Expanding and deepening the EOSC Federation (EOSC Partnership)
2026-06-15
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

The EOSC Federation provides to EOSC users with state-of-the-art digital services addressing their needs to store, process and share data, run software, models and workflows, and collaborate with their peers.
Research and digital infrastructures and other organisations providing scientific services are equipped with appropriate structures and technical, legal and coordination mechanisms to onboard, manage and sustainably operate digital tools and services in the EOSC Federation.
Investments across Europe in the provision of FAIR scientific data and services within EOSC are more aligned and coordinated, achieving economies of scale and more efficient use of digital resources.

Scope:
In order to carry out typical research workflows, researchers need to use a broad range of digital services such as data storage, computing, applications, and collaboration tools. Such services are often cost-intensive and their provision is restricted, e.g. to researchers within a country/region or a specific thematic area. The EOSC Federation aims to provide a trusted, sovereign and secure environment to researchers in Europe to use high-quality, FAIR research data and run research workflows, with a focus on cross-disciplinary and cross-country research collaboration.
The aim of the topic is to set up an EOSC Federation-wide mechanism that enables multiple organisations to seamlessly offer such digital services, and to support the sustained provision of these services to EOSC users. It also aims to enlarge the EOSC Federation by supporting the expansion of Nodes as gateways through which multiple organisations can offer their resources, such as data and services, to EOSC users.
Proposals should cover the following activities:
1) Provide seamless, user-friendly access to EOSC users to digital services for typical research workflows such as data storage, computing, applications, and collaboration tools, through a fully integrated EOSC Federation-wide system.

Gather requirements and analyse needs of researchers and EOSC users for such services and how they can best complement and integrate with existing resources in the EOSC Federation.
Support developing and embedding a Federation-wide resource management and accounting system for the efficient provision of such services across the Federation, building on the design principles of the ‘virtual credit allocation’ system of the EOSC EU Node and any further development in the EOSC Federation.
Provide access to EOSC users to such services, based on the researchers’ and EOSC users’ needs and requirements and making use of a Federation-wide resource management and accounting system and harmonised access policies, in line with the principles and guidelines of transnational and virtual access to European Research Infrastructures and related EOSC Federation policies.
Upgrade the EOSC user experience through deep, back-end, cross-provider integration of key digital services covering the full research lifecycle, achieving a user-friendly and robust environment.
Develop, test and demonstrate business models for the effective management of the supply and demand of such services, as well as for their long-term sustainable provision in the EOSC Federation, beyond the end of the project’s duration.
Develop guidelines to facilitate a harmonised approach to the acquisition and provision of such services that supports research data sovereignty and research security in Europe, ensuring a trusted, secure and sovereign EOSC Federation.
Establish mechanisms for continuous feedback and improvement, including indicators for monitoring the quality and usage of the services, building on and further developing existing mechanisms of the EOSC Federation, and ensuring that the evolving needs and requirements of EOSC users are met by the EOSC Federation.

These activities should be fully concerted and aligned with related parallel activities carried out by the EOSC Federation.
2) Support the broadening, integration and structuring of the participation of research communities in the EOSC Federation through

the development and establishment of intra-Node coordination mechanisms and organisational models to enable EOSC Nodes to effectively represent broad communities and multiple organisations in the EOSC Federation,
the development and use of digital capabilities, and of options for harmonised legal arrangements, such as contractual or service-level agreements, for onboarding and sustainably provisioning communities’ services through EOSC Nodes,
broadening organisations’ engagement with and contribution to the EOSC Federation, including underrepresented thematic research communities or geographic areas.

Proposals should implement the activities through the organisation of joint calls that provide grants to third parties.
The joint calls should be open to organisations that participate or are interested to participate in the EOSC Federation either by operating an EOSC Node or by onboarding their identified resources to the EOSC Federation, in line with the relevant criteria set by the EOSC Federation.
Proposed activities should be driven by current gaps and needs of scientific communities, digital infrastructures and service providers. Proposals should clearly demonstrate how they will contribute to addressing these needs and increasing the uptake of the EOSC Federation by researchers.
The activities should comply with and contribute to the continuous update and upgrade of related EOSC Federation policies and standards, including technical and interoperability standards, the use of open standards, harmonised access and use policies, and cybersecurity[1].
Proposals should include a robust and credible plan for the long-term, beyond the project’s duration, sustained operation of the services that they will make available in the EOSC Federation, and any other relevant project results.
For what concerns provision of access to digital services by third parties funded under the joint calls, proposals should include a list of the digital services that will be supported through the joint calls. The third parties funded under the joint calls should identify the specific digital services that they will provide for access and the amount of access made available to EOSC users, allocating budget according to users’ demand and making use of the Federation-wide resource management and accounting system. These third parties should also fulfil further conditions and requirements described in the ‘Virtual Access Activities’ part of the ‘Specific Features for Research Infrastructures’ section of this Work Programme, for what concerns publicity of the access offered, determining the access costs, and setting criteria for access by EOSC users in line with the EOSC Federation access policies. Proposals are expected to address compliance with these specific conditions and notably ensure that the selected third parties will provide appropriate documentation to support and justify the amount of access provided and corresponding costs.
Projects are encouraged to explore synergies with relevant EU initiatives such as EuroHPC. To ensure coherence and complementarity of outcomes, funded projects are expected to cooperate with each other and with relevant initiatives and projects contributing to the development of the EOSC Federation including actions awarded under the topics HORIZON-INFRA-2023-01-EOSC-04, HORIZON-INFRA-2024-EOSC-02-01, HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-01, HORIZON-INFRA-2026-01-EOSC-01 and closely interact with the organisational setup of the EOSC Federation. To this extent, proposals should provide for dedicated activities and earmark appropriate resources. This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud[2].
[1] As described in the EOSC Federation Handbook and other relevant documentation potentially adopted by the EOSC Federation.
[2] https://eosc.eu/partnership/

Strengthening the potential of the EOSC for knowledge valorisation and industry-academia collaboration (EOSC Partnership)
2026-06-15
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

Better overview of the identified opportunities and barriers of the EU’s current legal framework on intellectual property (patents, copyright, licenses etc.) for researchers to valorise knowledge resources provided and/or processed in the EOSC Federation.
Organisations contributing resources to the EOSC Federation have improved capacity, stronger incentives and better legal and technical conditions to valorise these knowledge resources and engage in open innovation practices and industry-academia collaboration.
Organisations contributing to the EOSC Federation have clearer frameworks and incentives to offer their resources to innovators, deep-tech startups and startups emerging from academia.
Organisations contributing to the EOSC Federation have established channels in EOSC to promote knowledge valorisation with the private sector, including SMEs and industry.

Scope:
This topic aims to support increasing and exploiting the potential of EOSC as a driver of innovation and a platform for researchers to develop new technologies and solutions that can be brought to the market.
Knowledge valorisation is one of the EU’s key priorities for the European Research Area, aiming to ensure that the increasing amount of research results generated in the EU, mostly with full or partial public funding, are transformed to products, services and solutions that benefit society and contribute to economic competitiveness.
Many initiatives have already been taken at EU level to boost knowledge valorisation, including the guiding principles, codes of practice and a platform to build a community to share experiences[1].
The EOSC Federation brings together and makes available to researchers, large volumes of knowledge resources, including data, publications, software, tools and services from different research and data infrastructures and scientific services providers across Europe. It therefore has the potential to facilitate and provide appropriate frameworks for knowledge valorisation, open innovation practices and industry-academia collaboration especially for what concerns results that stem from cross-discipline or cross-country research. Activities funded under this topic should aim to support the capacity of the EOSC Federation and its community to better valorise research results in line with the EU’s code of practice on intellectual assets management[2] and standardisation in the European Research Area[3].
A key element in this effort is to clarify the legal conditions to valorise knowledge resources, including resources provided in the EOSC Federation. As knowledge resources have various degrees of copyright protection, it is often challenging for researchers to navigate in what they are allowed to do with the knowledge resources and how they can be used in industry-academia collaboration. A better overview of requirements and more legal clarity will therefore incentivise researchers to valorise the knowledge resources of the EOSC Federation.
This effort should also take into account the specific needs of different research communities contributing to the EOSC Federation, ensuring they have the possibility to set better legal terms for knowledge valorisation through appropriate choice of licenses etc. More guidance is therefore needed to ensure that contributors can share their knowledge resources in the EOSC Federation with fewer legal strings attached.
Proposals under this topic should include the following activities:

Analyse opportunities and barriers emerging from the provisions of the EU’s current legal framework on intellectual property and relevant types of licenses that set the legal conditions for researchers to valorise knowledge resources in EOSC Federation.
Gather requirements and needs, develop and analyse potential business models and access schemes for innovators and start-ups in Europe to access and use resources available in the EOSC Federation.
Develop a number of case studies of identified EOSC stakeholders valorising their results and/or establishing collaboration links with the private sector.
Map out and evaluate the possibilities of relevant types of licenses for knowledge resources to facilitate knowledge valorisation and engage in open innovation and industry-academia collaboration.
Organise workshops, webinars and awareness-raising campaigns, and develop guiding material targeted at EOSC users and communities contributing to EOSC on how to facilitate and engage in knowledge valorisation and industry-academia collaboration based on the knowledge resources of EOSC Federation.
Develop recommendations and best practices, based also on the case studies, for further development of the EOSC Federation to facilitate knowledge valorisation and industry-academia collaboration.

To ensure complementarity with and use of the latest EU guidelines and research results, proposals should build on ongoing and previous Horizon Europe-funded projects, including IP4OS, EU guiding principles for knowledge valorisation, Knowledge Valorisation Platform and code of practice for intellectual property management and standards. This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud[4].
[1] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/eu-valorisation-policy/knowledge-valorisation-platform
[2] http://data.europa.eu/eli/reco/2023/499/oj
[3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reco/2023/498/oj
[4] https://eosc.eu/partnership/

Trusted frameworks for secure and efficient data sharing in EOSC (EOSC Partnership)
2026-06-16
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

Countries, research communities and institutions are equipped with data sovereignty frameworks harmonised within EOSC and aligned with EU legislation and international agreements.
Improved mechanisms and solutions for effective control over sensitive data and for enabling lawful data use and sharing across EU member states, scientific disciplines and third countries with EU adequacy decision in place.
More harmonised guidelines, support and training to researchers and data stewards on applying EU and national legislation and international agreements for data access, sharing, reuse, licensing and associated services within EOSC.
Increased interoperability with relevant solutions of other European data spaces for secure data management and processing.

Scope:
Research data sovereignty refers to the possibility for effective control by data owners of data usage and sharing when necessary. Effective and transparent community-driven data sovereignty frameworks are important enablers of open science, in particular ensuring safe and trusted management of personal or sensitive data, safeguarding the quality of curated research datasets and the effective application of related EU and national digital and data legislation. Data sovereignty mechanisms can also improve the resilience and preparedness of research and data infrastructures against risks related to access to and preservation of critical data and services, including risks related to data generated and stored outside the EU/EEA.
The exponential growth of available research data and the increasingly collaborative and cross-disciplinary research has accentuated challenges related to secure, efficient and lawful cross-border data sharing for research purposes. Removing barriers to data sharing while ensuring data sovereignty is crucial to realise the potential of EOSC to foster trusted cross-country and cross-discipline scientific collaboration.
This topic aims to support data sovereignty while enabling seamless and trusted data sharing and access across scientific disciplines, EU Member States and third countries where the EU considers sufficient data protection is in place, tackling different regulatory regimes and procedures.
Proposals should include the following activities:

Development and implementation of national, community and/or institutional research data sovereignty frameworks, including policies for data sharing and access, harmonised and aligned with EU digital and data legislation and international agreements such as adequacy decisions and digital partnership agreements, as well as best practices from EOSC, related common European data spaces and international data-sharing standards and initiatives.
Demonstration and validation of concrete adoption cases of data sovereignty policies by national, community or institutional actors, aligned with open science and the FAIR data principles.
Development of harmonised governance frameworks, ensuring smooth enforcement of data sovereignty policies.
Development of comprehensive data provenance tools to trace and verify the quality and lineage of data used in research, and demonstration through identified use cases within relevant selected thematic areas.
Development of templates and guidelines for secure and sovereign data management, including template agreements on data sharing, publication, and reuse, and guidelines for licensing.
Development of guidelines for classifying critical data and services based on sensitivity and relevance to scientific communities and European policies, and for managing risks related to access to and preservation of such critical data and services.
Analysis of data categories and definitions across scientific disciplines, incorporating compliance with security requirements set out in EU and national legislation.
Development of recommendations for the establishment of a support centre, linking with relevant national and thematic competence centres, focused on compliance of data management with EU and national legislation, and proof of concept of its integration and sustainable operation in the EOSC Federation.

Projects are encouraged to explore synergies with relevant EU initiatives such as other common European data spaces that address sensitive data or data critical for research. To ensure complementarity and use of latest research results, proposals should build on ongoing and previous INFRAEOSC projects such as those funded by topics 2023-EOSC-01-06, 2023-EOSC-01-04 and 2024-EOSC-01-04 and align with the EOSC Federation policies and standards[1]. This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud[2].
[1] As described in the EOSC Federation Handbook and other relevant documentation potentially adopted by the EOSC Federation
[2] https://eosc.eu/partnership/

Uptake of FAIR data management practices and of EOSC by research communities and research infrastructures (EOSC Partnership)
2026-06-16
Expected Outcome:

Increased adoption of open science and research data management practices in line with the FAIR principles by researchers and across research infrastructures (RIs) in Europe.
Increased uptake of the EOSC Federation by researchers through the long-term sustainable provision in the Federation of scientific services and high-quality, FAIR research data, and their integration in scientific workflows addressing current gaps and needs of research communities.
Research communities, as well as ESFRI and other European research infrastructures increase their alignment with EOSC standards and policies, and their capacity to integrate in the EOSC Federation.

Scope:
This topic aims to further increase across Europe the adoption of open science and research data management practices in line with the FAIR principles, and to support the development of a user-focused and science-driven EOSC Federation.
It capitalises on the previous work by Science Clusters in enabling open science practices, FAIR implementation and managing open calls for multi-disciplinary science projects. It also builds on the experience by several RIs and other organisations as active participants in building the EOSC Federation, either through the establishment of EOSC nodes or the onboarding of resources to EOSC nodes[1], to support the engagement of underrepresented RIs and research communities into the EOSC ecosystem.
Proposals should cover both the following activities:
1) Accelerate FAIR adoption and the contribution to and use of EOSC resources by multiple research communities through open science projects.
This activity should be implemented through open calls that provide grants to third parties for open science projects through a cascading grant mechanism. The open calls should encourage, where applicable, cross-RI and/or cross-domain collaborations, including for data access, use and reuse.
Open science projects should address questions of high scientific impact, adopting best practices for FAIR data and service management and demonstrating their benefits. Their activities may include developing, annotating, curating and making FAIR high-value datasets, developing direct pipelines to integrate large-scale experimental data in repositories federated in EOSC, operationalising data access for AI-based applications, reusing existing datasets, enhancing existing and developing new vocabularies, data standards, metadata mappings and crosswalks, developing software, tools and services, or supporting open science community building.
They should cover a broad range of (academic and/or industrial) research communities and scientific disciplines, including those less represented in the EOSC Federation. They should make use of resources available in the EOSC Federation and adopt existing EOSC policies and standards[2], where possible. Projects should strive to ensure the sustained, beyond the projects’ duration, integration, deployment and operation of relevant outcomes in the EOSC Federation.
At least EUR 29 million of the EU contribution to this topic should be used in this activity[3]. The financial support to third parties for the open science projects must be provided in the form of grants that should be between EUR 100 000 and 250 000 per grant for a duration of 12 to 24 months. The consortium shall put in place adequate measures to support the integration of the open science projects’ results into the EOSC Federation. These could include mentoring, training and any other activities providing effective linkage to the EOSC Federation and EOSC Nodes, as needed for the specific nature of each project.
2) Support the integration of thematic research and RI communities in the EOSC Federation
The following activities should be included:

Coordinating, aligning and networking existing community-based competence centres on FAIR and open science practices developed within the EOSC ecosystem.
Developing training programmes, modules and material on FAIR and open science practices tailored to the specific needs of different thematic research communities. This activity should include feedback mechanisms to ensure that the training services are responsive to the evolving needs of EOSC user communities.
Developing frameworks for the provision and continuous evolution of high-impact services and data repositories onboarded to the EOSC Federation, fostering interoperability and integration of data and resources from diverse scientific domains and promoting their sharing through the EOSC Federation.
Establishing mechanisms for the integration and long-term sustainable provision of all relevant outcomes into the EOSC Federation, as well as for continuous feedback and adaptation, ensuring evolving requirements of researchers and RIs are met within the EOSC ecosystem.
Engaging underrepresented thematic research and RI communities to increase their integration in EOSC.

Proposals are expected to cooperate and align with activities of the EOSC Partnership and to coordinate with relevant initiatives and projects, including actions awarded under topics HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-01, HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-02 and HORIZON-INFRA-2027-01-EOSC-01. This may include the upgrade, deployment and adoption where appropriate of existing community-endorsed pilot, tools, services and standards developed by past and ongoing INFRAEOSC projects. To this extent, proposals should provide for dedicated activities and earmark appropriate resources.
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement. This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud[4].
[1] Relevant information and documentation about the EOSC Federation can be found in the EOSC Federation Handbook and other relevant documentation adopted by the EOSC Federation.
[2] As described in the EOSC Federation Handbook and other relevant documentation potentially adopted by the EOSC Federation.
[3] Including reasonable administrative and management costs related to the open calls for the financial support to third parties.
[4] https://eosc.eu/partnership/

Förderprogramm: Digitale Transformation
2026-08-31 | Online
Zielsetzung
Seit der Initiative “Kulturerbe digital” ist es gelungen, Institutionen aus dem GLAM-Sektor (Galeries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) in einem ersten Schritt zur Öffnung ihrer Sammlungen für den digitalen Raum zu gewinnen. Dieses Ziel, welches in der “Strategie Kulturerbe digital” strategisch verankert ist, soll durch das Förderprogramm “Digitale Transformation” nachhaltig unterstützt werden.
Gefördert werden:
Digitale Erfassung von Sammlungen des österreichischen Kulturerbes durch die

Digitalisierung analoger Bestände (z. B. Objekte, Archivalien, Fotografien, audiovisuelle Medien) von Kulturinstitutionen und analoger Bestände (z. B. Objekte, Archivalien, Fotografien, audiovisuelle Medien) aus Nachlässen österreichischer Kunst- und Kulturschaffender;
Etablierung der entsprechenden technischen Workflows und digitaler Repositorien.

Verbesserung der Datenqualität insbesondere durch

Standardisierung und Anreicherung von Metadaten;
Anwendung kontrollierter Vokabularien, Normdaten und anerkannter Datenstandards;
Qualitätssicherung, Datenbereinigung und Konsistenzprüfungen;
Verbesserung der technischen und semantischen Interoperabilität.

Ressourcen und Informationen zu allen Fragen rund um die Digitalisierung von Sammlungen des österreichischen Kulturerbes finden Sie in der Kulturpool Wissensdatenbank.
Förderkriterien

Konzept und Umsetzung: Bewertet werden Inhalt, Methodik und technische Umsetzung, Innovationsgrad und Durchführbarkeit.
Relevanz und Wirksamkeit: Bewertet werden die Verfügbarkeit im digitalen Raum, Vermittlungsaspekte, der Mehrwert für die Kunst- und Kulturlandschaft sowie der Standortkontext.
Qualifikation und Eignung: Bewertet werden die fachliche Qualifikation, Erfahrungen und gegebenenfalls Referenzen, wirtschaftlich-organisatorische Struktur des Vorhabens sowie die digitale, soziale und ökologische Nachhaltigkeit.
Kosten und Finanzierung: Bewertet werden die Angemessenheit und Ausgewogenheit der Kostenplanung, die Finanzierungsstruktur sowie der Förderbedarf.
Zudem wird ein besonderer Fokus gelegt auf:
Nachhaltigkeit des Projekts in Bezug auf Nachnutzung und Absicherung möglicher Folgekosten nach der Projektlaufzeit;
Bereitschaft, die Daten der Öffentlichkeit unter einer möglichst offenen Lizenz zugänglich zu machen und diese, sofern keine zwingenden urheberrechtlichen oder persönlichkeitsrechtlichen Beschränkungen vorhanden sind, auch dauerhaft auf Kulturpool anzubieten. Infos und Beratung zur Teilnahme finden Sie auf Kulturpool: Schritte zur Teilnahme.

Förderhöhe

Förderhöhe: max. EUR 50.000
Nach Maßgabe seiner wirtschaftlichen Leistungsfähigkeit hat der Förderungswerber eine finanzielle oder sachliche Eigenleistung zu erbringen.
