EOSC Association

As a member of the EOSC Association, SND can influence the development of the digital collaboration portal European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This platform is designated to bring European research infrastructures together, and to make it easier to find and work with research data.

European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) logo

What is EOSC Association?

In 2015, the European Commission initiated the process of creating the digital collaboration platform European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The purpose of EOSC is to bring together European research infrastructures to enable access to data from all scientific disciplines. Services and tools on the platform will make it easier for researchers to manage, analyse, store, and reuse research data.

The prerequisites for EOSC were created by several large collaborative projects. The first part of building the organisation was completed in 2020, and the EOSC Association was established in July 2020. Their purpose is to drive the work to co-design and deploy a ”European Research Data Commons”. The four founding members (GÉANT, CESAER, CSIC, and GARR) were joined by more organisations, and at the end of 2020, EOSC Association had 142 members and 49 observers. Members include research funders, data service providers (such as SND), and representatives from the research community.

The role of SND in EOSC Association

In the initial phase of the EOSC development, SND mainly took part in two projects: EOSC-Nordic and SSHOC (Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cloud).

SND, with University of Gothenburg as host organisation, was granted membership in EOSC Association in autumn 2020, as a service providing organisation. The membership gives SND a better opportunity to influence the development of EOSC, in the Association as well as in various project. Another eight Swedish organisations were accepted as members, among them five universities in the SND Consortium in the “research performing organisation” category. In Sweden, the members have come together in a council, where EOSC questions are prepared and discussed. This group includes the Swedish EOSC Association Director.

Benefits to the research community

EOSC contributes to the creation of a global research data community, where researchers gain access to FAIR data and services that facilitate research. One of the main intentions is to make it easier to find, share, and reuse research results such as data, models, simulations, and methods, within research fields, as well as between fields.

Within the EOSC collaboration, researchers and other stakeholders, such as public agencies and companies, will be able to quickly transport large quantities of data, and gain access to powerful, high-performance computers for processing data.

The Swedish organisations’ membership in EOSC also makes it possible to advance specific Nordic requirements in research data management, such as how to manage personal data and personal identity numbers.

Further reading