BRUSSELS – In an article published by Science|Business on 10 September 2026, Jean-Claude Burgelman highlights Europe’s challenge of making existing research data and knowledge work together effectively. He points to EOSC as part of the solution, enabling researchers to securely access resources across systems and boundaries.
Burgelman, Professor Emeritus at the Free University of Brussels, Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers Policy Lab and Director of the Frontiers Planet Prize, stresses that unlocking the value of existing data requires investment in the means to connect and integrate them, so they can be used across research communities.
Burgelman notes: “Where data must remain restricted, we should ensure that it can still be securely discovered, verified and used for authorised analysis. Initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud offer an existing framework through which these principles can be put into practice. What is needed now is to accelerate implementation and make them a standard part of how Europe funds and builds research and innovation systems.”
The full article is available here.
EOSC Federation: Enabling a federated research environment
By connecting EOSC Nodes across Europe, the EOSC Federation is creating an environment in which researchers can discover and access data, services and resources across disciplinary, national and organisational boundaries.
The scientific use cases of the EOSC Federation demonstrate the practical value of this approach. Through collaboration across multiple EOSC Nodes, researchers can access a broader range of resources, while facilitating the discovery, sharing and reuse of FAIR data.
Explore the full range of scientific use cases demonstrating the potential of the EOSC Federation here.
