Strategic Implementation Plan for EOSC Published

As part of its mandate, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Executive Board has released the EOSC Strategic Implementation Plan which launches the first five Working Groups, and outputs that will directly tackle priority areas for establishing the science cloud.

The EOSC Strategic Implementation Plan presents the activities that will contribute to the implementation of the EOSC for the period 2019-2020. It is primarily intended for use by stakeholders engaged into building EOSC. This document draws from the EOSC Implementation Roadmap adopted by the Commission on 14 March 2018 and presents a comprehensive overview of the implementation of the EOSC, with action lines and timelines for the period 2019-2020. The list of activities includes the most recently approved Horizon 2020 projects. This document has been reviewed and amended by the EOSC Executive Board during its 17 April 2019 meeting. It was presented to the EOSC Governing Board during its 22 May 2019 meeting.

The EOSC Executive Board Working Groups were launched on the following EOSC priority areas: architecture, FAIR, landscape, rules of participation and sustainability. These priority areas have been earlier agreed with the EOSC Governance Board.

Executive Board Working Groups

Below are the working groups, their high-level goals, and their respective chairs:

  • Landscape: to map the existing research infrastructures which are candidates to be part of the EOSC federation
    Chair: Jan Hrusak
  • Rules of Participation: to design the Rules of Participation that shall define the rights and obligations governing EOSC transactions between EOSC users, providers and operators
    Chair: Juan Bicarregui
  • Architecture: to define the technical framework required to enable and sustain an evolving EOSC federation of systems
    Chair: Jean-François Abramatic
  • FAIR: to define the corresponding requirements for the development of EOSC services, in order to foster cross-disciplinary interoperability
    Chair: Sarah Jones
  • Sustainability: to provide a set of recommendations concerning the implementation of operational, scalable and sustainable EOSC federation after 2020
    Co-Chairs: Rupert Lück, & Stephan Kuster

The mandate to establish working groups is found in the Commission decision C (2018) 5552, adopted on 27 August 2018 – “Setting up the Expert Group - Executive Board of the European Open Science Cloud (‘EOSC’) and laying down rules for its financing”, in particular, Article 2.2. 

The set-up of these working groups has been carried out in consideration of the EOSC stakeholder-sourced recommendations by the last High-Level Expert Group on the EOSC in its final report; Prompting an EOSC in Practice, and the Commission FAIR Data Expert Group’s report; Turning FAIR into reality. The working groups and its feedback mechanisms will ensure the involvement of EOSC stakeholders and key actors in the governance of the science cloud. 

Practical implementation of the Working Groups, including timelines and specific outputs, will be governed by the EOSC Executive Board Strategic Implementation Plan – a key output of the Executive Board. Additional Working Groups are expected to be announced in the future. 

Stakeholder-sourced governance: Feedback mechanisms

While Executive Board Working Groups will be limited in its membership, the wider stakeholder community will be involved in the governance process through the following ways:

  • By joining and contributing input to the EOSC Working Groups through the Liaison Platform of the EOSC Secretariat (to be launched soon in the EOSC Secretariat website)
  • By taking part in the two EOSC Symposia to be organised in 2019 and 2020 and directly providing input and feedback to the Working Group members in attendance
  • By directly reaching out through email: info@eoscsecretariat.eu 

Check out the EOSC Strategic Implementation Plan now!

25 July 2019