The European Open Science Cloud is quickly moving toward an operational EOSC Federation.
The EOSC Federation and the EOSC EU Node are online, with 13 candidate EOSC Nodes in various stages of development. The federating of the first thematic, national and e-Infrastructure nodes with the EOSC EU Node marks the culmination of eight months of hard work and coordination carried out on an in-kind basis since March 2025 by the dozens of European organisations standing behind the nodes.
As champions of the European research community, these organisations—including Research Infrastructures, e-Infrastructures, and research-performing organisations—have established the technical and organisational foundations for the future of Open Science in Europe.
The build-up of the EOSC Federation is steered by the EOSC Tripartite Governance and implemented by the EOSC Federation Build-up Group.
The EOSC Federation Build-up Group includes representatives from the EOSC Tripartite Group (EOSC-A, European Commission and EOSC Steering Board), the EOSC EU Node, and each of the 13 candidate EOSC Nodes invited to contribute to the first wave deployment of the EOSC Federation.
Nine candidate Nodes sign MoU
The EOSC Federation MoU has now been signed by nine of the 13 candidate EOSC Nodes, including BBMRI-ERIC, CERN, Digital Twin of the Ocean, EUDAT, Finland, Germany, Life Sciences Connect, Slovakia, and SURF. This marks an important milestone, as the Memorandum is now in effect by merit of securing the required minimum of five signatures. The signing of the MoU with EOSC-A formalises the commitment of each candidate EOSC Node to collaborate on service integration and interoperability within the EOSC Federation. Additional signatures are forthcoming.
MoU establishes shared path to operations
On 03 November 2025 at the EOSC Symposium, EOSC took a major step toward its consolidation as Europe’s research and innovation data space. The 14 coordinators of the EOSC Federation’s first wave of EOSC Nodes joined EOSC-A President Klaus Tochtermann and Co-Chair of the EOSC Federation’s Build-up Group Bob Jones on the stage to introduce the Federation’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The MoU marks the culmination of eight months of hard work and coordination carried out on an in-kind basis by the dozens of European organisations standing behind the EOSC Nodes. It establishes a shared operational and interim coordination framework for the piloting phase of the Federation.
The day after EOSC-A’s signing of the Federation’s MoU, mini signing ceremonies were held for the Dutch (SURF), German (NFDI) and Finnish (CSC) national EOSC Nodes. Following this, the CERN EOSC Node joined the ranks with its official signing on 10 November. More Nodes are expected to follow in the coming weeks.
EOSC Nodes now online
Web pages for each of the 14 first-wave EOSC Nodes are now live. Here you can learn more about each Node’s key objectives, scientific domains, use cases and impact, their status and capabilities, and their cross-node interactions. Where applicable, direct links to the Nodes are provided and you can connect directly with the Node coordinators to explore potential collaboration opportunities. The pages also feature interviews with the Node coordinators. With the exception of the EOSC EU Node, all candidate EOSC Nodes are being developed in-kind by their coordinating and contributing organisations, a testament to the collaborative spirit driving the EOSC Federation.
EOSC Federation builds momentum in Helsinki
The EOSC Federation is moving decisively from blueprint to reality. The Federation Build-up Group gathered in Helsinki on 01–02 October for its 7th meeting in order to prepare for the Federation’s debut at the upcoming EOSC Symposium in Brussels. The meeting, hosted by CSC – IT Center for Science, showcased significant progress across the candidate EOSC Nodes, while flagging technical and organisational hurdles.
Much of the Federation’s progress stems from the work of specialised sub-groups assembling critical building blocks for enrolling and federating the Nodes and onboarding external resources. Several of these sub-groups reported on their activities around, for example, interoperability, metadata guidelines, governance and cybersecurity.
At the heart of the Federation’s promise are its cross-node scientific use cases. Updates on those already in progress–including AI-enabled screening for prostate cancer and the development of common workflows for researchers in the life sciences and high-energy physics domains, among others–were presented to the Build-up Group in order to assess their progress and readiness level. A full report and photos can be found here.
Publication of Corporate Design Guidelines, 25 September 2025
The EOSC Tripartite Governance has published the Corporate Design Guidelines of the EOSC Federation Build-up Phase.
These guidelines have been established for the purposes of branding the EOSC Federation Build-up Group and its sequenced or enrolled EOSC Nodes and resource providers for the duration of the EOSC Federation’s build-up phase. The document’s purpose is to familiarize the Build-up Group members with the ways the EOSC Federation presents itself through its design, and how the sequenced and enrolled EOSC Nodes in particular can optimise their use of the EOSC brand throughout the Federation’s build-up phase.
The guidelines have been co-developed within the EOSC Tripartite Governance, which includes representatives of the European Commission, the EOSC Association, and the EU Member States and Countries Associated to Horizon Europe.
Meeting #6, 28 August 2025
The Build-up Group held its 6th meeting online on Thursday, 28 August 2025. The Group reviewed progress on scientific use cases, node deployment, EOSC Federation branding, and preparations for upcoming events. Regarding deployment of the 13 candidate EOSC Nodes, Node coordinators reported steady progress on their August 2025 milestones, with several noted as complete, while others are pending review.
The Build-up Group also endorsed a common approach to EOSC Federation branding, which will be submitted for approval to the EOSC Steering Board this month. Interviews with candidate Node coordinators are in progress to support the production of informative videos and dedicated Node webpages, which will offer greater visibility into the candidate Nodes’ plans and scientific impact. In addition, FAIR Data aspects have been embedded in the candidate Nodes’ use case framework in order to highlight the contributions of data-providing Nodes.
Kraków in-person meeting, 17-18 June 2025
The 4th meeting of the Build-up Group on 17-18 June at NCN in Krakow brought together 60 participants for their first face-to-face meeting, which was leveraged to advance both technical and structural aspects of the Federation’s implementation.
The Build-Up Group is steadily working toward the anticipated launch of the EOSC Federation at the EOSC Symposium in November. Their next in-person meeting will be 01-02 October in Helsinki.
The group will continue to meet monthly, supported by EOSC-A.
Build-up Group inaugurated, 10 April 2025
The Build-up Group, established at the kick-off workshop of the EOSC Federation in March, held its inaugural meeting online on 10 April 2025. The group brings together 13 candidate EOSC Node coordinators, the EOSC EU Node, two Group co-chairs, and observers from the European Commission, the EOSC Steering Board, and the EOSC Association Board. The kick-off meeting focused on laying the groundwork for collaboration by defining ways of working, identifying priority use cases, and discussing access policies. A key outcome of the meeting was the election of the group’s co-chairs: Bob Jones (EOSC-A) and Matteo Zanaroli (ICSC), who will jointly coordinate the implementation of the build-up phase.
March 2025: Kick-off meeting and release of Handbook
Update 1: On 17-18 March 2025, the European Commission hosted the kick-off meeting of the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation. 80+ representatives from the 13 organisations invited to contribute to the first wave deployment of the EOSC Federation as well as representatives from the EOSC EU Node gathered in Brussels to start creating a joint action plan to deliver a prototype of the EOSC Federation by the end of 2025.
The workshop gave the organisations an opportunity to highlight both their scientific and infrastructure use cases and the added value their data and services would bring for end users of the EOSC Federation.
The next step for the candidate nodes is to refine their project charters and start the implementation. The first check-point to monitor the progress of the work is foreseen in June 2025.
Update 2: 28 March 2025 marks the public release of the first edition of the EOSC Federation Handbook. The Handbook provides an overview of the organisational and operational structure, and technical characteristics, of the EOSC Federation. It aims to serve as a practical guide for organisations that are interested in making their resources available within and across the EOSC Federation of nodes.
