By Gareth O’Neill, Technopolis Group

What is the EOSC Observatory?

The EOSC Observatory is a policy intelligence tool for monitoring policies, practices, and impacts related to EOSC and Open Science at national and institutional levels in Europe. The observatory is being developed by OpenAIRE and Technopolis Group in the EOSC Future project, which is also building the foundations of EOSC with the EOSC Platform. The observatory consists of an interactive online dashboard for the collection, analysis, and public presentation of data on the implementation and uptake of EOSC and Open Science. Data is collected through annual surveys to key stakeholders (such as the EOSC Steering Board of Member States and Associated Countries) and from relevant external data sources (such as Eurostat, EOSC Portal, and OpenAIRE Research Graph). The surveys, collected data, and conducted analyses will be made openly available for exploitation by the public.

Why is the EOSC Observatory needed?

The EOSC Observatory responds to the need for a single joint capacity by the EOSC Tripartite Governance to monitor the progress and financial contributions towards EOSC and Open Science. There are various monitoring activities taking place at European, national, regional, and institutional levels. Alignment of such monitoring activities is crucial to ensure a coordinated monitoring ecosystem that reduces overlap and improves efficiency in surveys addressed to the same stakeholders. The observatory will help to align monitoring initiatives on EOSC and Open Science by key stakeholders (including the EOSC Steering Board and EOSC Association) and avoid duplication of surveys to reduce the burden on data providers. The annual surveys on National Contributions to EOSC that are aimed at the EOSC Steering Board are now being coordinated and conducted through the observatory.

How will the EOSC Observatory help stakeholders?

The EOSC Observatory will help to align policies and practices, identify gaps between policies and practices, and provide actionable recommendations to policy makers on EOSC and Open Science. The pilot survey on National Contributions to EOSC 2021 by the EOSC Steering Board has already provided an impressive benchmarking and led to actionable policy making in the Member States and Associated Countries in Europe. The observatory will also collect use cases on EOSC and Open Science and support mutual learning through the sharing of collected good practices between interested stakeholders. Already over 70 interesting use cases have been collected in the first pilot survey on National Contributions to EOSC 2021 which will soon be shared with the EOSC community.

What are the next steps for the EOSC Observatory?

The EOSC Future project has developed together with the EOSC Steering Board a new Monitoring Framework for National Contributions to EOSC. This monitoring framework will be used to structure future annual surveys and present the data on National Contributions to EOSC. New country pages will also be developed in the observatory for every Member State and Associated Country in the EOSC Steering Board. The country pages will provide an updated narrative and contact points for each country on EOSC and Open Science as well as present validated data, relevant statistics, and use cases from the annual surveys on National Contributions to EOSC and other external data sources.

Where can I find more information on the EOSC Observatory?

The homepage of the EOSC Observatory and this short video introducing the EOSC Observatory provide general information about the observatory. The data set and analysis of the data from the pilot survey on National Contributions to EOSC 2021 have been published. This data is also fully visualised and exploitable in the dashboard of the EOSC Observatory. All relevant documentation related to the observatory (including surveys, data sets, and analyses) is openly available and archived in the EOSC Observatory Zenodo Community.

Explore now the data on National Contributions to EOSC 2021 in the EOSC Observatory!

https://eoscobservatory.eosc-portal.eu