for targeted impact-oriented further development and implementation of the EOSC.
Goals
The WG KPIs aims to identify appropriate performance indicators for measuring the success of the Austrian EOSC initiative for stakeholders at different levels, i.e. the individual scientists, the institutions, and the policy targets (e.g. internationalisation, innovation, SDGs). The model of the WG KPIs will provide key performance indicators of the EOSC Support Office itself as well as Austrian institutions contributing to the EOSC. Our model will complement the indicators defined by the EOSC Association. The WG will also develop and adapt suitable methods (e.g. percentages of FAIR data, surveys, or social network analyses).
Timeline
Start: 28 May 2021
Conceptual phase until 31 March 2022
Stakeholder participation phase for nationwide EOSC monitoring from May 2022 onwards
Adapting and finalising the KPI model until March 2023
Collecting, analysing and visualising data: Collecting data and performing analyses until October 2023
Members
Coordinator: Katrin Vohland (NHMW), Beate Guba (TU Wien)
Members: Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi (TU Graz), Chris Schubert (TU Wien), Paolo Budroni (TU Wien), Barbara Sánchez Solís (TU Wien), Maria Seissl (University of Vienna)
Strengthen Austria’s position in the European landscape through connecting various stakeholders form EOSC and other research-related initiatives such as EuroHPC and GAIA-X, while ensuring that the EOSC meets the requirements and needs of daily research in Austria.
- Coordination, planning, material preparation, liaising national (e.g. RDA VRE, EuroHPC, EOSC Pillar), participation in and contribution to third-party events (representing the Austrian vision), continuous office support, …
- Preparation of the mapping, organizing necessary information, developing and structuring a knowledge management system for sustainable information management. Offering a broad, easy to use interface for open knowledge transfer
- Coordination, planning, material preparation, liaising national and international (e.g. RDA VRE, EuroHPC, EOSC Association, national museums and archives, BMBWF projects for digital transformation), participation in and contribution to third-party events (representing the Austrian vision), continuous office support, …
Timeline
Part 1 Mapping: October 2021
Part 1 Mapping: March 2022
Part 2 Identifying Stakeholder Engagement strategy: March 2022
Part 2 Identifying Stakeholder Engagement strategy: December 2023 (an extension may well be considered)
Members
Coordinator: Raman Ganguly (University of Vienna)
Members: Susanne Blumesberger (University of Vienna), Eva Gergely (University of Vienna), Lisa Hönegger (University of Vienna), Bernd Saurugger (TU Wien), Sarah Stryeck (TU Graz)
This Working Group monitors the EOSC building processes in Austria, i.e. open science and FAIR regular policies, projects, activities as well as RDM infrastructures.
If you would like to inform the Working Group of an open science activity that is not reflected in the report, please send a message to the coordinator Barbara Sánchez: barbara.sanchez@tuwien.ac.at
Goals
- Regular monitoring of EOSC building processes in Austria
- Quarterly update of report and publication in Zenodo Community EOSC Austria
- Share findings with representatives at decision making level, for reporting inquiries and alignment
- Update of of website forschungsdaten.info (section about Austria)
Timeline
Activities are ongoing
Members
Coordinator: Barbara Sánchez Solís (TU Wien)
Members: Meghan Bohardt (University of Vienna), Paolo Budroni (TU Wien), Beate Guba (TU Wien), Stefan Hanslik (BMWFW), Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi (TU Graz), Lisa Hönegger (University of Vienna), Christian Panigl (University of Vienna), Katharina Rieck (FWF), Chris Schubert (TU Wien), Katrin Vohland (NHMW)
Latest Output
FAIRification and Trustification of Data, Repositories, and Software produced by Scientific Collection holders to comply with EOSC principles and outlines.
- Coordination, planning, organization of workshops
- Key points of investigation: domain, quantification, object types, policies, available technical infrastructure
- 1 per domain (botany, geology, palaeontology, prehistoric, zoology), object type, institution, technology, incl. long term preservation strategies
- It is envisioned to establish FAIR data production, processing, and align existing digitization workflows and their output to comply with EOSC goals
- Capacity building; workshops on Open Science, Open Data, Linked data, Data curation (as opposed to physical curation)
- Publishing reports, presenting in symposia and conferences, liaising nationally and internationally (e.g., FAIR Data Austria, RDA IG, EOSC Association, ISO, ICOM, TDWG, Dublin Core Initiative, Europeana)
Timeline
First official workshop in the second half of October 2021 after the inaugural General Assembly. By the end of 2021, a report on the Austrian collection landscape will be published and provide the basis of an Austrian registry of collections. The results will be integrated in parallel in the online Research infrastructure database of the BMBWF. Building on the registry, a detailed report on institutional capacity, skill sets, and technical readiness to comply with requirements of EOSC and is anticipated that the processes in the WG will be evaluated after two years.
Members
Coordinator: Heimo Rainer (NHMW)
Members: Claudia Feigl (University of Vienna), Raman Ganguly (University of Vienna)
The working group will support the development and facilitate the implementation of the framework for the EOSC strategic research and innovation agenda on a national level. This will include the formulation of all required steps to a minimal viable EOSC model in Austria, and beyond, enable future annexation to public and private sectors. Activities will be based on technical information exchange and cooperation with EOSC advisory groups and taskforces as well as related projects.
Goals
We aim to collect potential gaps related to e-infrastructures, data, applications and services, and assess requirements for new users as well as providers with a possible destination to frame use cases.
Our work will be based on synergies resulting from ongoing projects and developments in e-infrastructure or software solutions.
We will use our collected experiences also to shape EOSC on a supranational level. Our team participates in several EOSC Association task forces in regard to infrastructure for quality research software, technical interoperability of data and services, long-term data preservation, FAIR metrics and data quality as well as semantic interoperability.
Timeline
The WG will execute its activities over the period of ongoing related projects and will be re-evaluated on a regular basis.
Members
Coordinator: Claire Jean-Quartier (TU Graz)
Members: Paolo Budroni (TU Wien), David Eckhard (TU Graz), Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi (TU Graz), Raman Ganguly (Universität Wien), Lars Kaczmirek (University of Vienna), Tomasz Miksa (TU Wien), Christian Panigl (University of Vienna), Heimo Rainer (NHMW), Mojib Wali (TU Graz), Herwig Wiesinger (JKU)
Make training materials widely available, adapted to the different target groups as far as possible and designed to be barrier-free, so that they can be used flexibly and in a customised way.
- Coordination of workflows, coordination with other work packages, preparation of deadlines
- We will build on the results that have already been developed in the FAIR Data Austria project. This should be supplemented with tools and technology, possibly with additional podcasts. The next steps would be to see what materials already exist and adapt them to different target groups, e.g. data stewards, IT, researchers.
- The project output is documented, published and promoted in different networks
- The training materials should be aimed at different target groups (researchers, teachers, students, data managers, data stewards) and also at people with physical disabilities. Making the existing materials more accessible (creating subtitles, alternative text, sign language videos etc.)
- Establishing and maintaining contacts with national and international institutions and projects in order to optimise the results
Goals
The WG has set itself the goal of making existing training materials more accessible and visible as Open Educational Resources, but also to develop new training where needed and to fill gaps in the range of training courses currently offered. The training materials should be in line with the FAIR principles. Viewing existing and available materials on different channels for different target groups. We are therefore committed to reviewing existing materials, adding appropriate metadata and making them more widely available. As there is already a wide range of training resources in English, the WG will focus particularly on materials in German.
Timeline
The WG started with a kick-off meeting in autumn 2021 and will complete its activities till December 2022. Based on the findings and output of the WG, a follow-up WG with an adapted focus might be founded in 2023. The Materials Collection for Training in Research Data Management of the Humboldt University of Berlin offers the possibility to upload (mainly German-language) slides, videos, or handouts – provided with detailed metadata – into a system and offer them for open access.
Together with an expert for licenses, a workshop will take place on September 13, 2022, where we will present this system and there will also be the possibility to live upload your own openly licensed training materials.
Members
Coordinator: Susanne Blumesberger (University of Vienna)
Members: Karin Lach (University of Vienna), Susanne Friedl (Medical University of Vienna), Hermann Schranzhofer (TU Graz), Helmut W. Klug (UB Graz)
Outputs
The EOSC needs to meet the requirements and needs of daily research in Austria, all while increasing the acceptance of EOSC services within the Austrian research landscape. We strive to make this possible. All activities are thus to be based on the results of previous researcher engagement activities within EOSC-related projects (such as EOSC Secretariat, EOSC Pillar, EOSC Future and EOSC Focus) as well as on results of other WGs (such as the WG Stakeholder Engagement) and EOSC Task Forces. Furthermore the regular exchange of knowledge, information and experiences should be enabled by establishing close relations to, for example, the EOSC Association, the EOSC Task Force Researcher Engagement and Adoption, RDA and scientific communities at national level. Equally important is the regular exchange of knowledge with other WGs of the EOSC Support Office (such as the WGs Stakeholder Engagement, Austria Country Report and Training) in order to identify synergies and dependencies as early as possible.
Goals
The WG Researcher Engagement in Austria will contribute to the identification of the research communities’ needs to ensure services will be of actual use and support researchers in actively shaping the EOSC (through feeding their feedback to the EOSC TF to e.g. update the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), all while facilitating balanced participation from disciplines and institutions.
Timeline
2021/22: The Working Group (WG) dedicated the first year to defining specific tasks while carefully considering available (human) resources. The primary focus was on shaping the research design. 2022/23:The emphasis shifted to conducting the research, laying the groundwork for deeper exploration. 2023/24: The third year focused on analyzing the collected data to draw meaningful insights. 2024/25: In the current year, the WG is concentrated on presenting findings and submitting results to conferences.
Members
Coordinator: Katharina Flicker (TU Wien)
Members: Susanne Blumesberger (University of Vienna), Marie Czuray (TU Wien), Matej Durco (ÖAW), Raman Ganguly (University of Vienna), Unmil Karadkar (University of Graz), Elisabeth Königshofer (ÖAW), Andreas Rauber (TU Wien), Stefan E. Reichmann (TU Graz), Miguel Rey Mazon (TU Graz), Bernd Saurugger (TU Wien)
The WGs are convened and confirmed by the General Assembly. Proposals for the creation of new WGs can come from the entire community. WGs are limited in time and work on specific topics. Accordingly, they can be very diverse in composition and correspond more to the specific competence profile of the members than to a general representation. They are set up in a comprehensible way. If necessary, external experts can be invited.
Conference Proceedings:
Flicker, K., Blumesberger, S., Czuray, M., Rauber, A., Reichmann, S. E., Rey Mazon, M., Saurugger, B. (Mai 2025). Identifying mechanisms to support trust in research practices & the trustworthiness of infrastructures [Conference Presentation, Book of Abstracts]. 23rd STS Conference Graz, Austria. https://openlib.tugraz.at/download.php?id=68147d4730594&location=browse