The vision for EOSC is to put in place a system in Europe to find and access data and services for research and innovation. This is to help researchers store, share, process, analyse and reuse FAIR research outputs within and across disciplines and borders.

The deployment of a network between data repositories and services will be instrumental for Open Science to progress in Europe. For this, the EOSC Federation of nodes is being created.


EOSC FEDERATION

With the anticipated public launch of the EOSC EU Node at the EOSC Symposium in October 2024, preparations for the EOSC Federation have kicked into high gear. To fully unlock the benefits of EOSC, one single node is not enough: additional “EOSC Nodes” need to be established and enrolled into the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC Federation will consist of multiple EOSC Nodes that are interconnected and can collaborate to share and manage scientific data, knowledge, and resources within and across thematic and geographical research communities. The EOSC Nodes will be entry points for users to the EOSC Federation, with each node offering its own and possibly third-party services, including data reposing and accessing services.

To enable the establishment of such a distributed system many questions are in the process of being answered:

  • What are the minimum requirements for an entity to be an EOSC Node?
  • What are the rules for enrolment of Nodes into the EOSC Federation?
  • How will the EOSC Federation be governed?
  • What are the financial mechanisms that will support the resource transactions within the EOSC Federation?

And this is to only mention a few.

The “Tripartite Group”

The EOSC Tripartite Governance has recognised that answering those questions will be of paramount importance for all parties to come to an agreement on realistic scenarios for EOSC post-2027. As the decision-making body for EOSC, the EOSC Tripartite Governance should oversee the structure, governance and operations of the EOSC Federation. 

The EOSC Tripartite Governance has emphasised that a coordinated effort by the three parties is necessary to build the EOSC Federation, and this is why a new “Tripartite Group” to advance the creation of EOSC has been established.

  • The European Commission’s Directorate-General Research and Innovation (DG RTD)
  • Directorate-General Communications Network, Content and Technology (DG CNECT)
  • The EOSC-Steering Board
  • The EOSC-A Board of Directors
  • Technical experts mobilised by request and community consultations
EOSC NODES

EOSC EU Node

The architecture of EOSC is based on the concept of a federation of nodes implementing a system-of-system type architecture. The first node to be developed is the EOSC EU Node, promoted and financed by the European Commission. The EOSC EU Node has been procured by the European Commission and will be hosted and implemented by third-party sub-contractors.

Following the technical and public launch of the EOSC EU Node in October 2024, the next step is to identify the first set of EOSC Nodes to implement the Federation of Nodes.

EOSC EU Node services
EOSC EU Node promotional video 

Minimum requirements of an EOSC Node

The concept of an EOSC Node is relatively recent. It offers the advantage of being a more flexible concept than a Research Infrastructure or e-Infrastructure as it allows multiple RIs and other providers of data and services to be included and grouped together as a Node. It needs to be clearly defined to enable all stakeholders to be included and organise themselves to become (part of) an EOSC Node if they so wish.

The document specifying the minimum requirements for an EOSC Node was drafted by the EOSC Association, and is considered a living document that will evolve over time based on the input received from the community.

Enrollment of EOSC Nodes

The Tripartite Group is also working to identify and enroll candidate EOSC Nodes into the EOSC Federation. The Tripartite Governance agrees that this effort needs to be steered to ensure the coherent, sustainable and steady growth of the EOSC Federation.

A questionnaire was run by the Tripartite Governance over summer 2024 to gauge the scale and scope of interest in and readiness for the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation. Replying to the questionnaire was a first step in establishing the interest of parties to contribute to a testbed of EOSC Nodes. These Nodes will be invited to complement the EOSC EU Node to initiate the formation of the EOSC Federation in its first iteration, and will serve to test the EOSC Federation Handbook in practice.

Updates from an initial review of the questionnaire are available here, including the distribution of submission types, the anticipated added value of becoming an EOSC Node and other resources for potential EOSC Nodes.

ROLE OF THE TRIPARTITE GROUP

The main scope of the Tripartite Group is to prepare commonly agreed positions and support the strategic steering of the EOSC Tripartite Governance in what concerns the establishment and operation of EOSC, including the EOSC Federation. 

The Tripartite Group supports the coordination and steering of the processes to establish the requirements for the EOSC Federation and the minimum set of rules and policies applicable throughout the Federation. All other relevant processes for the creation of EOSC as an operational infrastructure are to be discussed and prepared for decision making by the Tripartite Group as well.

To fulfill its role, the Tripartite Group meets every two to three weeks and may also seek expert advice and set up inclusive community consultations as needed for the execution of its tasks. The Tripartite Group will ensure that all the views of the different stakeholders are considered, and that the processes to build EOSC are inclusive, open, and transparent.


For more information on the formation of the Tripartite Group, please read, “Towards a fully-fledged EOSC Federation”, 07 May 2024.

The Tripartite Group’s first orders of business include: