Stefan Reichmann, EOSC SOA

On 26 and 27 June 2025, the European Commission invited representatives of 33 Horizon Europe projects to Brussels who are working on the development of the European Open Science Cloud as part of the INFRAEOSC funding programme. The EOSC is intended to deepen the European Research Area by making research data accessible across Europe. With the establishment of the EOSC EU Node in October 2024, the selection of the first 13 Candidate Nodes in a lengthy selection process, and the establishment of the EOSC Federation Build-up Group, the EOSC has entered its build-up phase.

Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi and Stefan Reichmann (both RDM Team, TU Graz) participated on behalf of the recently launched EOSC Gravity project (successor to the EOSC Focus project), Tomasz Miksa (TU Vienna) on behalf of the OSTrails project. Following the opening of the meeting by representatives of the European Commission (Jean-David Malo/Michael Arentoft) and the EOSC Association (Karel Luyben), the Coordination Meeting focused on the 9 projects funded under the 2024 INFRAEOSC calls, as well as on creating a deeper understanding of the EOSC Federation Build-up Phase, the latter primarily through presentations on the EOSC EU Node and the Federation Build-up Group. Projects also presented selected use cases for the EOSC Federation, as well as the two Coordination and Support Actions EOSC Gravity and EOSC United, both of which aim to support the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation. This was followed by three breakout sessions on various topics (Sustaining project results, Broadening the adoption and uptake of project results, Interoperability in EOSC).

A separate session on the second day of the meeting was dedicated to collaboration in the Opportunity Area Expert Groups, a networking and technical collaboration mechanism coordinated by EOSC Gravity. These groups implement the objectives of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda and are made up of experts from the projects and the EOSC-A Task Forces. In the session organised by Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi and Stefan Reichmann, the seven active Opportunity Area Expert Groups presented their ongoing work in the form of short contributions (‘elevator pitches’), specifically with regard to the EOSC Federation Build-up Group. Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi moderated the session and the subsequent panel discussion, while Stefan Reichmann took part in the panel as a representative of the expert group on Metadata, Ontologies, and Interoperability. The meeting closed with perspectives from the member states (delivered by Volker Beckmann), as well as a preview and outlook form the perspective of the European Commission (delivered by Dejan Dvorsek).