EOSC EU Node Presence at the Coordination Meeting of EOSC-Related Projects Funded Under Horizon Europe

The 2024 edition of the “Coordination meeting of EOSC-related projects funded under Horizon Europe” took place from 20 to 21 June in Brussels.  

Key representatives from various EOSC related projects funded under the INFRAEOSC destination of the Horizon Europe Research Infrastructures Work Prgramme gathered to deepen collaboration and discuss possible future synergies. The meeting was opened and closed by Michael Arentoft and Dejan Dvorsek, representatives of the European Commission at DG RTD.

As part of the agenda, Peter Szegedi, Programme Officer at DG CNECT, Spiros Athanasiou, Senior Project Manager at Athena Research Center and Norbert Meyer, Director of Data Processing Technologies Division at PSNC gave a presentation about the current status of the EOSC EU Node build-up phase.

The following key points were presented:

• EOSC EU Node is provisioned by the EC and will be considered as the first reference node of the EOSC Federation. It will serve as a blueprint architecture for other EOSC Nodes to be established and will offer federating capabilities and managed services to contributors and other stakeholders based on open source software.
• EOSC EU Node will support multi-disciplinary and multi-national research workflows promoting the use of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data and interoperable services in Europe.  
• The EOSC Federation is envisioned to be a network of interconnected autonomous EOSC Nodes that collectively provide federated services, such as computing resources, data storage, and data management tools, all operating under a common framework of standards, policies, and best practices. This will ensure interoperability and enable researchers to combine resources from different nodes for their research projects.
• The initial web presence of EOSC EU Node, which was launched in April 2024, seamlessly transitions and upholds the basic function of research object discovery which was previously facilitated by the EOSC Portal. By the end of 2024, the full production environment of the EOSC EU Node will be made available, and all the Data Management and Infrastructure Services​, as well as core capabilities, will be integrated and ready to use.
• As an EC service, the EOSC EU Node is required to adhere to the operational policies of the European Commission, ensuring high quality and security standards.  
• Key differentiators of the EOSC EU Node compared to previously known and utilised resources in the research community, include a rigorous quality assurance process for all onboarded services, ensuring consistently high standards. Additionally, the EOSC EU Node guarantees that its services will be accessible to all users, fully integrated into the newly created User Space dashboard.
• Exploration of potential use cases will be instrumental in shaping the future of the emerging EOSC Federation, making input from the community essential.
• Sharing and integrating resources into the EOSC EU Node enhances their visibility within European and global research communities, promotes cross-disciplinary collaborations, and enables opportunities that were previously inaccessible. Moreover, it strengthens the case for stable support and justifies future investments. Ultimately, contributing to EOSC is a collective effort that altruistically benefits the broader research community.

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