E-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects

E-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects
22 Feb

E-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects

E-Infrastructures, VREs and other H2020 projects are key building blocks of the European Open Science Cloud

The EC Digital Single Market refers to E-Infrastructures as ways of addressing needs of European researchers for digital services in terms of networking, computing and data management. They foster the emergence of Open Science and support the circulation of knowledge in Europe online and therefore constitute an essential building block for the European Research Area.

A Virtual Research Environment (VRE) is a community of practice, an organisation and a bundle of services which supports researchers by providing access to shared documents tools and resources they need in the course of a research project. Some examples of VREs are EVER-EST, a VRE for research on Earth-science, and VRE4EIC, supporting a multi-disciplinary approach to research on climate change and energy sustainability.

The Horizon-2020 programme supports E-Infrastructures, such as PRACE, EGI, EUDAT and GEANT, as well as a number of VREs. Other relevant technology providers, research projects and collaborations carry out R&D in innovative areas related to these areas, irrespective of whether funding comes from H2020 or from other sources.

Representatives of this key stakeholder category have participated directly in the EOSCpilot project. Moreover, according to an internal survey, close to 80% of the project partners currently engage with E-Infrastructures, VREs or other relevant Horizon2020 projects.

The EOSC benefits for e-infrastructures, VREs and other H2020 projects

The added-value of engaging with EOSC for E-Infrastructures, VREs research projects and collaborations, including technology providers and other H2020 projects.

  • The EOSC acts as a catalyst for the coordination and interoperation of existing E-Infrastructures’ services, policies and organisational structures.
  • By supporting interoperation and coordination, the EOSC contributes to enhancing the experience of E-Infrastructure users, who will benefit from seamless and integrated access to the online resources and tools they need for their research.
  • Through the EOSC E-Infrastructures and VREs will be able to extend their user communities, reaching out to a broader set of disciplines and scientific environments.
  • Increased and easier cooperation amongst E-Infrastructures in the set-up and delivery of services to research communities.
  • Increased coordination and harmonization of service portfolios.
  • Offer a one-stop-shop for researchers to access the digital capabilities of the EOSC

How EOSCpilot engaged e-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects

Apart from direct and informal communication channels used, EOSCpilot regularly collaborated with these
stakeholders. A few successful examples include the following:

  • Open Science Fair 2017 - project partners co-organised and participated in the workshop National and European e-Infrastructure cooperation for Open Science. Organised by EGI, GEANT and OpenAIRE, the workshop aimed to provide “an opportunity for cross-pollination on issues ranging from open scholarship to technical service provision, training, community engagement and support” for OpenAIRE NOADs, EGI NGIs, GEANT NRENs and other national e-Infrastructure representatives, in the context of coordinating EOSC related activities. 
  • 2nd ASTERICS – OBELICS Workshop - This event (held in Barcelona in 2017) addressed connections between the ESFRI projects and the implementation of EOSC for data interoperability. 
  • 2017 EOSC Stakeholders Forum - A collaborative soap-box session on Service Providers, RIs, eInfrastructures was organised. Together these stakeholders discussed their vision for EOSC,
    including requirements to consider when federating different structures and a roadmap for adopting EOSC services.

Further engagement activities in the first period of the project took place during the DI4R 2017 (How to make EOSC services FAIR? Experience and challenges and Cross e-infrastructure of training/technical support), the EGI Conference 2017 and INDIGO Summit 2017, TNC17 and the Elixir Europe Conference. In the second period of the project, engagement activities with this stakeholder category intensified as the work of the project evolved. Sessions involving e-Infrastructures, VREs, other H2020 projects (and involving other stakeholder categories) included:

  • Piloting EOSC governance framework. “aiming at introducing the initial version of the governance framework, to discuss its main characteristics, highlighting possible limitations, incompleteness and problems, collecting suggestions and feedback in order to improve it toward its final implementation”. Furthermore, the EOSC as a ‘skills commons’ providing FAIR training for FAIR data stewardship, promoted dialogue between those with a cross-disciplinary skills remit and those with a more domain-specific focus and stimulated discussion to describe the project’s approach to stewardship competences and training approaches, during the EUDAT Conference in Porto.
  • During the SRCE e-Infrastructure conference in Zagreb, a session on EOSCpilot recommendations on Governance and Rules of Participation during the ENVRI week 2018 and a workshop on Recommendations on Governance and Rules of Participation at the European HPC Summit Week 2018.
  • An EOSCpilot workshop took place at e-IRG workshop. The first part was on the HPC ecosystem including presentations about HPC-related issues. The second looked at the status of the EOSC, including the EC Implementation Roadmap, major EOSC projects, related data initiatives and national views.
  • The workshop “EOSC in Practice” took place at ePlan to discuss developments on EOSC with relevant projects and initiatives (EOSC-hub, National Platform Open Science and FAIR).
  • During the 2nd Stakeholders Forum, building on the results around the EOSC Governance Model and Architecture and the Rules of Participation, the project directly engaged with e-Infrastructures, VREs and relevant H2020 Projects, and especially in the sessions “The European Open Science Cloud- From vision to implementation” and “A community-empowered EOSC”.

Further engagement opportunities were exploited at DI4R2018, RDA Berlin, Elixir All Hands, EDSF Release Design and ICT2018.

How e-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects can continue interacting with the EOSC?

E-infrastructures, VREs and other pertinent H2020 projects with an interest in geting involved with the EOSC can do so in the following ways: