Governance

EOSC is a concept of an important core scientific infrastructure for European science that will need to lead the future development of infrastructures far into the future. From a legal point of view, the EOSC vision could benefit from the involved stakeholders defining a legal entity to take forward a number of practical matters from handling finances to hiring dedicated staff etc. This could be facilitated for instance by the establishment of an EOSC PPP or a similar vehicle.

On an operational basis, the governance of EOSC should enable the MVE process. Furthermore, the proposed structure needs to be capable of running a fully-fledged EOSC. As mentioned above, the users have to play a central role in the design and implementation of the EOSC. Requirements, standards, operating procedures, etc., should be defined through close collaboration between:

• the end user - scientific community;
• the service providers – developers, intermediaries and operators;
• funding agencies and scientific policymakers.

Rapid realisation of an EOSC governance is needed to move from vision to implementation. The two-stage approach for the implementation of EOSC has received general support, the first stage being the process of developing the EOSC and the second stage its management, operation and development.

In full conformance with what presides and the SWD, a three-layer governance model, based on the EOSC Declaration is proposed, as depicted in the following Figure. The three layers are:

1. Strategic Layer in the form of an EOSC board to combine state-of-the-art expertise on scientific cloud infrastructures with the Funders and Policy Makers. The Board will therefore include EU Member States and Associated Countries representatives. The EOSC board will mainly make strategic decisions on the development and evolution of the EOSC.
2. Executive Layer in the form of an executive board to manage day-to-day operation of the EOSC and procurers designing and planning work-related future developments. This, the only full-time staffed layer, will be supported by Working Groups, and will have the responsibility of ensuring that user needs are met and strategic requirements addressed.
3. Stakeholder layer organised in the form of a stakeholders forum to provide a medium for stakeholders: Users (Consumers), Providers and Intermediaries of EOSC Resources. This would have the main role to discuss, supervise and channel communication between the EOSC and the communities across all three layers.

A Coordination Support Action Structure is providing additional support to the Executive layer.