FAIR Data Digest #14
The European Open Science Cloud, as FAIR as it can be and a Greek tragedy
Hi everyone,
I hope you had a great summer. The academic year is about to start and I hope you are hungry for some knowledge :-) In today’s edition I want to introduce you to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
❓ FAIR Buzzword Bingo: EOSC
There are already countless intertwined research and infrastructure initiatives in the cultural heritage field, even more beyond it. In this category I will focus on one of the many FAIR data-related initiatives, this week: the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
You probably have heard the following phrase before:
“the cloud is just someone else’s computer”
While this is true, this someone usually is not a private person, but a professional service provider that also backups your data and keeps the software and infrastructure up to date and running. Important features that should not be underestimated in terms of added value, required skills and costs!
It’s hard to imagine a world without cloud services. In a private context you have probably synced your contacts and/or photos with a cloud service from Android/Google (Q94) or iOS/Apple (Q48493). Common are also Dropbox (Q142539) or open source solutions such as Nextcloud (Q25874683). The latter can also be used in a business context to collaboratively edit documents, share data and E-mail or Instant message with colleagues. Although in a business context most businesses probably use Microsoft products such as Microsoft 365 (Q775811) or Google Drive-related products (Q9340).
But in a research and professional context you probably have many domain-specific data you need to find and use. There is also the whole point of data sovereignty, do we want to outsource our research data to many different companies in the private sector? Or do we want a public cloud with clear governance? This is where the European Open Science Cloud comes in!
In summary, the EOSC is the glue that brings several cloud initiatives and research infrastructures together, the different computers of other people, to stay in the metaphor. The key idea is to to provide a single cloud that in fact accesses decentralized data in a federated way: data stored at different research institutions in Europe. Spoiler: FAIR data comes in very handy when one wants to achieve something like that.
Without noticing you might have already used EOSC-related services. One example is the research data repository Zenodo (Q22661177) from the OpenAIRE (Q25106053) initiative: a platform to which you can upload research data for the purpose of sharing with persistent Document Object Identifier (DOI) links. But there is more. More than 3 million research and innovation tools can be found in the EOSC Marketplace.
EOSC thus stands not alone, In fact it also integrates nicely with other large initiatives that I have presented in previous editions. The ERIC-forum (Q120510649) commits to Open Science via EOSC (source). Also ESFRIs (Q2623454) collaborate closely with EOSC (source). One particular example is the ERIC CLARIN (Q2986825) which I presented in a previous edition of the newsletter. Below is a short interview explaining how one of the more recent FAIR projects around the EOSC relates to CLARIN.
If you are more in industry you might have heard about GAIA-X (Q74431584), an initiative about a federated system that meets the highest standards of digital sovereignty while promoting innovation. It is a similar initiative more for the business context. Due to the synergies there is also an alignment between GAIA-X and EOSC (source).
History of EOSC: facts and a Greek tragedy
The European Commission identified the need for the creation of an European Open Science Cloud already in the 2016 report “Open Innovation, open science, open to the world” (DOI: 10.2777/061652). For a little more behind-the-scenes I recommend the article “Politics and Open Science: How the European Open Science Cloud Became Reality (the Untold Story)” (DOI: 10.1162/dint_a_00069) which explains the making of EOSC as a Greek tragedy.
A lot has been accomplished since 2016! Besides establishing the governance framework, the initial project EOSCpilot (Q122222344) focused on several pilot projects to remove fragmentations and demonstrate interoperability. Dozens of projects followed, from EOSCsecretariat (Q122222399) for increased coordination to DICE (Q122222426) for data management and storage and FAIRsFAIR (Q100151455) for the uptake and implementation of the FAIR principles.
EOSC and FAIR data
The most important question for this newsletter: how about FAIR data?
I think this part is already clear. There is so much FAIR in EOSC-related acronyms that it becomes obvious. For example, as mentioned above, one of the recently finished projects was the FAIRsFAIR project. The latest FAIR offspring is FAIRCORE4EOSC (Q122222583). Thus FAIR really is meant to be a core part!
What do you think about EOSC, are you involved and how are your experiences? Please let me know if I’ve missed something important!
That’s it for this week of the FAIR Data Digest. I hope you found the content interesting. Don’t forget to share or subscribe. See you next week!
Sven