EOSC EU Node Information & Training Workshop: Connecting with the French Research Community

On 7 April 2025, the EOSC EU Node held an online information and training workshop tailored specifically for the French research community. The workshop was organised in direct response to a request from France’s highly engaged Open Science stakeholders, and it marked an important milestone in connecting national research efforts with the EOSC EU Node and the broader EOSC Federation.

The aim was twofold: to introduce the EOSC EU Node services in their production stage, and to create a space for dialogue between French users and the technical team behind the platform. The event delivered practical knowledge, clarified policies, and generated important feedback for future development.

Key Highlights

1. Setting the Stage: Peter Szegedi (European Commission) outlined the EOSC policy landscape, underscoring the EU Node's role in delivering on FAIR principles and federated access.
2. Service Walkthroughs: Experts from Athena Research Centre, Spiros Athanasiou, Antonis Mpermperis, and Giorgos Chatzigeorgakidis, presented key components of the EOSC EU Node, from credit-based access and project creation to collaborative environments and interactive notebooks. They guided participants through launching notebooks, uploading datasets, and running computational workflows. The live demos demystified the onboarding process, highlighted the platform’s powerful data analysis capabilities, and demonstrated its readiness for real-world research.

Why It Mattered

The French participants, ranging from researchers and data stewards to service providers, engaged actively throughout, asking in-depth questions on:

• Support for health data (and future readiness for sensitive data),
• Cross-border access and storage,
• Credit system flexibility for different user needs,
• GPU availability and API integration,
• Platform sustainability and long-term continuity.

The EOSC team provided clear answers, confirming 99.5% service availability, EU-only data hosting, and full compliance with EU data protection rules. While working with sensitive health data is not yet supported due to certification restrictions, the platform is built for future expansion and is already in production, ready for immediate use. 

Looking Ahead

The session closed with an open invitation to:

• Join EOSC user and technology forums,
• Contribute to tool recipes and service onboarding,
• Participate in the upcoming French Tripartite Event (11–12 September) where EOSC Federation developments will be further discussed.

The workshop was a strong example of community-driven engagement, demonstrating how national priorities and European infrastructure can effectively align. It clarified how the EOSC EU Node operates and revealed the French community’s clear interest in using, shaping, and contributing to its development. The feedback gathered will guide future updates and feature prioritisation.

Interested to learn more about the event? Access the recording of the session as well as the presentation slides here.