On 14-17 November, EOSC Symposium 2022 will be held in Prague, Czechia. Organised by EOSC Future, in collaboration with the European Commission, the EOSC Association and the EOSC Steering Board , the event will assemble a patchwork of players from all corners of the EOSC community to take stock of the latest developments, highlight concrete actions and next steps to further EOSC implementation and uptake.
‘The EOSC Symposium is the EOSC-related community event of the year’, explains Karel Luyben, president of the EOSC Association. ‘All parties can come together to align on the way forward.’
There is no doubt that having an annual event helps to maintain alignment on EOSC implementation and plan for the future, but what exactly is on the line this year?
A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON THE PAST, AN OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE EOSC TO THE NEXT PHASE
As part of the policy agenda for the new European Research Area, ‘Member States have committed to “enable the open sharing of knowledge and the re-use of research outputs, including through the development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)”’, states Anna Panagopoulou, Director for ERA & Innovation, DG Research and Innovation (RTD). ‘This ERA action should allow a step change across scientific communities and research infrastructures in Europe towards open sharing, seamless access and reliable re-use of data and all other digital objects produced along the research life cycle.’
It is notable that EOSC Symposium 2022 will be the first in-person symposium – almost to the week – in 3 years. The event is, therefore, a chance to touch base on the latest technical, policy and engagement developments, identify successes and evaluate next steps for EOSC.
‘EOSC is a straightforward vision, but its implementation can be, at times, highly complex’, says Volker Beckmann, co-chair of the EOSC Steering Board. ‘Information is one aspect of the event, but alignment through in-person discussions is where we can advance most significantly.’
And now is the time to move from prototyping to operations, from policy to practice. ‘As the “voice of the EOSC community”’, says Luyben, ‘the Association looks forward to presenting achievements in the context of the Horizon Europe Partnership as well as addressing needs at European and national level’.
Furthermore, holding the symposium in Prague is particularly pertinent in the context of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which has identified openness, research data sharing, and particularly Large Research Infrastructures, as presidency R&D priorities. Attesting to this, Petra Nichtburgerova, Department of Research and Development, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Czechia), says, ‘We look forward to presenting current national plans for EOSC implementation.’ She adds, ‘At the same time, we expect Czech researchers to participate and become more acquainted with EOSC and the international landscape.’
A SESSION FOR EVERYONE
The 4-day event programme will unfold around plenary sessions, which will be live streamed, parallel sessions and talks in breakout rooms as well as an exhibition hall for members of the EOSC community to showcase their work and network. Starting with the opening sessions on Tuesday, 15 November, the representatives of the 3 EU Council presidencies (2022-2023) and representatives of the EOSC tripartite collaboration will describe what has been achieved on the EOSC strategic agenda and plans for 2023. This kick-off will also include inspirational keynotes from the FAIR and Open Science fields like, among others, Mercè e Crosas, Secretary of Open Government for the Government of Catalunya.
The EOSC community will then take the floor. From a selection of over 120 session proposals, active EOSC stakeholders have made it onto the agenda to tackle the different dimensions of EOSC (European, national and institutional). The event will explore these macro topics further, drawing on contributions from all the EOSC-related H2020 and Horizon Europe projects as well as from national, regional and institutional initiatives.
Several sessions will be dedicated to the EOSC Future project: ‘More than half-way through the project, the results are much more visible’, explains Ron Dekker, project leader for EOSC Future. To name a few milestones: the release of the EOSC Platform with new functionalities earlier this month, the integration of data services with core platform functions and workflows to onboard new providers to EOSC. Specific sessions will present examples of Open Science practices within the EOSC ecosystem, including new cross-disciplinary scientific analysis (EOSC Future Science Projects).
According to Dekker, ‘we will strive for a two-way line of communication, picking up ideas from symposium participants.’
STAYING THE COURSE
All in all, the EOSC Symposium will be dynamic, and the experience shared within the EOSC community will set the stage for joint efforts at European, national and institutional levels to fortify European data spaces for science, research and innovation.
When asked how EOSC, the vision and implementation, will contribute to furthering the EU Data Strategy, Gustav Kalbe, Acting Director for Digital Excellence and Science Infrastructure, DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CNECT), summarises: ‘According to the strategy, the new sectoral data spaces will be developed taking into consideration the experience already gained by the research community with EOSC. This is particularly true regarding (i) advancing common FAIR solutions across different domains of activity, (ii) implementing an ecosystem approach and its multiple technical, organisational, legal and semantic approaches and (iii) developing a multi-stakeholders governance. Vice versa, there is a lot to be gained by EOSC from the other data spaces especially regarding data practices by commercial companies and non-research, public organisations. In the end, EOSC is very uniquely positioned in the European data strategy as a fully transverse European Data Space.’
Come to Prague and help us take EOSC into the next phase!
CONTACT
EOSC Symposium Support Team: symposium22@eoscfuture.eu
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is an EU flagship initiative aimed at enabling Open Science practices in Europe, as codified in the 2022-2024 European Research Area Policy Agenda. It is also recognised as the science, research and innovation data space which will be fully articulated with the other sectoral data spaces defined in the European strategy for data.
EOSC will provide a federated web of FAIR data and associated services to researchers across and outside Europe. EOSC builds on existing infrastructure and services supported by the EC, Member States and research communities. It brings these together in a federated ‘system of systems’ approach, adding value by aggregating content and enabling services to be used together.
- Portal News