As many of you may know, EOSC Beyond recently (16/10) published a concept paper titled “EOSC Federation: Architecture and Federating Capabilities”. This paper, authored by Diego Scardaci and Mark Dietrich from the EGI Foundation and our very own Paolo Manghi, CTO of OpenAIRE, was created by the EOSC Beyond project as an “exercise” in answering one of the more burning questions related with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) project, that of its internal structure and governance. As such, the recently released concept paper (can be found here) has been getting significant attention from stakeholders and increased visibility with more than 300 (and still counting) downloads on Zenodo!
Based on the foundational work set by earlier initiatives, particularly the EOSC Future project and the recently fully launched EOSC EU Node, the document proposes an innovative structure for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), conceptualized as a Federation of Nodes.
Key Concepts and Goals
The paper, published under the EOSC Beyond Technical Coordination Board, outlines a model where EOSC Nodes - autonomous entities within the EOSC - collaborate to provide services and resources to researchers across Europe. Central to this model is the concept of Federating Capabilities, which enables individual nodes to interoperate within the EOSC network effectively. The model describes in detail elements necessary to bring these capabilities into operation, thus providing a roadmap for the development of the next generation of EOSC Core services.
Community Involvement
To further refine this architecture, the EOSC Beyond project has launched a survey seeking feedback from the research and service provider community, open until November 29, 2024. This feedback will contribute to an updated version of the concept paper, scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2025. Stakeholders, researchers, and other interested parties are encouraged to participate in, essentially, helping shape the technical framework and collaborative potential of the EOSC Federation model.
This initiative additionally serves to underscore EOSC’s commitment to developing a robust, scalable, and interconnected open science infrastructure that benefits the entire European research community.
